Foster Care Isn't a Badge of Honor

After being a foster parent for just a couple of years and continually dragging the children in my care to countless events all set around foster children, I came to the realization that the children in my care didn’t want to be at these events, or have the label of foster child put on them like it was a badge of honor.

The event that stands out most in my mind was a picnic up in Colville where we were told by the person in charge that it was mandatory to be there. My boys threw a fit about going to this outing, telling us that they didn’t want to be there for the whole world to see that they were foster kids. As we rolled up to the park where the event was being held, you could see banners that had been hung up telling us where everyone was meeting. These banners all read “foster children”, telling everyone that wasn’t involved in our group, as well as the people involved, that the children in this group weren’t just children getting together to have a picnic; these children were foster children.

One of my boys refused to get out of the car, his argument being, “I don’t want the label 'foster child' hung on me.” I know that I could’ve made him get out, forced him to enjoy the festivities and made him have fun (yeah, right); but for the most part I was beginning to see that he had a valid point, and I agreed with him. Funny thing happened--one of the social workers that was attending brought their bio-daughter, and she was very pretty. Next thing I know this young man that didn’t want to even get out of the car was standing right next to me. I looked over at him and said, “she is pretty, isn’t she?” “Yes she is,” was all he said.

Children in foster care are often looked down upon as second class citizens. If there is trouble on the bus on the way to school, it has to be the foster children that caused it. Sometimes they do, but it’s not always the case. We had an incident on the school bus where some kids had become disruptive. When the parents were called into school to talk about the problem, the parents of these children immediately tried to transfer blame onto the children in our home. The bus driver immediately stepped up defending the foster children in our home, stating that the foster children on her bus were more polite than any of the other children on her bus and they were not the problem, at least this time.

One of our young men became involved with a group of foster alumni/foster children called Passion For Action. This group, for the most part, gets together to bring about change within the foster care system to benefit children placed in foster care. At one of the meetings this young man was speaking in front of a group of people when he made the proclamation that, in our home, we don’t like the F-word. “Foster care” and being “foster children” is something that we strive to eliminate from who these children are. We all know that it’s always there, but we don’t dwell in the fact that they are caught up in the foster care system or take on the victim’s role of being foster children. It is not their fault that they are in the system, so we all should stop treating them as if they were the poor little foster child, making them sound like a second class citizen. Remember that before they were “foster children” they were simply children.

Permanency: What is Best for the Foster Child

There are those people out there that push the idea that every child in foster care wants and deserves a forever home with a family that adopts them into their family; and, from that ideal, the child lives happily ever after. In some instances this may be the case, but in many of the cases where children in foster care have been adopted into a family, it’s not a happily ever after scenario. It’s a scenario where the adopted child has turned the world of the adoptive family upside down, creating an environment of resentment and frustration.

Then you have foster homes that adopt a child and still have foster children in the home. This creates a different problem because now there are two sets of rules in the home--one set of rules for the foster child and another set of rules for the adopted child. With these two sets of rules, supervision becomes problematic. The State requires all foster parents to provide 24/7 supervision for each foster child placed in the home. There aren’t any requirements for an adopted child. The same scenario exists when there are still biological children living in the home.

One case that we dealt with personally was one where the home had adopted children and was still taking in foster children. The adopted children were allowed to run all over the small town that they lived in with little to no supervision. The foster children were given the same supervision as the adopted children and ended up not only getting in trouble with the law, but also creating problems within the family, causing the foster children’s immediate removal. That’s when they came to live with us.

We had another child that came to live with us that was from a failed adoption. He was part of a sibling group and the potential adoptive parents were told by the State that they needed to adopt both of the children to get the one they wanted. This created in the potential adoptive parents a feeling that they were being coerced by the State to do something they didn’t want to do. These parents went ahead with the adoption creating resentment for the unwanted child that continued even after the child came to live with us. Once the child was in our home, the resentment was apparent through the adoptive parents' ever constant interference, not wanting this child to succeed.

In defense of the parents, they were never trained on how to deal with children with attachment issues or early childhood trauma. They were fortunate that the other child was sweet and compliant and didn’t have the same issues as the sibling. These people didn’t want to fail, they just didn’t understand their limitations and how taxing a child with behavioral problems can be. Even the most seasoned parent has times when they feel overwhelmed.

Then you have Guardianship, which sounds like the right thing to do for the person that doesn’t want to adopt, but wants the child to feel like they’re in their permanent home. The one thing that people don’t understand through Guardianship is that the state is still involved to a certain extent, but the Guardian has all of the liability. Whatever happens while the child is living in the home of the Guardian becomes the responsibility of the Guardian, and relieves the State of all responsibility.

Does a child need permanency? Absolutely! Permanency comes when the child knows that their home is one in which the Foster/Guardian/Adoptive parent does not give up on the child. Your family needs to determine which route is best for your situation. Do the research, do not allow anyone or any agency to guilt you into doing something you do not want or are unsure of doing. Doing what you feel is best for your family will most likely be what is best for the child.