foster parents

- Oh Happy Daze

Foster Care Truths: There is no 'winning'

Some of you may have read this post before; I’m re-posting it after making a few edits. It’s too important not to share again, especially since I know it may help change the perspective of so many people regarding foster care and because I have even more of an excuse to talk about ‘all things foster care’ during foster care awareness month.
In 2016, after our son Will had been in our home through foster care approximately 18 months, his biological parents signed an entrustment {basically signing over their rights to him, placing him into the state’s care and kicking off the adoption process for him}. It was honestly the most brave, selfless act.
That day, and then following the entrustment’s approval in court later on, we got so many congratulations. They ran the gamut from “He is so lucky to have you” to “Thank God he gets to stay with you”. And all of those are true, I think. We are able to provide a safer environment for him and God has provided us with more resources for helping him grow and succeed with his disabilities. And I was incredibly happy to be one step closer to having Will be a permanent part of our family.
I can’t express to you the relief I felt after those papers were signed. The adoption wouldn’t be finalized for almost 10 more months, so I didn’t have true closure, but any progress after months and years of being in limbo begins to lift that invisible burden of worry and anxiety that comes with constantly living in the ‘unknown’ with one of your children. Though I felt relief and we received so much support and love and encouragement… I could not enjoy the happy congratulatory phrases. I had such conflicting feelings battling inside.
Outwardly, I was happy and celebrating in the fact that Will was moving towards permanency with our family. Inwardly, I was mourning. I was mourning for him because he would be losing the potential for connection with the people who gave him life. I was mourning for his parents because they were losing their son. I think when you aren’t an active part of this process, it is easy to view the foster care situation in terms of “us” (the foster parents) and “them” (the birth parents). But I can’t see it that way. And we shouldn’t.  It is not a case of us winning and them losing. There is no winning.
I’d been battling these conflicting feelings for a while and unsure of exactly how to express them when I came across this post from Humans of Foster Care. It captured my feelings exactly:

“Terminating parental rights is a very serious thing, and even when it is best interest of the child, or requested by the child, it doesn’t make it any easier.
NO ONE WON TODAY. There were NO “winners” in that courtroom today. No one cheered at the outcome. No one was excited. There was no joy. It was a somber day for all involved. Everyone knew what today meant and it weighed heavy on all of us in the room.
Parents walked out without a child.
A child, no matter the age, walked out without a parent.
There were no winners today.
Today was tragic. Today was hard. I am sad in my heart tonight for all parties because I am human.”
– from Humans Of Foster Care facebook page

There is joy in the process of foster care and adoption. There is joy in our own personal story of foster care and adoption. There is happiness and relief and hope for Will’s future. But God calls us to also share in the sorrowful burden his birth parents are carrying, and only God can provide true healing and peace for all parties.
Today, I hope you’ll take a minute to re-frame your perspective on parents who lose their rights or choose to give up their children to another family.
Please pray for first families. Pray for siblings who may never know one another. Pray for birth parents who may be feeling shame, embarrassment, anger, or loss. They do not win.
Then take it a step further and include all social workers, attorney’s, and judges involved in these types of situations as they make the most difficult decisions that impact so many lives and futures. They do not win.
Next, pray for foster families . Those who take someone else’s child into their home and love on them through painful times. They do not win.

I want to touch on one more thing, since it relates to foster families and how we interact with biological families.
It is sometimes very easy to fall into that mindset of ‘us’ vs ‘them’, particularly if the agency and courts and attorneys subscribe to that mindset as well.
One of my biggest regrets in all our foster care adventures over the years happened with Will’s biological parents. I had the opportunity to come along side Will’s birth mother and father and show my support for them during an important meeting and I didn’t. Now, don’t get me wrong, we did support them and provide them with as much encouragement and love every opportunity we got. Except for this one time. I was intimidated because we were in a big meeting. There were social workers and attorneys and all sorts of people present. It was my first time experiencing this type of meeting; I didn’t know what to expect and I was unsure of the social guidelines. So I chose to play it safe and fall in line with the general atmosphere of the room, sitting across the table from Will’s mother and father even though my heart was screaming at me to snatch my chair up, drag it over to their side of the table, and plop my heinie in it so I could be WITH them during this big meeting. Instead, I sat across from them; which from my perspective seemed more like ‘against them’ rather than simply across from them. I can’t even imagine what it looked like from their perspective. All I know is that because I made the choice to cast aside all boldness and ignore my heart, I sat in awkward fear, which meant I couldn’t comfort Will’s birth mother when she began crying. I couldn’t let them know that someone was WITH them and FOR them. I may not support their lifestyle or their choices, but I DO absolutely support them as humans, whom God created and loves. I support them as Will’s parents who gave him life and love him.
It was one missed opportunity, and yet I still think about it. I’m grateful for the experience though, because now I know better. When we know better, we do better, and there are so many chances we are given to change our own perspective and the perspective of others regarding foster care and the relationship between biological parents and foster parents. There is no winning in these situations. There is no ‘us’ vs. ‘them’. There is only protecting and loving and supporting all parties involved. Easier said than done for us as humans, but God is able and willing. He will heal and mend. It is who He is and what He does.
blog signature

