Paul Sharry, the speaker, described his fostering experience.
20 years ago, he and his wife got the chance to foster children, they just want to foster since adopt is way more complex than it. He described fostering as “temporary housing” for those children. When they fostered one child, they need to go through the “vetting process” and an interview to make sure that the fostering parents won’t hurt the fostered child.
Their first fostered child’s name is David, his mom is a drug addict, so his parents can’t take care of him well, which is why he ended up here. Every Friday night, the office will call Sharry to ask “How’s your fostered child doing?” to make sure that the “family” as well.
David is different, he likes to steal things, from everywhere, when he got a present from Sharry’s family, he is surprised that he can actually own something.
He fostered David for 11 months, and David is turning from 6 to 7 years old. When David left, he was very worried, fortunately, David was assigned to another family which is a friend of Sharry’s. Sharry saw David again when he was 17 years old, and that time, Sharry already had his own kids. He felt relieved when seeing David again in 10 years.
He believes that there is no such thing as “perfect parents”, he thinks that even the worst parents can be good at taking care of children.
Then we asked if he ever fostered any other child, and he said yes, he has fostered several other children, however, most of them are more challenging than David, one of them has seen his own mother killed his brother.
We also asked that we know that some of the parents take the fostering money (the amount of money the organization/government give to the fostering parent to take care of the fostered child) and spend it not on the fostered child but themselves. Sharry said that they only receive 60 dollars a week which is not that much, and it’s “impossible” to take the money since there are plenty of “vetting” processes (checking on the fostering parents).
They stopped fostering children when he moved to the middle east, however, he said that if he has the chance, he will still foster kids.
This story touched me a lot. It let me realized that not all children are as happy as I am. And I felt great sympathy to those kids being fostered as there must be some stories behind them.
I was expecting this story to be about how he educates his fostered child, but I came to learn that it’s about his life story when fostering children.
#Writer’sFortnight