So.… I am amazed at how often I get asked the question, "Are you going to adopt them?" I hear some agencies are more for foster to adopt but honestly foster care isn't supposed to be about adoption it is supposed to be about reunification. Foster parents are a temporary place for children while their birth parents get healthy and can bring them back to a safe home. Now there are special circumstances when foster parents get children and immediately the goal is adoption but typically these children have already spent their years in foster care and previous placements weren't able to adopt or just didn't want to adopt.
It can be such an awkward question and so sad. You have no idea if the foster parents went to court that week and found out that after raising and loving these children for months or years that they were told they are going home...sometimes, almost immediately. The foster care system isn't perfect and its not always fair. Its not meant for the weak or the faint of heart. Its not a cut and dry thing. Foster parents live their lives with an agency dictating what to do, how to do it and sometimes how to feel about it. A family cant even schedule a family vacation on their own, nope the agency has to give the ok and sometimes even the birth parents which can make it tricky if they harbor a ton of anger. Your job is to take care of these children, keep them safe, make sure they are medically and educationally taken care of but not necessarily to love them. Caseworkers can be quick to remind you of that also. If they feel like you over step your boundaries they will knock you right back and remind you that you are just a foster parent. Want to know the real kicker? Foster parents don't have a lot of rights, say and certainly are not entitled to any information about the case. You must be crazy to even try! And don't even bother asking about the birth parents because that is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! Fostering is hard!
Now I will tell you, I am blessed. My kids are great, their caseworker is great, my agency is great, their birth family is great. (This time! haha) I have dealt with different caseworkers, different kids and different agencies, they are not all great! Oh not at all! I've had caseworkers that are impossible to reach, we've gone weeks without a caseworker, ones I've hardly seen again, one caseworker couldn't cut it and quit her job after 3 weeks, an agency that was just scary because of their lack of attention and communication, agencies that don't even transport themselves and outsource it to strangers! Almost like foster care Ubers! I had one of the transporters come into my home and tell me that my child had an infected red belly button... why were you looking at her belly button...why? But we are happy with our agency and caseworker, we have freedom that I don't even think about until I hear another parent ask the question like, can my foster child spend the night at my parents house 25 minutes away? Which is a problem in our area because we live near a state line. I don't have to worry about that stuff. I don't have to ask if we are clear to vacation or if I can get their haircut, oh yes you need permission for that kind of stuff also.
I guess all I'm saying is please stop asking foster parents that question, every kid in the foster system are not up for adoption, children go home and sometimes without notice. Sometimes foster parents aren't even notified that there was a court hearing that day and then the caseworker shows up to say the judge ruled immediate reunification. We live in fear of the unknown. We don't know anything about a huge part of our lives. Its crazy and stressful and scary and emotional and worth it but its also nice to not be reminded of it. Believe me we wonder the same thing.
It can be such an awkward question and so sad. You have no idea if the foster parents went to court that week and found out that after raising and loving these children for months or years that they were told they are going home...sometimes, almost immediately. The foster care system isn't perfect and its not always fair. Its not meant for the weak or the faint of heart. Its not a cut and dry thing. Foster parents live their lives with an agency dictating what to do, how to do it and sometimes how to feel about it. A family cant even schedule a family vacation on their own, nope the agency has to give the ok and sometimes even the birth parents which can make it tricky if they harbor a ton of anger. Your job is to take care of these children, keep them safe, make sure they are medically and educationally taken care of but not necessarily to love them. Caseworkers can be quick to remind you of that also. If they feel like you over step your boundaries they will knock you right back and remind you that you are just a foster parent. Want to know the real kicker? Foster parents don't have a lot of rights, say and certainly are not entitled to any information about the case. You must be crazy to even try! And don't even bother asking about the birth parents because that is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! Fostering is hard!
Now I will tell you, I am blessed. My kids are great, their caseworker is great, my agency is great, their birth family is great. (This time! haha) I have dealt with different caseworkers, different kids and different agencies, they are not all great! Oh not at all! I've had caseworkers that are impossible to reach, we've gone weeks without a caseworker, ones I've hardly seen again, one caseworker couldn't cut it and quit her job after 3 weeks, an agency that was just scary because of their lack of attention and communication, agencies that don't even transport themselves and outsource it to strangers! Almost like foster care Ubers! I had one of the transporters come into my home and tell me that my child had an infected red belly button... why were you looking at her belly button...why? But we are happy with our agency and caseworker, we have freedom that I don't even think about until I hear another parent ask the question like, can my foster child spend the night at my parents house 25 minutes away? Which is a problem in our area because we live near a state line. I don't have to worry about that stuff. I don't have to ask if we are clear to vacation or if I can get their haircut, oh yes you need permission for that kind of stuff also.I guess all I'm saying is please stop asking foster parents that question, every kid in the foster system are not up for adoption, children go home and sometimes without notice. Sometimes foster parents aren't even notified that there was a court hearing that day and then the caseworker shows up to say the judge ruled immediate reunification. We live in fear of the unknown. We don't know anything about a huge part of our lives. Its crazy and stressful and scary and emotional and worth it but its also nice to not be reminded of it. Believe me we wonder the same thing.
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