Are You My Mentor? Searching for a Foster Mom
By: Kendal Keyes
Tags: Adoption, Mentorship, Foster Care System, Infertility, Foster Care

Last January, I thought I had finally found my mentor. The rain that weekend was relentless, as it can often be in Seattle, but that afternoon I found it strangely comforting. Earlier that day our training was interrupted by a teenage runaway seeking refuge at the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), the only place she knew to go. So now, in the final hours of the Caregiver Core Training — a four-day course for prospective foster parents — I felt as though I had experienced something real. The rain was like a curtain protecting us from the outside world, and something special was happening, or about to happen, here.

Until that point, the training had felt like rehab. My ailment was the inability to procreate, and the prescription was this parenting course. But after two consecutive weekends at the Caregiver Core Training, my husband and I were actually looking forward to this final session, a panel of foster parents that would answer our tactical questions. Questions such as: Which agency did you use? How do you navigate family visitation? And, my most burning question: What do your foster kids call you? The panelists seemed to be longtime friends. As they settled into their seats at the front of the room it was as if Jesus himself was smiling upon us, about to open our minds and impart a profound understanding of our place in the world as people divinely called to care for orphans.

Melanie stood out from the other foster parents. She wore slightly grunge, Euro-fabulous booties beneath delicately ripped skinny jeans and a printed tee shirt, and she was happy. She exuded the confidence of a senior Resident Advisor on freshman move-in day, thrilled to be with her friends and smug with the knowledge of the hard-earned education my classmates and I were about to receive. Melanie was ten — no more than fifteen — years older than me. When I approached her after class, she was eager to share her experiences. Her confidence was contagious. I imagined she and I chatting for hours in her living room over a glass of wine. She would recount difficult experiences she had overcome, and maybe even learn a little something from me here and there. Her two adopted sons were notably absent from my fantasy; their dad had probably taken them to a movie or a baseball game.

The thing about fostering is that everyone comes to it with unique expectations and motivations, and I quickly learned that I am not the poster child for fostering in Washington State. The Caregiver Core class is hosted by the Alliance for Child Welfare, a nonprofit training organization that partners with the State. Our Alliance trainer had been a case worker in Pierce County for many years, and she had seen firsthand the devastation of children being removed from their parents. I was nervous, but prepared for her first question — Why do you want to do foster care? Alex and I gingerly explained our intent to pursue adoption, leaving out the devastation of the past two and half years of infertility. The shift in her demeanor was almost imperceptible, but my senses were heightened from being a mother-in-training. It was the same look I’d seen on the faces of girlfriends over the years at the mention of spending time with a mutual friend. Just a flash of the eyes and the slightest pitch raise in her voice that, in a split second, said: You were with Megan last weekend? Why didn’t you invite me? What are you aiming at? Alex didn’t recognize it at first, but as the training progressed, he began to notice it too. The State’s primary goal is reunification with birth parents, so our desire to adopt raised a few eyebrows. “Check your motivations” became a common refrain, always accompanied by a quick glance towards our table. I get it. In some ways, adoption means failure. Adoption represents an inability to reunify, and one less bed available for a foster child.

Our journey to foster care had been largely a thought experiment until that point, and the sacrifice of two coveted weekends felt significant. It was an absurd sentiment given that my typical weekend involves watching Netflix or searching for a patio and a pint. As I sat in that DSHS training room listening to the statistics about foster children in my own community, I couldn’t help but wonder if the internet was right about me and my Millennial peers. At 32 years old and ten years married, life had gone pretty much as planned until now, and I did feel entitled to my weekends. And I felt entitled to build a family in any way I pleased. And why hadn’t I heard about this foster care crisis before? Shouldn’t someone be recruiting me and my white, educated, dual-income friends?

The statistics around foster care are staggering. There are 10,000 children in foster care in Washington State at some point in any given year, but fewer than 5,000 licensed foster homes. (And not all 5,000 homes are available for new placements. Some homes are at capacity, or foster parents may be taking a break from care.) Obviously, not all children are matched with a home. Even fewer are matched with a home that is a healthy fit for their physical and emotional needs; that scenario would require 3.5 homes be available for every child in the system. Unmatched children live in group homes or spend nights in hotels. Between September 2018 and August 2019, 282 children in Washington spent a total of 1,514 nights in hotels.

If there is one thing we Millennials dislike its stereotypes, and I had become frustrated that I didn’t see myself reflected in the fostering community. The most vocal foster care advocates are suburban stay-at-home moms on Instagram, with years of suburban parenting experience, ample space in their suburban homes, and the undying support of their suburban megachurches. @thebowles_family in Ventura, California has had 33 placements and now have six children, five of whom are adopted through foster care. They look like they were plucked straight from the Sherwin-Williams “Sands of Time” chip. @mrs_routhier, who funded her adoptions selling hair bows, appears to have just added a fifth child to the family — this time through pregnancy! @findingjoyinrain recently added a fourth member to her family. She is a professed Lover of Jesus, Wife, and Foster/Bio Mom. A scroll through my Instagram has me wondering if people like me, people with office jobs and just one extra bedroom, simply don’t go down this path.

