Lately, foster parents have been getting really bad press, what with cases like Jerry Sandusky molesting the foster kid he adopted. The foster system isn’t always pretty. There certainly are bad people in the system and some are just trying to get money, housing foster kids for the cash, but I feel the need to point out that foster parents often do a very difficult job. These people take into their homes the traumatized and challenging children who are often victims of parental drug abuse, suffering trauma, neglect and sexual abuse. They’ve typically seen some very scary things.
As a therapist, I work with foster kids, but after sessions, I get to go home to my sane home. This isn’t true of foster parents. They’re truly on the front lines. They deal with troubling, annoying, frustrating behaviors from kids who are struggling. Some parents foster throughout their adult lives, beginning when their own kids are young. They bring into their homes the battered and disadvantaged among us.
Yes, some foster parents are bad. I’ve heard about some really sad situations. But the greater majority of people who foster, do it because they want to help to kids who’ve never known what it is to be valued. Too many children do without basic parenting, often not having food, suffering from fear, abuses of various kinds and being exposed to every level of crime.
By it’s very nature, childhood is a vulnerable, often powerless time. Even kids from loving, invested homes must deal with the fact that they’re smaller and weaker and they need us grown ups. Talk about a power differential! No wonder they can be a pain in the neck. They’re trying to find a voice and sometimes this can be in really frustrating ways. Just ask a parent who’s kids won’t eat, sleep or go poop where they’re supposed to. Maddening.
Anytime a person is weak, they try to find some way to feel power. It’s natural.
Add this to the mix of bad behaviors that foster kids have seen and you have a difficult parenting situation. Foster parents take kids into their home and love them. This means following through to give consequences for good or bad choices. This means knowing that who peed on the floor isn’t as important as helping them clean it up. It means not worrying about trying to get the kid to tell the truth when you saw them make the mess with your own eyes. This kind of loving really requires looking past the present behavior and trying be part of the solution, instead of trying to decide who’s right. It also means consistency and reliability, things that most foster kids haven’t had.
I think most foster parents deserve the highest respect. They aren’t perfect, but they’re doing vital, life-changing work.