Why Dont More People Do Foster Care?
I heard recently there are 36 waiting adoptive families/couples for every ONE baby placed for domestic infant adoption.
This alone proves that adoptive parents are not heroes or rescuers.
We hear + talk about the need for foster parents. And it’s real. There are about 500,000 children in the system right now, over 100,000 of them waiting to be adopted into a family. Waiting for someone to step across the gap & into their life as a permanent family.
We don’t say yes to loving & raising kids not born to us because we are extra special. We do it because every child deserves a permanent family. A family to call home. An adult to show up for them as a parent in ways their biological family is unable to because of their own trauma.
It isn’t that moms & dads who lose their children to foster care don’t love their kids enough. It’s that, typically, they have had a life of bad breaks. No support. Trauma handed down to them thru their own ancestors. More times than not it is generations of families —trauma destroying mental health— broken up by the system.
I’m wondering: would you share with me what holds you back from fostering? Or what did hold you back?
Finish this sentence in the comments: “I can’t/haven’t said yes to fostering because _____”
On the flip side — what moved you to say yes?