- Oh Happy Daze

A Q&A on Foster Care {pretty much more than you even wanted to know}

We’ve been on our journey as foster parents for almost two years now. Just as all foster parents, we’ve certainly had our ups and downs. We’re still super new at this. I feel like I know maybe 1% of anything. Maybe next year I will know 2%. Most of the time we have no idea what’s going on or what to expect for our next step; as is the way with the foster care system. We get so many questions and comments about foster care and I absolutely love answering them, because there seems to be a shroud of secrecy (or fear, depending on who you speak to) and a whole lot of mis-information floating around out there about what it means to be a foster parent.
I’ve been hesitant to put this out there because… fear. I’m afraid of hurting feelings by being blunt. I’m afraid of stepping on toes. I’m afraid of my words from my heart being read through the filter of someone else’s heart and misconstrued or taken in the wrong way. I’m afraid of my own self-serving nature. I’m afraid this may come across as a slap-in-the-face for some of us, because so often truth stings in a similar way. And that’s why we sometimes turn our head and try to ignore it.
But I will press publish on this post, because God is good. I’m afraid, but God is good. And the lives he creates are good and deserving of love, no questions asked.
I’m loving these words from Rebecca over at No Hands But Ours. She wrote them as they apply to adoption, but they can clearly be applied to so many aspects of life and how even when A or B or C happens, God is still good.

“You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees.”

Psalm 119:68

“So I can question His promise and character, or I can open my clinched palms and accept that He is good, and His work is good. I can let go of my expectations, efforts, timing and struggling. I can look beyond my adoption and parenting challenges, and remind myself of the profound truth. He’s always at work, and it’s always good.      

Adoption sings His name, all the time, in its beauty and in its stretching. Both the bitter and the sweet are saturated with His goodness. 
He is good. Let’s make that the cadence that we train our hearts to beat to.

good:


1. right, proper fit


2. morally excellent, righteous, virtuous


3. satisfactory in quality, quantity or degree


4. of high quality


5. kind, beneficent, friendly


6. honorable or worthy”

