When reviewing what I have written in the past, I find it sometimes catches me off guard and I can't believe I was so transparent. Not a bad thing, I suppose, just startling.
Things the social worker
taught me:
·
Foster children do not trust easily.
Patience is a must.
·
The stipend won’t cover the cost of
keeping the child, you will not become rich as a foster parent.
·
You will cry when some children leave,
dance when others go.
·
Give it time.
Things the social worker
never taught me:
·
Children don’t remain strangers for long.
They grab your heart very quickly.
·
Foster parents are often thought of as
“bad guys.”
·
A child needs you to say “I love you,”
until it is true.
·
Just about the time you have bonded with a
child, they will be moved.
·
It doesn’t matter if you know a child
better than anyone else, no one will listen to your opinion of what is best for
them.
·
The state will not pay for a casket upgrade.
You are not allowed to pay for a casket upgrade. You have no say as to where
that child will be laid to rest. Sometimes it is on the rocks of a lonely
Island in the Bering Strait. Some people will not understand your grief, after all,
he was only a foster child.
·
There will come a time when a child goes
and you know that if you give one more child away, your heart will be
irrevocably broken. You have said goodbye for the last time.
