I was emotional after court, trying to stay calm for my foster son while advocating for him because the system wasn’t helping.
Court is an intimidating experience, especially as a fledgling foster parent. Danny was our very first placement, and when I had stood for the first time a few months earlier in the middle of a wood-panelled room filled with attorneys, a robed judge, Danny’s birth parents, and numerous county representatives, I felt so small.
I am bold by nature and an educated woman, but I was out of my element here. I generally try to avoid any kind of action that would place me in front of a judge. And now, because of my advocacy, I had been summoned back. Summoned.
As fate would have it, our juvenile judge to whom I had written had called out sick that day and another judge ruled in his place. He had skimmed my letter, he said. He told me Guardian ad Litems were hard to come by in our region. And then he confirmed what I had already suspected was a sentiment in our county: the judge told me I essentially had no rights as a foster parent in the courtroom and Danny’s court representation would stay as-is.
In less than 5 minutes, Danny, his birth parents, and I were ushered out the heavy doors with ‘justice’ in hand. As I drove Danny back to school, I was overwhelmed by how powerless I felt. I had taken this issue to the most powerful voice in our county’s foster care system, and my concerns were minimized and dismissed. The professional paid to advocate in Danny’s best interest was consistently failing him and no. One. Cared. I had tried to appeal to our bureaucracy and legal system to uphold Danny’s rights, and I had come up empty-handed.
But if there is one thing, I know about myself, it’s I am not one who, when faced with adversity or injustice, shrugs my shoulders and attends to easier tasks. This inner fire is what had driven me to become a foster parent in the first place my husband and I decided we would use our home and resources to care for some of our community’s most vulnerable children, to protect them, love them, and support their families in their restoration in whatever way we could. This experience fanned this flame a little brighter.
Seeing the gaps in the child welfare system, I pursued a Ph.D. in Public Administration to not just help children like Danny, but to change the system itself.
If someone had told me 10 years ago that I perfectionist, overachiever, Type A, planner would transform my life into a rollercoaster of heartbreak and healing, unpredictability, and a complete lack of control, I would have laughed out loud.
A piece of my heart left when Danny returned to his mother after 8 months in my home, and I simultaneously feel overwhelmed with joy when she updates me (still!) of his progress at school, recounts his wins on the football field, and sends me pictures of him with a gaping smile where a baby tooth once was.
She is one of the strongest people I know, and she has built a beautiful life with him. I sit in the tension of losing a child I loved with all my heart and the absolute gift of seeing him return to the woman who gave him life and loves him in a way I never could. I am learning to not be afraid of grief, but to embrace it and all its facets as a part of this messy life as a foster parent.
I am also noticing my desire to be liked is fading in comparison to my desire to bring change. When you are advocating for children, when you are trying to Mold a system into something better than it was, you will inevitably come up against people who want to maintain the status quo. You can be a world changer or a people pleaser, but you can rarely be both.
You may have to stand in front of people with far more power than you, with a voice that shakes, and say what needs to be said. I have found the key to accessing that courage is remembering your ‘why.’ I keep Danny’s pictures nearby. He is happy and home, but his pictures remind me 445,000 children in our nation’s foster care system still need people to fight for them and their families.
In November 2020, amidst chaos and change, an unexpected foster placement because our son forever, bringing life changing joy and love.
