Boxes and Bags: A Year in the Life of a Foster Family

Psalm 139:14 New Living Translation (NLT):  Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

They arrived with a few clothes in bags and a few toys in boxes. We were nervous as they were too. We had gone through 'Impact' Training and all the requisite background checks and home visits. We had been a parent to our biological child for 5 years so we believed that we understood the particulars that children need to feel love, support and nurturance.

I was less prepared mentally and emotionally than my wife. She had worked in the DFCS arena for close to a decade and understand the nuances and much of the process related to foster care. Other than the training several months previously I had no interaction with the state system in the past. My family had no interaction with or ever had a need to interact with DFCS so I had no reference to how this process proceeded in regards to the children and all that would entail.

As we approach a year in this process I have come to some conclusions:

1. Your current family has to be extremely secure before entering the Foster Care System. I say that because in my 8 years of marriage I have not had any other experience that has taxed my relationship with my wife as trying to accommodate adding two children at once into our lives. My wife has a very stressful job and one that has a lot of legal ramifications. She takes her job very seriously and with the requisite brevity it requires. She also is an amazing mother who wants to be as active in the lives of our children as possible and these two worlds collide and then you throw in the mix of trying to be a wife and maintain our household. She deserves sainthood! I remember after the first few weeks and months she would often ask me to not touch her and at first that was very difficult and I had a hard time comprehending why. She explained that her love for me had not diminished but after having three little girls all over her and wanting her full attention each she needed to be untouched for a few minutes after all of them were in bed. I have adjusted and understand now when she tells me that it is not that she is pushing me away but that she needs space to reconnect to herself. Our marriage has gotten stronger but the growing pains have been very tangible and real. Along with our marriage it has taken some effort in maintaining our oldest daughter in understanding that she is still a very important part of our life but learning to share mom and dad was a difficult lesson to learn and it still is a process.

2. The DFCS process and system is not logical. The bureacracy wrapped into the Foster Care System is riddled with flaws, errors and problems. I equate the state's aloof attitude toward DFCS and the underfunding and underappreciating of it's overworked staff to how the children in the system are often treated. If children are our greatest asset we are woefully in adequate in Georgia in giving to the one department who has as it's chief goal in maintaining the development and safety of its youngest citizens. Until I became a part of this process I never knew just how lacking we were in this area of state government and funding.

3. The Children in the Foster Care System are wary and hard to love. That statement sounds harsh but it rings with truth if you have had any intimate contact with these children for any length of time. We were so excited to bring two beautiful girls into our home but these girls did not come alone. They came with more than clothes and toys. They came with emotional, mental, physical and familial baggage and most of it was not positive. They were 1 and 2 years old and in those years they had been tossed from family to family both biological and through the state system. Stability was not something they were used to and routine was not either. While we had tons of love to give they needed love, support, routine, discipline and stability. Behavior issues were a daily problem and after almost a year we still have some problems to iron out. What is very unfortunate in the state system is that children do not come with a history so you as the foster parents have no clue what the children have endured or experienced except where the case worker tells you. Often even this rudimentary history is full of holes. With every positive interaction there is an equally taxing negative interaction and the weight on the family as a whole can, at times, be debilitating and utterly exhausting. These children are hurting and want desperately to feel loved and wanted while at the same time often want someone else to hurt and feel as badly as they feel.

I remember the first time our oldest foster child told me she loved me. The milestone still brings tears to my eyes. These two little girls have impacted my family to the core. Although I have written some pretty negative comments, I will say that I have come to love these two as much as my biological child. I see no differentiation between them. When one of them is hurting I want so desperately to console and alleviate the pain they feel. I kiss their boo boos and wipe their tears. I tuck them in and read them books. I look forward to hearing them say 'I love you daddy' and now the hugs and kisses flow freely. Our family has only changed for the better. I have three beautiful princesses and a gorgeous queen living under my roof and I'm the lucky man to call them mine!

They brought boxes and bags with them on December 13, 2013 but both the boxes and bags have been thrown away. They are our children.

Forever.

jamie