So, when I learned that Melanie had no biological children due to infertility, and had adopted two sons (with no plans for more) with the same agency Alex and I were considering, I thought I had found my person. She raved about the adoption agency. She commiserated over the ridiculous things people say to foster parents. I could never do that! Are you worried about getting too attached? We were delighted to find out she owned a real estate business — Alex had just gotten his real estate license! As we walked down the brick steps of DSHS towards our cars, I sealed the deal. I had a date with the coolest foster mom in town.

By the time I pulled into Melanie’s driveway three weeks later, late one Tuesday evening, the magic had already begun to fade. My daily commute feels akin to the pioneers’ 2,000 mile journey along the Oregon Trail. In the winter months, my day begins and ends in darkness. A 20-minute drive in my freezing car gives way to 45-minutes in a Vanpool for the duration. I fall in line on Interstate 5, reminding myself that the economic benefits at the end of the road will make this worth my while. At 5pm the journey is reversed, and I found myself in the weeks following the Caregiver Core Training wondering if my lifestyle left any room for a child. My millennial nature was reasserting itself, and I hoped Melanie would talk me down.

The scene at Melanie’s house was not as tidy as I imagined it would be. The house numbers were shrouded in the dark, so I was not at all certain I had arrived at the right home. A bonfire raged in the fenced front yard with a few people milling about, a strange sight in an urban environment. There was a moment of confusion before I ascertained that Melanie did indeed live here, but her relation to these pyromaniacs was still unclear. The man who gestured towards the front door was too young to be her spouse, and too old to be her son.

I entered the house directly into the kitchen where I came upon a teenager making a sandwich. I presumed this was Melanie’s older son. He looked up, startled, and we stared at each other for a moment. I asked if Melanie was home. The teenager indicated that she was, but offered no further assistance. He looked back to his sandwich. I forged ahead.

A child was watching television in the next room. For the past few months, I had been playing a game with myself, guessing the ages of children at the grocery store and coffee shop. My only point of reference was my friend’s four children, all conveniently spaced two years apart, making them reliable measuring devices. I pegged this boy as a Jade, probably 7 or 8 years old. He too was startled to see me, but much more obliging than the older kid. “Melanie is in her bedroom, you can go in!”

And there it was. Melanie is in her bedroom. Not “mom”, but Melanie. I had prepared for it, but I still felt the sudden threat of tears. I was sad for myself, knowing my future child might not see me as their mother. I was sad for Melanie, because even after the adoption had finalized, she still was not “mom” to this boy. And I was sad for this kid, because he lived in a home without someone he knows as mom. That was the order of my sadness. The tears later would be tears of shame.

I hoped my relationship with Melanie would blossom into something like I had with my favorite university instructor. I was a wide-eyed freshman music major, away from home for the first time and crippled with stage fright. Joyce didn’t just listen to my E-Flat Major scale, she listened to me. She asked about my family and my previous teachers, and she noticed when the transfer student my sophomore year — a far better player than I — triggered fears of inadequacy. When I decided to pursue arts administration instead of performance, she connected me with an internship. Could such a relationship be replicated outside the pillowy ivory tower?

Hesitant to enter a stranger’s bedroom, I asked the TV-watching boy to tell Melanie I had arrived, and when she finally emerged, I relaxed a little. She greeted me warmly and led me back into the kitchen where she closed the pocket door and retrieved two wine glasses from the cabinet. The teenager and his sandwich were gone, but this still was not an ideal setting for our heart to heart. We stood at the small island, since there were no chairs. I could see the pyro through the window (he turned out to be Melanie’s nephew) and I wondered if the kids were within earshot. Looking back, I realize I expected Melanie to be more than she could be. Maybe what I really wanted was not a mentor, but a model. The perfect adoption story. I cared less about her experience, and more about finding something appealing to imitate. Proof that a specific brand of happiness after adoption is possible.

Melanie’s husband had left her two weeks prior, just months after their adoptions were finalized. As she corked the wine the floodgates opened and I heard about the past few days, weeks, months, years of desperation for a child, and the years of dishonesty and abuse. She believed adoption had destroyed her marriage, that she had given everything to her sons — to the process — and neglected her spouse. Though the love for her boys was evident, the force of gravity in her world had become greater than her strength to hold it all together. I was not trained for this sort of encounter. The weight was unbearable, and I wanted to leave her too.

I realized the woman I met at the Caregiver Core Training was an imposter. Her love for her children was real, I think, but the untruth was that motherly love reconciled everything that came before. Melanie and I did not choose foster care because of a passion for children or a “tugging of the heartstrings”. This is the reason I have trouble looking people in the eye when they commend me for doing something so amazing. I wondered how many of those Instagram moms are imposters too. Melanie thought she wanted to be my mentor. It’s a phenomenon I have experienced again and again in the fostering community. Even amid a firestorm, she wanted, needed, to believe she was helping me. Foster and adoptive parents have experienced something life-changing, and they want to have you for lunch and send texts of generic encouragement. They want to tell you their version of how it went, their experience with the agency, the state, the case workers, CPS, the courts, the child with sexually aggressive behavior, the bio parent who is off the rails, that time their daughter gave them a black eye. Perhaps it is a form of therapy, and I do not fault them for that. I will keep searching for my foster mom.