Fostering.....

I never really wanted kids. No I take that back. I guess honestly I just didn’t ever really know if I wanted kids.  I never felt that overwhelming urge when I was in my twenties like so many of my friends did. I didn’t dislike kids, I just was kind of indifferent. One thing that was very clear to me was that if I were to have kids I was going to adopt them. I didn’t remember exactly when adoption became important, but once I learned about it I never felt that having kids another way wouldnt be right for me. I can honestly say that if I ever did get pregnant I would feel so guilty about my child, because I allowed it to be born and not adopted it. That’s how strongly I feel about it. Even with the adoption knowledge I still couldn’t ever really say 100 percent that I even wanted kids. I always found a way to make excuses for them. Like I didn’t want kids without a good paying job, so that I could provide for them and give em the life like I had growing up. Or I didn’t want to have to be a single parent so I would have kids when I got in the relationship or got married. Like I said I was able to excuse them pretty easily.

My best friend was the exact opposite. She knew she wanted kids like right away, and as soon as she and her now husband then fiance got serious… they started the process to make one.  My mom was the same way, she knew she wanted kids and had them on her list of important life things that she needed to have in order to feel complete. My other friend is the opposite; she knows without a doubt that kids are not going to be a part of her future. So I have always been kinda confused on why I couldn’t feel good about picking a side to go with. Do I want them or not?  Once I got into my thirties I started to feel a lot more like kids could be something I could do, and started to get my duck in a row to see about what it takes to adopt one. I knew that I wanted to adopt from foster care, and not some international or privet agency. I also knew that I wanted to adopt a 2-6 year old instead of an infant.  I started to realize that yes it would suck to be a single mother, but now days not impossible. Yes it’s going to suck to have very little money, but luckily I am not ashamed to take part in low cost and free events or actives in my area, and what I do have is the ability to give a lot of time and love instead.. No I am not going to be able to provide for my kids tons of classes or lessons or clothes and junk. But what I can be a super kick ass single parent who loves em, values them, and raises them to be kind and generous and sensitive little people that are nice and have strong core values.  Being able to be a hands on parent will go far now a day and I think that will be enough for me.  

I called my local DCFS office and asked to sit down and talk with someone about adoption. This is where I met Susan a case worker. She told me that the state of Washington is very pro adoption. They have very few laws and requirements in place; such as salary, home, or marital status like many other states do. They understand that a parent is someone who wants to be involved in a kid and that is enough for them. She said that I could easily start the process to get in the system by taking an orientation and some mandatory parenting classes that are required.  Then she told me the one thing that I was really shocked by. She said that if I was really serious about adopting in the 2-6 age group, it would be very hard if I did not first become a foster parent. Because this is the age group that the start of Washington does the absolute most work to try to keep in their  biological homes. She said that the easiest thing to adopt in the state of Washington were infants and teenagers.  The two groups I feel least amount of desire to adopt from.

I had never even really given a thought about foster parenting.  I mean isn’t that when kids get bounced around from home to home and become damaged and bitter and mean? Isn’t it where all the bad kids end up that can’t be adopted or are sick or disabled? Or the ones that are just pulled out from their houses that are in too much shock to interact? I mean think that it would be hard to become attached to something and then have it taken away a few days later and how is that even parenting? What I know now is that I had no idea what foster parenting  really was back then.  I decided to contact the foster parenting lady that Susan gave me and talk to her about fostering... Ironically her name was also Susan.  I learned that there are actually 6 different types of foster parenting, and what she thinks would be the best in my situation is to do a foster to adopt case. This is where I would become a foster parent first and have the child on a foster parent basis while the state is trying to make her legally free. Then since I would be in the child’s life as her foster mom, I would be the first in line to adopt her after that happens. Susan says that this process usually takes 2-3 years, and unfortunately not all the kids get to become legally free to adopt, so I might have to go through the process with 2-3 kids before I am adopting one. I was a little scared to hear that because I couldn’t imagine at that time having something in your life for such a long time and working so hard with it then having it get taken away. After she explained the reasons why this program would work best for me I did end up seeing the benefits and asked what I needed to do next. 

The next step was an orientation.  It was a ton of info and pretty over whelming, but I did see that all those original things I thought I knew about the foster care system were very incorrect. Those are the common misconceptions out there but not the reality of most cases. I was told to ignore those stories; because although it is not a perfect system, and yes there are still some flaws, it is a positive system and you rarely hear about the good cases or situations that do come out of it. I left orientation thinking that maybe this is what I should do, I should try for a foster to adopt child. The next step was to enroll into parenting classes. I had to take 44 hours of them and they were all held at times and places that didn’t work out with my work schedule. I finally found classes out in Mount Vernon on mostly Mondays with only one Thursday class requiring a day off of work. I signed up and waited the next few weeks till they started. 

I won’t lie, THESE CLASSES WERE INTENSE!! I mean imagine 8-9 hours of listening to some of the worst case situations ever imaginable and how to deal with them. I mean the first few hours were like the instructor telling us all the horrible stuff that can happen. But then somewhere along the line it changed to how there is a system in place to prevent all these horrible things, and what we are able to do in case they do occur. I ended up loving every minute of them and eagerly looked forward to the next weeks class. It was a blend of real cases, real foster parents, the laws, the process, the problems, movies, speakers, some really hard topics, some happier ones, and what I started to feel in all of this was that I totally found my place.

See what I didn’t know then but know now is, that I really wanted to be a foster Parent. That’s it.  I got it now why I was so unsure about the whole kid or no kid thing. Because I really want to be a temporary parent.  If I end up having that one kid that I get to adopt then fine, but how much more awesome would it be if I have 200+ foster kids get to walk away from my life knowing that I was a positive, caring, kind,  awesome person who made a huge impact on their life. Isn’t that even better than being that to one person is  being that to 200+?  Did you know that DCFH took 70,000 calls about child abuse and neglect in the state of Washington in 2009, over half of those got investigated by a social worker, over 10,000 kids got removed from their parent’s home as of the result of that investigation, and 7000 are still in the foster care system today?  This is just in Washington state and in one year!  So when the world focuses on that one bad family or one person writes about how the system sucks and fucked them up. You have to remember that you never hear about the 9,999 other kids who its being a positive experience for. I want to be one of those 9,999 people. I want to make a difference in a child’s life even if for a day, or an hour... I want to be a strong, positive, and trusting place where that child can feel love and trust and hope. I want them to leave knowing that they became better person from knowing me, and know that I thought them the absolute best I could in the time we had together.  

 Foster children need lots of patience and time, TLC and acceptance. You have to be relaxed and calm, have a good sense of humor, able to cope with chaos, be around strong emotions without taking it personally. A good sense of self worth that is not bent by outside forces, because if you are insecure, it is hard to foster others.  You need to have a thick skin, and be willing to advocate, even if it pisses off the professionals. You need to be willing to go toe to toe with people who do not know that child as well as you do, or even people who may not have their best interests at heart, and really make yourself a pain in their butts. These kids need strong advocates and someone looking out for their interests 100% of the time. Kindness is a huge asset, you need to be able to see the good in every kid, even when they are hurting and lashing out at you and know that they are hurting and are reacting normally to very abnormal situations. It sounds tough huh? It will be. I know that it’s going to be a ton of work... I know that it’s going to be exhausting... I know that I’m going to hate it sometimes... I know that I will have to defends this decision to a lot of people... I know that I will be a part of a group of people who do not get the kinda recognition they deserve. I know it’s going to be really really hard. But I also know that this is my calling if I’ve ever had one…I don’t know how else to explain it except say that it feels so much like what I am supposed to be doing with myself.