Who should be a foster parent?

For starters, a foster parent needs to be open to understanding lifestyles other than his own. Most of the the children who are in the government's custody come from lifestyles entirely different from the foster parent's. A foster parent can't flinch when a child is horribly mistreated because, oddly enough, the child may still love the one who inflicted the pain. It's a difficult position. Foster parents often become quite cynical.

A foster parent needs to be willing to learn about things like child sex abuse because nearly all child in care have suffered from some form of this. He needs to be willing to help teach a child social skills because this is typically lacking in a child in substitute care. Most importantly, he needs to be willing to "be there" for a child who may neither understand nor appreciate what the foster parent attempted.

Foster parents, the good ones, are angels of mercy, love, and tenderness. Some focus on babies, some on older boys, and some on sibling groups. Unfortunately, the system is set up so that the strengths of the foster parent are often not used due to the desperation of a caseworker. When a child needs to be placed he usually goes where there is a place and not always where the best fit is.

Most foster parents are not doing this for the money. That is a sore point with many foster parents, but the system is set up so that foster parents "volunteer" much of their time. It is sad that we are a society that needs to have this system of out-of-home care in place.