Religious Foster Parents

"I once had religious foster parents"

Many of the adults doing foster care are religious in some way.

It occurs to them that helping children, removed from their biohomes, is a charitable thing to do.

Some are happy to do it and do it for a long time.

Sadly though, some adults are just in it for the payments or the applause they receive for doing it.

Some adults treat foster care like rescuing puppies but send the kids back when things get tough.

And things will get tough for a couple of reasons, from what I have read.

Those in foster care have a tougher time succeeding as young adults than family-latched kids.

Now I have never been in foster care, nor have I ever been a foster parent,

but I grew up next to a foster family who kept the same set of sisters for about ten years.

I rode the school bus with Kathy and Crystal, and we played together often, as my dad and neighbor Ernie (the foster dad) were good friends.

Many kids in foster care, if they are typical kids, want to believe their bioparents are basically good,

and resent being pulled out of their biohomes.

Even if they left home when very young, when they realize why they are in foster care,

they will likely resent being pulled out of their biohomes.

All kids want to believe their bioparents are good, and foster care says otherwise.

Foster care, as a social institution, quietly but forcefully debates the worthiness of their parents.

Next, some foster parents feel it is their duty to get the child 'right with God'.

Not true.

It is every parent's obligation to introduce their children, bio, adopted or foster, to God.

The children will then decide what to do about God, according to their free will.

Some kids in foster care won't let anyone love them more than their bioparents loved them.

And if biodad was never there, how much can they ever be loved?

For some kids, the toughest part of foster care is being genuinely loved, as weird as it sounds.

And some kids work hard to turn their foster parents into carbon copies of their bioparents.

And this is one reason some kids in foster care have a problem with God.

God's purity would make their bioparents look really bad as humans. (God's purity makes every mere mortal look bad).

Also, for some silly reason, too many children think they can never be any better than their parents are as humans,

so they are doomed to fail, and to fail extravagantly.

THIS IS SO FALSE!!!

You can be a far better person than either of your parents.

Or you can choose to be worse than your parents.

and...

you can still love your parents in spite of all their flaws.

Perhaps you shouldn't imitate them, but you can still love them.

God loves you and God's love is better than the most-perfect parent's love.

And that makes you like all the other kids in the world.