My daughter met a new friend last year towards the end of the school year in the after school program offered there. Both me and my daughters’ new found friend mom was busy all summer so we could not get the girls together at all. This school year came around and the girls reconnected again and my daughter was invited over for a play date. Of course I needed to get better acquainted with my daughters’ friend before I felt comfortable with her to be left alone over their house. We drove over to her friend’s house and the neighborhood was a beautiful neighborhood in fact one of the sought after neighborhoods in the area. The home was a large brick home and was very maintained and nicely decorated inside. The home was simply perfect complete with a theatre and all. She must be doing really real for herself I thought.
After meeting with my daughters’ friend I quickly gathered that she was okay to go off and play as I talked with her mom. We left the girls to play and she began to tell me how excited she was that my daughter was over. She began to tell me that her daughter didn’t have many friends and she was glad to know that she had found one in Brianna. She began to tell me about how her daughter since she was a little girl has always been a little different and quieter than most kids so it was hard to for her to make friends. I listened to her as she talked and couldn’t help but notice how well spoken she was. She spoke with such clear diction and her tone was soft, soothing, and calm. She told me about her daughter’s and their accomplishments but not in a boastful way. She then asked me about the things my daughter likes and how she felt about the school they went to.
I told her my daughter had just started school there not too long ago but she liked it. I told her that I am still trying to figure my daughters interest. I then told her that we adopted my daughter when she was nine years old and she is learning herself at this point and finding what she likes and doesn’t like. I told her that she just loves being around her mom and dad, we are her hobby! She started to smile at me as her eyes filled up with tears. She then told me that she was foster care since she was six along with her siblings, only one of them got adopted. She told me that it is so wonderful to know that I adopted my daughter at her age because most people don’t want older kids let along eight of them. She told me you know how much it means to know that you are wanted and that someone chose you! She said I always knew that while I had a fairly nice foster family I wasn’t theirs and they did not want me.
She fought back tears and said, the first time someone looked me in the eyes and told me they loved me I was 15 years old. Do you know how that felt to know that she asked? That meant the world to her. She never got adopted and aged out of foster care at eighteen. She said that she had to go to college because that was the only choice; the only way to know that she would have a roof over her head. She is now a public speaker and has written several books, one would call her successful. But I know different; from the outside she is a feel good story of rags to riches but from the inside the lasting effects of foster care still runs deep. If you are a foster parent please don’t just foster but instead be a parent and let these kids know that they have worth. Let them know that they are special and most important let them know that they are loved after all you could be the only one that ever tells them that!
