The Emotional Rollercoaster of Foster Parenting

Becoming a parent, comes with a ton of decision making and planning, it’s not always an easy process. Some are blessed and able to raise their very own biological children, and others make the unique decision to foster or adopt children which they did not carry in the womb. Through the process of fostering children comes much stress, temporary care, and a consistent feeling of a 24-hour surveillance on you.
According to Miller-Perrin and Perrin, foster parenting can be difficult and emotionally draining (p.342). As a foster parent, you will be affected in many different areas of your life, including your family. As the Foster Panel Presentation informed us in class, within the first 30 days of bringing your child home, you must take him/her

One of these reasons, is the fact that becoming a foster parent means being willing to offer your home and heart to a child who will be with you only briefly (p.342). Though fostering children comes with bad and good experiences, Carol says she wouldn’t want it any other way. During the Foster Care Panel, Carol shared her experience fostering her daughter Tammy. After a very long journey of opening her home to Tammy and raising a new child, Carol lost Tammy to Cancer. Though not all foster stories turn out this way, it becomes clear how hard it can be to temporarily love another child knowing that any day they could leave your home. Though through many interventions, parents have slowly found a way to being able to manage the temporary care of the children they bring

Another issue that comes with being a foster parent, is you are on call 24-hours a day, seven days a week (p.344). The safety and prosperity of the foster children will be a constant priority. If you are caught doing any small thing wrong, even if you thought you were doing the right thing, the children will be immediately removed from your home until you are cleared. Not only does this cause stress, but as a parent, it makes you feel like you’re not good enough, stated Carol. It’s hard enough as it is to raise a biological child and have a family, imagine what it’s like to try and live a normal life with someone consistently looking over your shoulder. The smallest things like speaking to your child, and kissing them goodnight, can be taken the wrong way.
Though becoming a foster parent is of much need today in many counties, only few parents are truly fit for the job. It requires everything you would give to your birth child, only a lot more and a lot faster. Though there are many failures that come with raising a foster child, it is that one reward that will always keep you going. With the many new interventions that have come about today, impossible is