Carmen Maria Navarro - Fostering: A Memoir of Courage and Hope

In 2019, over 670,000 children were touched by the child welfare system. About 250,000 new children entered the system due to abuse or neglect, and after thousands exited, almost 424,000 children still remained in foster care that year. About 122,000 waited to be adopted, and only about 66,000 were adopted that year (AFCARS, 2020).

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The first time I heard about foster care was when I met my future husband, Steve. It was one of those first dates that got intense pretty quickly. That evening, I shared that I eventually wanted to adopt a kid; he immediately shared his love for his four children and his dream of becoming a foster parent. He asked me, Why adopt and not foster?

What is foster? I thought. I knew very little about adoption, but I knew nothing about fostering. Growing up in Peru, families take care of their nieces, nephews, or grandkids. Government-run foster care doesnt exist, and neither does a straightforward translation to the concept. I had no preconceived knowledge.

According to the National Foster Parent Association, Foster care is the temporary placement of children and youth with families outside of their own home due to child abuse or neglect. Adoption is forever.

Both involved helping vulnerable children, which has been a passion of mine since I was sixteen. To graduate from high school, l was required to complete community service hours. So my best friends and I volunteered at a mental institution, supporting children with disabilities. Although it was meant to be for one semester only, we did it for four years until the children were moved to a more suitable group home. Those years had a profound impact on me, and they birthed my deep desire to support youth.

Two years minus one day after we met, Steve and I got married. I became the stepmom of four amazing kids, we had our first biological son, Iago, and we settled as a family of seven. But deep inside, the thought of helping children kept bubbling up. I frequently remembered those volunteering days. I didnt know how or when I would have time to do something that meaningful, but an unsettling feeling we needed to get involved remained. As if being a mom of five children wasnt busy enough. Maybe this was because of them; maybe because we realized not every child is loved or feels safe the way ours did.

When Iago was about three, our last child Gema hadnt been born yet, and I began researching what it meant to adopt and how some people describe it as a beautiful, messy journey. And from what Ive seen, it is. Its messy because for an adoption to happen, there is lossloss for the biological family and for the adoptive child. There is trauma for everyone involved. But its also beautiful that new forever homes are formed. That from loss comes hope. That some people have the courage to take a leap, proving despite the struggles, love can flourish.

I also learned about the differences between adoption and foster care. Fostering is temporary. Foster parents are meant to provide a safe environment until reunification with the childs biological family can occur. That was compelling and positive. However, it seemed fostering had a negative reputation compared to adoption. In August 2021, I Googled the question, How is fostering? The results illustrated the negative bias. It showed what other people were searching for: Is foster care bad? Why do foster parents quit? and What is the salary of a foster parent? Ive been asked directly some of those questions; others, I have asked myself as well.

I wonder if the negative reputation of foster care is due to a natural wish for kids to go back to their homes or for them to be adopted. Perhaps its peoples unconscious desire for children to never have to be in this situation.

I wish they were never in that position to begin with. I bet any person with empathy and compassion would believe the same. But the reality is foster care is complex, and it deserves so much more attention and awareness.

The Childrens Defense Funds 2021 report The State of Americas Children shares a child is removed every two minutes from their home and placed into foster care, and on average, a child is abused or neglected every forty-eight seconds in America.

Every two minutes. Every forty-eightseconds.

For every kid adopted in the US, more than five children need foster homes (AFCARS, 2020). Usually, more children enter than exit the foster care system, and their stay could vary from a few months to years. Clearly, there is a constant need for more foster homes. The system needs adults willing to go through months of hurdles to get approved, to take kids who have suffered from immeasurable trauma, families willing to provide a safe place for as long as that child needs it.

Every kid deserves a loving and safe place, from one day to forever, and my wish is every one of those children waiting to be adopted finds their forever home. So why not just adopt?

I confess I go back and forth with this question, and its a constant struggle. But understanding how large the need for foster homes is, Steve and I decided we wanted to foster so we can impact as many kids as possible. Maybe one day we will end up being that forever home for a child. For now, though, we just want to foster.

And since the plan for more than half of the children is to return to their biological family (AFCARS, 2020), for a significant number of them, the road ahead may still be challenging. If Steve and I, as foster parents, do our jobs right, we will have given the children in our care some new tools for their next phase, and ideally, we would be in their lives as a resource, as their extended family.

Yet my calling has affected my biological kids, and Ive come to the difficult realization we need to carefully consider the effects fostering has on our permanent children (bio, step, adoptive), and how critical it is to hear and represent their voices, often forgotten.

A report by the National Conference of State Legislators, estimates that 30 to 50 percent of foster parents quit in the first year, citing lack of support as one of the main causes. In my experience, one aspect in which we lack support is around the permanent childrens needs. I wonder if this is true for many foster families and one of their attrition causes.

People have divergent views regarding foster families with permanent kids while fostering. Some people Ive interviewed think the foster child benefits from having a dedicated environment, without permanent children in the home, and the foster kid will not feel fully accepted in a house with biological children. Others believe having children in the home will provide a new perspective and show what a healthy relationship with adults could be. It could mean safety and healing in a different way. It could alleviate some of the trauma that comes from being suddenly removed from everything you know and being placed in a home with strangers.