Four Things That Make Us Cringe
Being foster parents, we get asked some pretty bold questions. Some questions are great & challenging & make us think in the best way possible. Some, make us cringe.
I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while, but have been hesitant. It may make some readers defensive & question things they have said to us. That is not my goal, at least not the defensive part. It is to consider how powerful words can be, whether intentional or not. Please hear me in that. I know that all of our people are for us & are cheering us on as foster parents. I’m so grateful for that. My goal here is to enlighten & educate. Part of what makes our people so great is that they want to know how they can help, what we need, what they can do to love our family. Read this – it’s a list of just a few questions or statements we get and what I actually want to say back to them but typically never do because I’m really bad at confrontation. That is what you can do. Here we go.
"Are you guys ever going to have your own kids?"
I've been asked this question a lot & I get why. Pedro & I decided to start a family in a non-traditional way so I knew that this question would come up, & often. It's not the question itself that bothers me, but the way it’s phrased. When someone asks if we are going to have "our own" children, it implies that our foster children are not a part of our family. This probably isn’t the intent, but this is how it is perceived. Family doesn’t always constitute as biological. While some of our kids may only be "our own," or physically part of our family for a season, they are forever etched into our hearts & will always be a part of our family. Right now, little L doesn’t understand the words “our own” which is why I haven’t corrected anyone in front of her, but consider how that phrasing might sound or be interpreted when we have kids that do understand. Some children in care struggle to figure out where they belong and what a family truly looks & feels like. When people refer to biological children as the parents’ “own children,” it can be excruciatingly isolating for the ears & hearts of foster children. They might begin to believe that they are not genuinely a part of our family because they did not enter it in a conventional way. This is not me trying to be PC, this is me trying to take every precautionary step towards shouting truth & love over the lies that foster children believe. This is me desperately wanting you to join in this journey of ours by simply acknowledging that while our family may look different, the differences do not mean we are any less of a family.
A better way to ask would be, “Do you think you guys will ever consider having biological children?” and not in the presence of my kids. Honestly, even that could be a sensitive question to most people, especially a couple experiencing infertility. For us, we have just decided to make our family a different way, but that’s not always the case with everyone. So, the safe bet? Just don’t ask. Maybe just tell the person you how beautiful his or her family is instead.
“I could never do foster care because I could never give them back. I would get too attached.”
We hear this a lot. When we first started, I would tend to feel a little anger when I heard it. But now I know that there isn’t malicious intent behind it. However, I do feel the need to gracefully push back on this statement and here’s why: Getting attached is the whole point. Attachment is one of the hardest things to learn as you grow older so it is vital that children learn to attach early. (this could be an entire blog post itself, but I’ll save that for later date.) Foster care is not intended to be easy. It should be hard. If you are doing it well, it should break you when a child transitions out of your home. Hopefully the breaking is paired with a bittersweet emotion of redemption & restoration. But man, I hope I don’t choose to avoid things that are hard because it’s more predictable and comforting for me. Comfort is a terrible life goal. The kids we are talking about have hard stuff too. Probably harder stuff. And they don’t have the option to partake or not. A child doesn’t choose to be ripped out of everything they know & be placed into a stranger’s home. A child feels the weight of foster care. I may know more of the legal information as the foster parent, however just because the child is a child does not mean that his or her feelings & heavy & emotions are invalid. They are real & raw & things I cannot comprehend no matter how hard I try so I’ll gladly enter into the difficult spaces that don’t have clean cut answers and share the pain with little ones who might not know what to do with it.
Saying that you could never give them back also has a bit of this taste: “I would love them so much and would never be able to depart from them – you must not let your guard down & love them like I would.” Again, I know this is probably not what people are meaning. A good friend who is in the trenches of unconventional family life with us says that it sounds like you think a robot has put a protective steel cage around my heart that doesn’t allow anything from the outside get in. I give every single piece of my heart into parenting, raising, & unconditionally loving my kids. All walls are down. Everything rushes in. Sure, it’s messy. It’s complicated. It hurts at times, but the beauty that comes with all of the chaos is always worth it.
I will bear feeling hard loss for the sake of a child being known, seen, heard, & loved. While not all have the ability to be foster parents, we can all choose to be uncomfortable on behalf of a child.
Hillsong writes a beautiful song called “New Wine.” Here is an excerpt of the lyrics:
In the crushing
In the pressing
You are making new wine
In the soil
I now surrender
You are breaking new ground
Make me a vessel
Make me an offering
Make me whatever You want me to be
I came here with nothing but all You have given me
Jesus, bring new wine out of me
I have learned more about who God is because of being a foster parent – by allowing myself to be crushed & pressed. So, bring on the new wine. If it helps me see Jesus more clearly, let it press & crush & expose the glory. The glory sure outshines the hurt of the crush.
“Your child is so lucky to have you.”
Please, don’t say this. Thank you for thinking we are good people, but for the love – please don’t say this. Our kids are not “lucky.” They have been separated from their biological parents, dumped in the middle of the night into a home they’ve never stepped foot in before & most of their belongings have been stuffed into a trash bag. That is a nightmare. I fully believe that God can use whatever crappy circumstance to bring light & hope & good, but that doesn’t mean the circumstance is “lucky.”
“How could their parents not want them?”
70% of parents whose children are in foster care were in the foster care system as children. Seventy percent. Sit on that statistic for just a moment. Maybe parents truly do love their children with everything they possibly have to give, but what they have to give is a bit distorted because they were never shown how to love or be loved in healthy ways. People draw from experiences. When you only know one way to do something, that is how you do it & parenting is no different. This rationale does not justify the actions parents may take, however it does allow space for empathy & making progression towards closing the 70% gap.
Parents do love their children. I can honestly look at my little girl and tell her truthfully that her biological mother loves her dearly. But sometimes, parents just don’t know any different. Nor do they have people in their corner fighting for them, teaching them, showing them grace & love so that same grace & love can overflow into the lives of their children. Sometimes, parents surrender parental rights because they know that they cannot give their child what he or she needs – and that, my friends, is sacrificial love. A lot of parents cannot begin to fathom the burden of a decision like that, myself included. If surrendering your parental rights is something you could never comprehend doing on your own, take a moment to understand your privilege.
There you have it. This was simultaneously easy & hard to write. Easy, because it’s how I feel. Hard, because I don’t want my feelings to be misinterpreted. Know that I’m grateful in the ways that our people have stepped into our journey. We know that we are loved & supported. But if we are make it a priority to do our best to make this world shine brighter, then we can sit in the tension & make it out on the other side of uncomfortable conversations. These are not the only four, but this is a great start to all of us being more beautiful.
-C
PS: If you would like more information about any of the above, reach out! I’m happy to share some different resources that articulates similar opinions and elaborate into the research behind all of it (fancy, scientific things).