Next, she told about a woman who applied to be a foster parent because she was infertile. “Within a week of having a child placed in her care, she was abusing the child,” the woman said. She added that not all infertile women are too damaged for foster parenting, but that foster kids are damaged already and foster parents need to prove to her that they have “no issues.”
Next, she said there were only forty-five foster families in the mega-suburban county. Most of the county’s 1,500 foster children lived in group homes.
The next few speakers emphasized the fact that foster kids were not “cute, blonde-haired girls with pigtails.”
I scribbled on a comment card that billing the event as a foster-to-adopt information session was misleading. We left.
I sobbed in the car. If you’re too damaged to adopt a foster kid, what are the chances you’ll ever be a mom?
In hindsight, I appreciate the woman’s honesty.
Because something worse happened to Sheila, a friend I met through the China adoption process. Sheila lives in a different county, and when she inquired about foster care, she got a more positive response. She and her husband signed up for an intensive training course.
They met some foster parents, one of whom had adopted an infant. They were led to believe there were babies and young children in the system in need of care, and some might be adoptable. Sheila was happy to be a foster mom without the promise of adoption. She just wanted children in her home.
It never happened. A revolving door of caseworkers. Changes in leadership. Endless stalling. Eventually, a caseworker finished her home study. But then a supervisor delayed approving her, skeptical of why she wanted to be a foster parent. Finally, Sheila and her husband were approved, but they never got a placement. Their caseworker told them about various sibling groups, some with as many as five children. But things never worked out.
Then, Sheila began a national search for foster children in need of a home. School-age children. Any age children. Sibling groups. Bring them on. Again, there were many inquiries, but nothing panned out.
