Becoming Foster Parents for the First Time . . . Parenting on Steroids

No one warned me. I didn’t have a clue.

When we got the call from the caseworker, I had no idea my world was about to spin off its axis. If I had a warning, maybe I would’ve held on tighter or screamed louder for help.

Parenting is hard enough. Becoming a foster parent is parenting on steroids.

I met Brecken* (name changed) when she was 12 years old at Royal Family Kid’s Camp, a camp for at-risk kids primarily in foster care. She and her siblings lived in a trailer court on the edge of town. Camp was a reprieve from their crappy life.

After camp when Brecken found out someone from our church would pick her up in a van on Sunday mornings for kids’ church, half the trailer court showed up.

When Brecken and her sister graduated from kids’ church, my husband and I volunteered to be their surrogate parents at church. Basically we sat with Brecken, her sister and their friends so they wouldn’t swear too loud or throw things off the balcony and hit old guys in the head with paper airplanes or pens.

Despite all the craziness, we fell in love with this motley crew.

Fast forward a few years. Things bottomed out for Brecken. Her step-dad was sent to prison for abusing her. She landed in the hospital for mental health concerns. And Brecken’s mother took her two younger siblings and moved out of state without her.

Brecken was placed in emergency foster care.

She ran.

And got pregnant.

Being in the delivery room with an unwanted teenage mother is a story for another time.

Not ready to be a mom, Brecken made some bad choices, and her son was removed at 18 months.

That’s when we got the call to take baby, but my husband volunteered us to take Brecken instead. Babies are relatively easy to place. Rebellious teenage girls – not so much.

We tried our best to help Brecken, but we were so unprepared for the trauma that highjacked all logic. Our biggest challenges were ignorance and lack of support.

Our biological kids – who never asked to be foster siblings – struggled.

A lot.

When Brecken left our home after a series of bad situations, I felt like a complete failure. For years.

Sometimes I still do.

Fifteen years later, she’s back in our lives as a single mom of four more kids, but there are still things I’m processing. Unanswered questions in my heart. Unresolved feelings about some messy moments.

That’s part of the reason I wrote Sea Glass Stories which is scheduled for release this Christmas. The story is told from the point of view of two characters – a girl in foster cAbout the Authorare and the biological child of the foster family.

Writing has helped me make sense of the senseless. Redeem the ugliness. And just maybe, help others traveling similar journeys.

The struggle is real. But so is hope.

I would love to hear how foster care has impacted your life.