We Are Not Heroes

Anytime someone hears the story of our youngest and how we adopted her out of foster care, we hear it. ”You two are heroes!”, ”Wow! You two saved her life!”, ”I could never do that!” We are not heroes, saving her life is up for debate depending on the day, and yes you could.

Being Polite

I understand what people are saying because not everyone goes out and adopts a child out of foster care, especially an older one, but it doesn’t really help us to hear it. At first those types of comments didn’t bother me, and I usually would just respond with a thank you or some other polite response. Now though, it just bothers me.

Missing So Much

Being an adoptive parent of a child who was in foster care for five year is for sure not an easy task. Especially when you missed out on all of the formative years where there was so much she should have learned. Well, she did learn things, but not really the things you would hope she would have learned. There wasn’t any respect, responsibility, family roles, social expectations, or manners taught at all.

Teaching

Trying to teach all of these things to a preteen who already thinks she knows everything because she knows more about certain things that she shouldn’t know about was exhausting. Then continuing to try to teach them while she became a teenager and now a legal adult has been not only exhausting, but heart-wrenching.

Milestone Moment and Fear

My husband and I have been able to get her to the point that she has graduated high school, been accepted into a great university, gotten an amazing scholarship, and even made the color guard team! We should be so excited, right? To a certain extent we are. I mean, of course we want all of that for her and want her to have fun and go to college like all of the other kids her age and be extremely successful! That’s what ALL parents want for their kids. Our biggest fear though is that the stress will be too much and she will end up defeated. Our greatest struggle has been to instill what many now refer to as a growth mindset. She is SO smart and capable, but she seems to get in her own way most of the time.

Realizing We Are Not Alone

Throughout this entire journey, we have not had many people around us who were ”in the same boat”. Sure, we have friends whose child is the same age, but they were not really dealing with the same set of circumstances. Last week, I attended a scholarship award luncheon for our daughter. The entire room was full of other children who had been in some capacity in the foster care system and their families. One of the other mothers and I spoke a little bit about our girls and then connected on Facebook. When I shared a bit with her about our concerns and worries, she expressed how she was dealing with the same issues. It was so nice to not hear one of those lines I normally hear, and to just hear how someone else gets it and is dealing with that too.

What’s the Point?

For non-adoptive parents: We are not heroes for taking in a child who needed a home. I would hope that you would do the same thing because you could do it. Yes, it is difficult and some days, just downright heartbreaking, but if you ask any parent who has had a difficult biological child, I have a feeling they would tell you that it was worth it. Like I always tell my kids, anything in life that is really worth it is difficult at some point.

For my adoptive/foster parents: YOU ARE NOT ALONE!! Find someone else or a group somewhere that are going through the same things. This job is so difficult and I can tell you that there are many days and sometimes weeks/months were I have felt like I have completely failed, but hearing that there are other people who are dealing with the exact same things helps a lot. Keep your head up because Brighter Days are coming.