Getting “Too Attached”

When I first started letting people know I was going to be a foster parent, the announcement was almost alway met with the same question. “Aren’t you afraid of getting too attached?”

Too attached… what does that mean, exactly? I don’t think it means what we think it does. The fear of getting “too attached” is not about the fear of loving someone too much, but fearing the loss we might experience down the road. My answer to that is that foster care isn’t about me or my heart – it’s about the kids.

Foster care is not about creating a family for myself, but about providing a family and home for a kid who needs it. Foster care is not about setting up a home that protects my own heart, but about being vulnerable enough to help teach a kid that it is okay for their heart to love and be loved. Foster care isn’t even about being a good person and showing off to others, but about knowing there is a need – a desperate need – for someone to experience safety and love and deciding that I can’t look away from or ignore that need in an effort to protect myself.

When I hear that question, “Aren’t you afraid of getting too attached?,” it makes me want to ask questions of my own. How does living in fear help show kids love? How does living in fear allow a person to ever connect with another human being or experience being loved themselves? How does living in fear help you live your best life or a life open to the joy available to us every day? The short answer: it doesn’t.

If you think you can’t foster because you would get too attached, then I have news for you – that would make you a great foster parent. Kids need people in their life who are willing to love them with their whole beings without strings attached, without the conditions of permanency or good behavior or that love being returned. Kids need to know there is someone in their corner fighting for them, willing to go to the mat for them and help them face the challenges in the world. Kids need to know that they are worthy of love exactly as they are, and that is what happens when we get “too attached” – we show them love.

Sometimes, I feel like Nehemiah rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem, refusing to come down or pause the work he is doing for a second because it is just that important. To me, that is my life as an ESH mom. This work is just too important to allow myself the luxury of staying unattached. These babies are too important to ignore even if it means I don’t get to keep my heart safely wrapped up. These kids are too important to allow them to stay in a group home or a social services office instead of offering them a place to lay their head down in my home own.

So I will continue doing this work and getting “too attached.” I will choose again and again to love these babies placed in my home and in my arms, no matter the grief I will have to face in the future when they leave. Because the hearts of these babies desperately need someone who is willing to get attached to them right now.

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And while it may be easy to talk about the cost of getting too attached, there are so many more joys. Getting too attached means I get the chance to laugh and watch a baby’s face light up with their first smile. Getting too attached means I get to celebrate milestones and birthdays and achievements of my babies, even after they leave my care and grow up in another home. Getting too attached means I get come home at the end of the day and feel my weary and burdened heart find joy in the warm snuggles and complete trust of a baby who falls asleep in my arms. Getting too attached means I get the see the miracle of a human being learning they are loved, someone is there to meet their needs, and they are not alone.

Foster care isn’t about me, it’s about these babies, each and every time. But that doesn’t mean I lose myself in this process or sacrifice my heart in an effort to give my kids the world. Getting too attached doesn’t mean only suffering and trials and tears; it means getting to experience all the good in someone else’s life as well. I can only hope that there are people in your life that you can get too attached to, just like me. I can only that you will choose love over fear when you are faced with the question: Will you get too attached?