I wrote my last blog post on community comments that hit me wrong, that I dislike hearing from others when it comes to my fostering journey. So it just makes sense that I would follow that up with my favorite comments (or hoped-for comments) about fostering.
“How can I support you?”
I know that not everyone can or should foster, but every can still be involved in supporting children in foster care. One of the ways to do that is to support foster families! Offer tangible help, like coming over to fold a load of laundry, sweep the floor, or wash dishes. Offer to bring them coffee or send them a gift care to Starbucks or DashDash so they can get themselves a treat.
Asking how you can help is so much more helpful than saying you could never foster. We get that you might admire what we do as foster parents, but we don’t want to be put on a pedastal.
“You are so lucky to love on these babies.”
I hear all the time, “These babies are so lucky to have you!” But the truth is, they are not lucky to have been through trauma and been torn away from their first parents. No child is lucky to be in foster care.
I get that people want to affirm that foster parents are doing a good job, but saying they have the best mom or are the luckiest kid belittles what they have been through and the loss of their first parents.
“You are a great mom, even if you get it wrong sometimes.”
I have a great community around me who wants to support me. But affirming that I can get things wrong and still be good is much better than a blanket statement of me being the “best” mom.
Again, that feels like putting foster parents up on a pedestal or comparing them to their birth parents, and that makes me so uncomfortable. It makes me want to sit there and educate y’all on the good things I have seen from birth parents, but we don’t have enough time for that in casual conversations.
“What a beautiful family you have!”
This is so much better than asking what ethnicity a child is. Children of color are overrepresented in foster care because of people’s implicit and explicit biases, and when someone sees more children of color in foster care, it’s too easy to lean on confirmation bias to see something that isn’t there. (Namely, that parents of color are worse parents than white parents.)
But it’s okay to acknowledge that a child may or may not look like me, as long as it is done in a loving and affirming way. Saying that we look like a beautiful family acknowledges that family doesn’t necessarily look one specific way.
“I can see how much you love all your children.”
I hate being asked how many children I have. So far, I have had 35 children placed with me, and I consider every single of those to be my babies. I will continue to think of these babies as my babies no matter how long or short a time I got to spend with them.
Do not ask, “How many are your real children?” If you ask that, chances are you’ll get a snarky comment from me or another foster parent along the lines of, “None of my children are imaginary.”
Finally, if you aren’t sure how to ask something or how to refer to a child, ask the foster parent! Or look for more blog posts about how you can support foster parents or what you should say to them. Educating yourself on a topic shows just how much you care.
ESH Mom Life 