I continue to look with such admiration at our MetaCometa families, whose ability to provide their time, their hearts, their homes, in short, the putting everything on the line, to give serenity, love and a safe place for a stretch of life to those children who need it, has always fascinated me. Why do they do it?
– Why did you choose to foster care? This is the question that every trainer asks at the beginning of a journey to prepare for the foster care experience. Among the reasons that most frequently prompt people to choose foster care, the main ones revolve around the desire to “help children and youth grow,” “giving them a bond” and “contributing to making society better.” Some parents assert that they have been thinking about it for some time, some refer to their family of origin and childhood, and for others it is one of the fruits of the newly created couple. And while some families say they have matured the choice with awareness others conclude that choices in life are made with a “dash of unconsciousness.”
It is not easy to summarize the motivations of the foster care experience. One cannot make a definite list and there is no list of answers in which to find one’s motivation or the standard feeling in which to recognize oneself. There are so many variables of heart and reason, of gratuitousness and challenge. of altruism and social responsibility that any argument can find reason to exist.
So I try to give my answer–and I do so by listing, in no particular order of importance, the top 5 factors that, by a nose-pick, prompted me and my family to open the doors of our home to welcoming.
1. You do this because by helping another you enrich your life and the family you have formed with full meaning.
For my wife and me, fostering was a possibility, an answer to the question “why did God bring us together, wanted us as husband and wife, gave us children…?” Foster care was a life choice that always came back, as an idea, as an opportunity to open up to others. The more you delved into it, the more we looked for information or testimonies from those who had already done it, the more life brought you back there. And eventually we started.”
The public often views foster care as an “exceptional” experience for superhero parents. Instead, it is a possible experience for any “healthy” and generous family.
It happens that after a public testimony you are complimented and shown esteem and admiration. This on the one hand is encouraging, but I assure you, we are a family like any other and we are neither endowed with special powers nor devoted to sacrifice … and we would like to tell everyone that foster care is an experience that many families can have.
2. You do it for you, because by helping someone you grow and mature YOU!
From each reception we have experienced over the years, we have come out stronger. Sometimes sore or bitter but more aware and grown, even as a family. Fostering is a maturing experience for everyone. And there is certainly no need for foster carers to be perfect but for them to live a ‘positive’ version of family: a place where there is respect, where there are, in short, the conditions for growing together, all!
3. You do this because foster care although temporary is “a gift forever”
– But how do you let go, do you not become attached? Of course you get attached, you involve in the experience what is most dear and precious to you, your heart, your affections, your life. But attachments, the real and deep ones, are “forever!” When a child or young person experiences the benefits of a warm and nurturing bond, this positivity does not diminish the moment the foster care relationship ends. That child will also become a better man because of the indelible positive contribution given to him by the foster caregivers.
4. You do it for your biological children
Some may ask, but what are your children thinking? How have they experienced the field invasion of their space and affections?
I must say that we have often put them to the test. And yet so far they don’t hate us.
They too have struggled, and continue to struggle. But they grew up with respect for others’ difficulties, the joy of having helped others, and learning that everything is not taken for granted and due.
I think, also, that if a natural child can have a good foster care experience, maybe it’s one of the best experiences that can happen to him in life, if he can accept that someone else will take something away from him, he can think about himself and understand that he had something more, that his life is full of so many riches, parents included, that he has to learn to look at and appreciate
5. You do this because from experience you learn that “to raise a child you need a village”!
That educating and raising a child is a beautiful, exhausting team effort. That the foster care experience teaches you that parents must trust the network that is built around the development of a child’s life project. You learn that together is better…You learn that the school, the services, the associations, the parish (for the foster child also the social worker, the judge, the psychologist…) are your great allies in raising and educating a child.
These are the top 5 motivations that may have moved my person to experience foster care… I would add a closing slogan…
WHY FRIENDSHIP? because it is a profound gesture of JUSTICE and because YOU DO GOOD WITH IT.
