It’s not always the big things that affirm foster and adoptive parents. Here are four everyday moments that different foster parents I know found memorable.
A year ago my now-married adopted daughter texted us to inquire about the date of her adoption. She explained that she wanted to celebrate that as her re-birthday. She had been our child since she was fourteen months old. That surprised us and meant a lot.
We were eating dinner. Our teenage foster son speared a veggie, put it in his mouth, chewed it, and remarked with a grin: ‘That was a delectable morsel.’ Everyone at the table burst out laughing.
We adopted our youngest son as a baby. Years later, we overheard a friend ask him what he thought about being adopted. He replied simply: ‘I won the lottery.'
Scot was an active teen with a potty mouth and a penchant for getting in trouble. I constantly had to go to school conferences to answer for his behavior. Then one night, he awakened me in a panic. ‘Dad,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to find Jamie. He’s run away. The last thing he said to me was that he was going to kill himself rather than be moved to another foster home.’ Jamie had learned earlier that day that he was being transferred from our home to a therapeutic foster home. So up I got, and I spent the rest of the night following Scot as we knocked on doors in subsidized housing where Jamie might have gone. We finally found him. He was still moved but returned to live with us after being emancipated. I learned something very important that night. There is a lot of good in youngsters like Scot.…He is a foster parent today.