I've worked in the Foster Care system for over 10 years and have now decided to become a foster parent. When I worked in the system I saw amazing foster parents but I saw too many who were there to adopt. I always worried about the "Fos-Adopt" homes because they had an agenda to see through the lens of "I want this child to stay with me" which is not what foster care is about. I listened to Episode 6 and started Episode 7 and had to stop because of typical statements I've heard from other fos-adopt parents. "The birth mom held the baby too much which caused all sort of neurological problems." Very judgmental statements about birth families are not helpful. (Although, that's a new one, I usually hear "They never held the baby enough and kept him in a bouncy chair/car seat all the time." And yet this podcaster couldn't understand why he was getting 'push back' from the birth mom. It's because even if you haven't acknowledged it, your agenda is to keep this baby and making it more difficult for the birth mom to complete her plan to reunify. Podcaster also said: "It's going to be so hard to let the baby go back home." You've had this child maybe 1-2 months. Can you imagine how the birth mother feels? She loved that child through pregnancy (9 months), birth (trauma and hormones galore) and held that child to her body until he was removed from her. And YOU'RE going to feel bad? I don't hear the empathy with the birth mother in these podcasts. It simply breaks my heart.
I will continue to listen because I want to know what happens to this family. I'm hoping I'll hear growth in the podcaster's mindset. Most likely, the child will not be reunified with the mother. Most children with addicted mothers don't get their young children returned because recovery takes years, which the child does not have. Child deserves permanency. But the child also deserves foster parents who value the birth family because he comes from them. I pray God puts love in this podcaster's heart for the entire family in need, not just the children.