 
So with the mindset of “training our hearts to the cadence of God’s goodness” and the action of loving others because we are loved, let us begin this Q&A.
I hear some of these comments and questions almost daily. Maybe you’ve uttered them to me. or to someone else. or just quietly to yourself in your head. These are not the answers from every foster parent across the globe. These are my answers to tough questions and comments. This is a look into the hows and whys for the Baker family:
“I don’t know how you do it.”
Speaking from a true, honest place – I don’t know how I do it either. I don’t know how we do it. I don’t know how all foster parents do it. Being a parent to a child who is not your own {and probably won’t ever be} is hard. It truly is; I won’t sugar coat it. I don’t know exactly how we do it but I do know that even on my very best days, there is not enough compassion, love, selflessness, forgiveness and non-judgment in my body to accomplish the task of a foster parent. But God. God has given us his Spirit, and with the Spirit comes things that we have no hope of accomplishing on our own: love. joy. peace. patience. kindness. goodness. faithfulness. gentleness. self-control. {Galatians 5:22-23}.
And I don’t know how I will handle the things to come. God does, though. and He will sustain me emotionally. mentally. physically.
As far as the day-to-day operations go, we are able to do it because we have a team. Our teammates are fosterparents-by-association, and they are so so important to us. Teammates are all over the place and come into our life in all different ways.
My mother and father-in-law who watch Charlotte at the drop of a hat so I can make it to appointments for myself and for kiddos {as in…. sometimes with just a few hours notice because I’m so bad with planning-ahead}.
The mom-friend who had a bag of appropriate sized/seasoned clothing waiting on our doorstep before we even get home from picking up a child.
The teacher friend who kept her Spring break schedule open to help me shuffle kiddos around from here to there.
The church friends who take turns holding/feeding/changing a baby or holding/feeding/playing with Charlotte so other things can get done.
My private clients who don’t mind that I bring our littlest kiddos into our speech therapy sessions until I can arrange permanent child-care.
The girlfriend who picks up my slack and overlooks the rest, or brings me a latte because she knows I may not have birthed the babe, but I’m still dealing with all the things that come along with a fresh baby {like sleepless nights and quadrupled laundry}.
Our family members and friends who love on our visitors unconditionally.
Our team has been strategically placed by God. Our team is everything.
“I couldn’t do that.” 
Lies. That is actually a lie you tell yourself. You could do this. A more appropriate phrase would be “I don’t want to”. And I don’t blame you, I’ve said it before in regards to so many commands, whispered or shouted, from God. And sometimes I still say it daily, usually under my breath so God  won’t hear me: “but… I don’t want to”.
Fortunately for us, there are no parameters to God’s command to “care for the widows and orphans”. He doesn’t provide an ‘if’ clause. “Care for the widows and orphans if….. you have enough money. if you are married for at least 2 years. if you have your own children first. if you have a spare bedroom. if you can be a stay at home mom. if you are under 40. if you’re empty-nesters. if you have your whole life together”.
Remember me? I can’t plan ahead. I never finish laundry all the way. I’m not really in to the whole ‘cooking dinner’ thing {though I’m trying}. I dust never. I recently started my own business…. so I make practically $0. It’s a win in my book if I hit my snooze only twice. My gas tank is almost always less than half full {don’t tell my dad}.
and yet God uses ME! And fortunately for you and me, children don’t need much. Really, they don’t. They need food, water, shelter, love, and snuggles. They need someone present in their lives. They need time. We all have all of those things.
“I’d get too attached.”
Honestly, that’s kind of the point. I recently read this from another foster parent and I love how she just lays it out there. Attachment is the point of foster care. It’s why the United States uses Foster Care instead of Orphanages; to allow for appropriate attachment and bonding in a family environment. If you don’t get attached, you’re doing it wrong.
Research shows secure attachment in infancy results in better social and emotional outcomes later in life, and the inverse of that is also true: insecure attachments result in destructive outcomes. Having a caregiver who provides consistent, loving, responsive care (meaning they consistently meet a child’s needs) helps children learn to regulate their own behavior and emotions, as well as satisfies their innate need for feeling loved and lovable. All of these are good, necessary things for a functional, quality life. Many children in foster care have experienced disorganized (aka: dysfunctional) attachment as a result of abuse or neglect from their previous caregiver. It is possible (and necessary) for a child to build secure attachments with a surrogate caregiver (aka Foster Parent) if their birth parents are not currently able to provide them with that crucial developmental experience.
“Aren’t you afraid?”
Yes, absolutely. But, God has given me a spirit of power and love. not timidity. not fear. {2 Timothy 1:7}. What truly frightens me is the thought of living my life for only myself. For all of my thoughts to be spent on only myself. For my money, and time, and possessions to be hoarded for only myself. That is what I’m afraid of, because that is most definitely not what the creator of everything created us and redeemed us for. There is so much more life out there beyond the small confines of the Baker home in Chesapeake, Virginia. Lives in need; and children in foster care are a portion of those lives who have great needs {sometimes very great needs}. Needs that we can meet.
I am also afraid that I am not enough. I am not enough of a mother, or a therapist, or a compassionate and patient person to be what some of these children need. Chris and I don’t yet foster children over 4 or 5. Those are the boundaries we have requested, based on our space and time and abilities. And any long term placements we have had so far have been little fresh squishes, the ones that are needy but also cuddly. We have not yet entered into the realm of foster care that is the older child. The one who is needy, but maybe resembles a porcupine rather than a cuddly puppy. The one who has experienced more life {and the terrible parts of life, at that} in a year than we have in all of our years combined. When the time comes, we will most likely experience that aspect of foster care as well. And we will be afraid. I’m actually more afraid, though, of not cuddling that porcupine. They are ‘the least of these’; they have the greatest needs. If we don’t, who will?
“Are you worried about Charlotte?”
Yes. I  worry about Charlotte. Every.Single.Day.
She’s ingesting GMOs. There’s BPA in that water bottle. She skinned her knees. When did I bathe her last? She doesn’t know all her letters. She won’t stop picking her nose! I didn’t put sunscreen on her. I raised my voice at her. Are we parenting correctly?
But I know what you’re really wondering. No, I’m not worried that our involvement in foster care will hurt her in some way. I’m actually excited for her to have these experiences. We protect her from as much in life as we can, and we will protect our foster children from as much in life as we can. That may mean parenting or scheduling or abiding a little differently than we have in the past.
She does suffer, though, in the same way an only child suffers when the attention is no longer only on themselves. She shares her toys. her food. her mommy and daddy time. and it’s good for her. She was born with a big heart and her experience as a big sister to other kiddos is making it even bigger.
Big Sister Charlie
I’ve had this ‘big sister’ shirt sitting in her drawer for a long time; it was passed down from a friend but Charlotte hasn’t had the opportunity to wear it yet because we haven’t expanded our family {and won’t, at least biologically}. It occurred to me, though, that she is very much a big sister to all of the kiddos that we get to love on, and will continue to be to be a big sister to so many, whether it’s ever made official or not.
Just speaking from a real place here: I know foster care isn’t for everyone. We all can’t do all the things! But we each can do some things.
Thank you for asking those questions. And for being open enough to ask them. Thank you for reading this and for considering what your next step may be. It may not be foster care, but it will be something. Will it be a step towards providing for yourself? Or will it be a step towards providing for someone who isn’t able to help themselves?
He is good. Let’s make that the cadence that we train our hearts to beat to.

