“We don’t
really consider him to be a part of your family.” When my daughter heard those words recently, referring
to the foster child who has lived with us for 2 ½ years, she wept
bitterly. And why wouldn’t she? She, herself, had once been a part of the
foster care system before she had been, by God’s grace and providence, adopted
into our family.1 What
message was this respected adult now communicating to her? “The only reason we consider you a part of a family now is because a
judge signed a document and declared you to be.
Before that day, it didn’t really count.
You didn’t really belong.”
My heart
aches and I can’t help but cringe when I hear people, even upright, God-fearing
people make comments like that. You know
that feeling when someone makes an unexpected remark, and you have the perfect
response? Three days later? Here’s what I wish I would had the clarity to
articulate at the time: If we aren’t “really”
his family, then who is? The mother who rarely
showed up all those months of his infancy that he spent in the hospital, and
who hasn’t seen him at all in almost two years?
The grandmother who will only agree to fill that role if she is
financially compensated to do so? It’s
not his fault that he was born into a
family who were unable to care for him, only to then be stuck in a flawed
system that continues to delay making a permanent decision about his
future. He didn’t ask to be raised in
these circumstances, with the title of “foster child” perpetually hanging
around his neck.
And if all
the things that mothers do for their child – getting up with him when he’s
struggling to breathe in the middle of the night; snuggling with a well-loved
book after a bubbly bath and a creamy massage; teaching him the proper way to
hold a fork and insisting that he eat his peas before getting dessert; training
him to pick up his toys at the end of play-time; hearing the little voice
declare, “I love you, Mama!” as I’m preparing his favorite snack – if doing
those things don’t qualify me to “really” be his mother, then what does?
