My Newest Endeavor

Ten years ago, the summer of 2002, I took a class entitled Child Psychopathology.  The professor, was a stereotypical looking psychoanalyst, you know, the bearded Freudian type that you see in movies.  Only this wasn’t a movie, he told real life gut wrenching stories about real life children. 

The first day of class he started out by stating that he grew up in a “foster home.”  He then proceeded to let it come out gradually that he was not a foster child himself, but that his biological parents took in numerous children in their home throughout his childhood and adolescence.   These experiences shaped him and motivated him to become a psychologist and his stories in turn impacted and inspired me in such significant ways that I write about it today, some 10 years later.

I had some additional exposure to foster care through student teaching, also in college.  A little girl who was a foster child in a large family was in the kindergarten class in which I worked.  She had one final visit with her mother before her mother had to relinquish all parental rights during the time I worked in that classroom.  In the Head Start classroom I taught in next, I wanted so bad to just take home one of the little girls who always showed up so dirty and hungry. 

Another one of the little girls had horrendous behaviors after having been separated from her mother early on in her childhood.  Though she lived with her mother then at age 4, the earlier separation had been damaging to their attachment and her ability to relate to anybody.  Yet she was one of my favorites.  There was something about providing structure, love, support, discipline, and care to children that so desperately needed it that made me feel so fulfilled.

After college, I had my own classroom, and became acquainted with more four year olds having experienced more trauma in their short lives than I have at age 30.   Another foster child, a little girl and her little baby brother who had an amazing foster mother.  Another one, transitioning into our classroom after having been at a therapeutic preschool due to her sexual abuse and resulting behaviors.  Two different boys living with their grandmothers after witnessing deaths of their respective parents. 

I wanted to do more for these children than I could as their classroom teacher.  I decided to move to Chicago and get my masters degree.  I again choose internships that would provide me the opportunity to work with similar types of children and families.  One of my first clients was a family with 4 foster children under the age of 5.  The foster mother wanted us to work with the kids because of their behaviors.  But the main problem was in the parenting, or lack thereof, of the mother.

I will be the first to admit that there are many problems with our foster care system.  There are people that are in it for the money, though there really isn’t much money involved.  There are people that are ill prepared even if they do have the best intentions.  Often that is what leads to multiple placements and compounded traumas of many children in the system.  Working with those children was my second internship at a residential treatment center for children and adolescents.  Most of the children there had had upwards of 8 different foster home placements prior to being referred to the treatment facility.  If you ask me, that’s a whole lot of rejection and reason to have major emotional and behavioral problems.

So why is it that the people on the front lines have the least amount of training and education?  I realize that book smarts is not everything and that they do have a lot of required training in order to get licensed as a foster parent.  But I can’t help wondering if I might be able to do a little better.  I can’t help wondering if the little guy I wrote my thesis on and worked with at the treatment facility might have turned up with less problems if he had been placed with someone like me to begin with.  I can’t help but wonder if all my experiences, my education, my care and concern might be really great for some family out there needing to get back on their feet.

So all my wondering is finally coming to actually seeing.  Last February I moved to my own apartment with an extra bedroom with the intention of being a foster parent.  Since June I have been going through the licensing process and today was my final visit with the social worker in charge of licensing.  She told me that my license to be a foster parent/home should be coming in the mail in the next few weeks!

Though there are families that go the foster-to-adopt route, it is not my intention.  I do not mean to take some child away from their biological family.  My intention is only to provide a stable home environment for a child whose parents just need to get things together before getting their children back.  I’ve been told that this takes one to two years.  How will you be able to do this, become attached to a child and then let them go back to a less than ideal living situation, I’ve been asked.  You know, I’m not quite sure.  I do know that my belief is that, if at all possible, a child belongs with his or her biological family.  It that child can grace me with his presence for a year or two, my hope is that we will both come out stronger because of it.

What do you think?  Have I lost my mind?  For those of you that are foster parents, how long had you thought about it and wanted it before going for it?  Does anybody else only want to foster and not adopt?  What is your motivation/story behind wanting to do either?