- Oh Happy Daze

Popcorn + a lesson in love

So this happened in our house this week:
rose and Charlotte June 2014
I know, my heart exploded into a million happy pieces too.
We’ll call her Popcorn {since she devoured my entire supply}. She only stayed with us for the week but she and Charlie formed a quick bond, though it was more like a love-hate relationship with occasional jealous spurts when they both had their eyes on the same toy.
I am so glad I captured this moment. A moment of pure sweetness and friendship.
It is my hope that this image is a reflection of Charlotte’s character now, and in 2 years, and in 20 years.
I think one of my most important jobs on earth as a parent is to make sure Charlotte develops a deep love for the other people on this earth. After all, it is what Jesus tasked us with:
Love your neighbor as yourself. Mark 12:31
I love myself a lot, so that sets a pretty high standard for the amount of love I am to show towards others. Sometimes it’s easy to love people with an even greater love than I reserve for myself. I’d say most of the time, though, it’s hard to love other people. so dang hard.
Loving others. It’s simple to say, but impossible to carry out on our own. The only reason we can truly know love and show love is because Jesus showed it to us first {and he continues to show it every second of every day}.   I think the best way to have Charlotte learn and internalize that is to see it demonstrated in us, her parents. So we continue to try and focus our efforts and priorities so they point towards our creator, and only then will our actions truly reflect love towards others. It’s a process. It’s a daily choice. It’s so hard to keep our priorities centered. I don’t want to reflect on another year passed and find we had some priorities mixed up, but it’s so hard to do it on our own. I know we aren’t the only ones out there who struggle with priorities. Who are wondering if what they have filled their days and weeks with is stuff that actually matters. Do you struggle too? Here is a modified excerpt from a sermon I listened to recently:

When I run after God then I become the woman God intended me to be, that I was always meant to be. When I become the woman God meant for me to be then my husband gets a better wife, my kids get a better mom. I could run after/put my focus on only being a better wife, and my husband may get a better wife. I could focus on being a better mom, and my daughter may get a better mom. If I run after God, though, then my husband gets a better wife, and my daughter gets a better mom, and you get a better friend, and my boss gets a better employee…  Me running after God personally {internally} makes me a better woman publicly {externally}.

I love that and I am so thankful I was able to listen to that sermon and hear those truths. If you have the time {and if you say to yourself that you don’t have time I would recommend carving out some time}, listen to or watch this sermon series from Flatirons Church in Colorado: Unsinkable {the sermon the above quote is from is titled Rearranging Chairs on the Titanic}. It has helped me focus my priorities on things that last, instead of possessions, my career, or even keeping up with the Jones’ {who do those Jones’ think they are?!}. I hope my heart continues to change and become more compassionate towards others so that I can live by example for my daughter. I want her to grow up in an environment where compassion and selflessness are the norm, instead of the opposing message most of the world has to offer.
Who’s with me?! {raises fist in the air}
also, pray for Popcorn.