There are lot of things that don’t go my was as an ESH mom, and sometimes that reality is really hard to accept. This last week especially has been hard since my last baby left so unexpectedly, and I have been wrestling with what I actually think success is for me as an ESH mom.
Since the beginning of my time as a foster mom, my definition of success has changed and developed, but I have come to realize there are a lot of things that do NOT define my success as an ESH mom.
My success as an ESH mom is NOT defined by the number of babies who come into my home. I cannot feel more or less successful depending on if I have a high or low number of placements each year. Some babies stay for a short time and some stay for longer, but I do not get to decide how long they stay or even when I will get a call to bring a new baby home.
My success as an ESH mom is NOT defined by having the county’s social workers know and like me. While it certainly helps to know more social workers and it is a good thing to have the positive interactions with the countless number of social workers that come with foster care, I cannot define my success as being known by the county as a great ESH placement.
My success as an ESH mom is NOT defined by how many of my babies reunify with their birth parents, even though that is the goal of foster care. I can certainly work towards reunification with every placement I have and can celebrate with birth parents when that happens, but the outcome of a placement cannot be what I define success by.
My success as an ESH mom can also NOT be defined by how many birth parents like me or how great of an advocate I am for the birth parents. With every baby, I do my best to develop a positive relationship with their birth parents, but just like reunification, I cannot control how the birth parents choose to react to me.
My success as an ESH mom is NOT defined by how many of my babies I get to stay in touch with. It is one of my greatest joys when parents choose to keep me in their babies’ lives (whether the babies went back to birth parents, long-term foster care, or foster-adoptive parents). It is also always my prayer and hope that I can stay in my babies’ lives or at least get updates on how they are doing. But just like so many other aspects of foster care, I cannot control this, and so I cannot define my success by it.
So how can I define success as a foster parent? On my own, I could only come up with ideas of what success should not be defined by. Luckily for me, there are people a lot wiser than I am and they choose to share their wisdom by writing books. I had the pleasure of reading Jason Johnson’s book “Reframing Foster Care,” and he defines success perfectly.
Your “success” as a foster parent is not measured by your capacity to keep everything in order by but your ability to trust that even in the chaos Jesus is true and constant and near and beautiful.
Jason Johnson, “Reframing Foster Care”
Success as a foster parent cannot be measured by outcomes or ability – success means continuing to say yes to those phone calls from the county. Success means showing up, day after day, and keeping the hope that good things are coming from my efforts to love babies and their families. Success means embracing the chaos of ESH placements and focusing on love, not order.
For me, success as an ESH mom means waking up each day secure in the knowledge that love will win in the end. It may not look pretty or be easy or seem possible right now, but it is not my job to ensure all those things. My role is to continue to say yes, to continue to love, and to not give up on hope. Everything else is not up to me.
ESH Mom Life 