I'm a Foster Mom. Here's What I've Learned About Being a 'Temporary' Parent

One night when my oldest foster son was on one of his regular calls with his birth family, he talked about what he did that day and then said the seemingly innocuous phrase, “and then we came home.”

This upset his birth family, understandably. “Foster mom’s house isn’t home, you’re just staying there a while! ... Our house is your home.” 

He’s been with me over six months. In his young life, that feels like an eternity. 

As I experience the foster care system, I am learning about the deep injustices in the fabric of this country, ones that never gave many of these families a chance: deep educational disparities between the wealthy and the poor, cradle-to-prison pipelines, endless cycles of addiction, and hurting family systems. 

I try to “foster” a good co­-parenting relationship with his family and respect most of their wishes. I am so thankful for his birth family — that they are so involved in his daily comings and goings, and that he knows he is loved deeply there, too. 

But that night, when I heard this argument over where “home” was, I grew a little angry. I wished I could comfort my foster son and tell him that it was OK to call this “home” without fighting with his birth family. I let him reflect for a little while himself on where home was right now. And I prayed again for my relationship with his birth family and for all the profound hurt his family is going through right now.

The response I get from people I meet to hearing that I am a foster parent is often something along the lines of, “Good for you, but I could never do that! It would be too hard to give the kids back!”

I understand the sentiment, but we sign up for that when we become foster parents. We are trained on attachment and building co­-parenting relationships with biological families. It does not make it easier, of course — but to be a part of these kids’ lives, even for a little while, is more than blessing enough. And the need for foster homes are great — there are somewhere around 400,000 children in the foster care system in this country, and not enough foster homes.

When I moved to a new area to be a part-time pastor, I researched it and quickly noticed the intense rural poverty that affected families here. I had thought about being a foster parent before, figuring it was something I was called to do ­many years down the road. God had different plans, I suppose. My heart began aching for the families I saw who were struggling. It seemed everyone who introduced me to the town talked about the needs of the children in the community, ­mentorship, breaking chains of addiction, and job opportunities for young parents in the community. God was telling me that the need was great ​now, and that I was going to respond to it.  

I went through a three-month vetting and training process to prepare to handle trauma and to reunite children with their families, which is the goal in most foster care cases. Each and every foster case is different: Sometimes children have a few visits with their families per week, sometimes no visits at all. If they’re old enough, they may be allowed phone calls or video calls. They may spend weekends with family members. Sometimes, foster parents are given estimates on how long they will have a child live as part of their family. But those estimates are not always helpful — there are just too many factors involved with legal hurdles and steps the biological family needs to complete in order to have the children returned. (I have both a foster toddler son and a foster school-aged one at the moment who are unrelated, and their cases are incredibly different.)

There are many, many unknowns. So when friends or colleagues ask me if I would recommend becoming a foster parent, I am honest with them. I let them know of the feeling of exile for both parents and children — the kids removed from their homes and community, and parents often having a lot less time or ability to invest in theirs. I remind them how it will expand their family — not only with children but with the whole biological families of those children, too. I let them know that parenting after trauma is very, very hard. I speak honestly of the anxiety that children of all ages have when a case worker shows up at the door to take them anywhere. I also mention the great joy that comes when you get to watch and help a child grow and excel, the feeling of love and belonging as you tell them you love them and hug them good night each evening, and how unreal it feels when they begin to embrace you as an ​extra, loving parent figure instead of a rival to their biological family.

READ: DC 127: Flipping the Foster Care Waitlist

My foster son(s) and I have grown together in beautiful and messy ways as we have become a family in our own right. There’s a lot that I have no control over, but one of the hardest things I have no control over is the anxiety my older son feels. I want to wipe away the ever-present fears he has about whether he’ll return home, and when.

Selfishly, I want him to be fulfilled and happy ​here — I am trying so hard to love this kid like he has always belonged here with me. But he knows he doesn’t. He knows he’s eventually going to return from this court­-ordered exile, that he’s going to have a harder time fitting in at school, and that he’s going to get questions from people demanding to know why he was in foster care or what it was like. These are eventualities we know he is going to face. So I ask myself daily, how can we cope with all of it?

I think often of a passage from Jeremiah 29, the prophet's letter to the exiles: "Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." 

My son and I decided to plant a garden together — a garden he may not see any fruit from. It’s a sign of life, and living, and being settled here in this place. When he is returned to his family, it will serve as a reminder of all the seeds he’s planted in me that will continue to bear fruit. We find little things to be thankful for every day. We keep a routine. We got baby chicks that he wants to watch grow every day, and he may not be here to collect the eggs from them, but he knows I will drop some off for him. I try to bring him new, fun places to learn about art and history and math and science in the world. We foster relationships with my family that will undoubtedly be hard on everyone to eventually let go. We make plans.

There are few things more reckless in foster care than making plans. But reckless we must continue to be.

In the midst of exile, how else are we supposed to live but somewhat recklessly? We can’t feel guilty for living and loving and making plans all the time.

It’s these moments that give me an innocent trust that God has a handle on the situation, somehow. I know that this child’s life and mine have intersected by a miraculous plan, and that however temporary, we will both enjoy what we can from how our stories have come together. He tells me stories of what it was like at his birth family’s house, we talk about the differences and similarities between his birth household and my household now, and together we make more crazy plans.

God calls us among all of our anxieties, voiced and unvoiced­, to keep on living. To pray for one another, to argue with one another, to take the terrifying chance to say “I love you” to one another every day because we know the other needs to hear it.

I am so thankful that he isn’t just surviving this period of “exile” with me, but that he dares enough to try and live and thrive and grow. I am so thankful that we have planted seeds in one another, that I get to watch him grow for however long he is with me and hopefully after. 

We all are overflowing with pains, fears, anxieties. But I hope and believe that we are all trying to pray for the prosperity and for the homes and for the child to which we have all been called.