Post written on May 27 2020, posting retrospectively

Part 1: “Why?”

There has been something going on in the background of my life. Something I hadn’t really talked about with many people. Something I have been quietly taking steps towards while not feeling fully assured of where it was leading. I decided last year to begin to take concrete action towards becoming a foster carer, thinking maybe someday way off in the future that might become a reality…and now the reality is upon my doorstep…. and it seems…. $*^& is getting real!

I thought it would be interesting to document how this desire has taken form, the physical steps and processes to undertake in my local area which probably applies to many Australian regions, and the emotions and beliefs I continue to uncover in myself that require examination and releasing if I am to move forward. My thinking is that this may be useful for anyone with a similar desire who wants to embark on the road to foster caring.

The “Why”

I have been asked numerous times about my “why” as I have had interview after interview with my foster care assessor. To be honest when I realised my initial “why” was insincere, I lost sight of the desire all together half way through the process. My initial “why do you want to be a foster carer?” went something like this:

‘I want to serve the most vulnerable members of my community’

But hold your horses and the shining armour, …I began to realise emotionally a few months ago that my attitude towards service contains many corruptions; a house built on sand. How can this be? I’ve always engaged in service “roles” – nursing, teaching, disability support etc. Isn’t that a display of a true desire to serve? Well… not necessarily. It all depends on the intention and motivation behind the actions.

I was a pretty unhappy young person. It didn’t take much scratching of the surface of my façade to find that I was quite deeply miserable in my life throughout my teens and early twenties. I felt constantly lonely, lost and insecure with my place in the world. I was going to greater and greater lengths to push down the growing pile of pain inside my soul that I wanted to desperately avoid. At age 21 I was in a façade-based and destructive relationship and studying a random degree that I was not much interested in. I had no sense of self or what my own heart’s desires might be.

I remember vividly waking up one morning with a decision propelling me upright: “I’m going to be a nurse!” A nurse? This was a new and unexpected turn of events. What I was not conscious of at the time, was that this decision was being driven to a certain extent by the desperate drive to feel loved, needed, wanted. To avoid feeling unloved. Think of the approval nurses get for dedicating their life to serve others, the value that is attributed to them by society. People love nurses. I wanted in on that.

I’m not saying that every ounce of my desire was impure. I think my soul is attracted to people and children in a real and true way (I was a paediatric nurse mostly), but there is a lot of unravelling of this less pretty stuff to do along the way back to discovering that true nature.

So fast forward 10 or so years and my life has been a patchwork quilt of different service type roles and studies, jobs and courses. With the help of friends who have been willing to be truthful with me along the way, I have begun to see that there is a real and tangible difference between doing something from a pure place of service and doing something to get a feeling back. I think from observation of others that pure service is the desire to give gifts (of time, resources, energy) without any expectation of receiving something (time, resources, energy) in return. When I have engaged in activities with the hope (demand) of getting some approval (“love”) type feeling back, I have simply been attempting to engage a bartering system. Under these conditions, if you don’t get the feeling you demand back, you’re unlikely to want to continue to give the gift or service, or you might get cranky about giving it.

So, a few months ago I started to see the truth of this, and feel some feelings about this. The feelings I encountered included:

• Feeling PISSED that doing service MY way wasn’t working. As in, I wasn’t actually getting loved or getting the outcome I wanted, anyway. I felt ANGRY about that but I didn’t want to give up trying. I felt ANGRY that it seemed to work for other, “more loveable” people.
• Feeling a total BOMB of my desire to continue with the courses I was currently studying (body psychotherapy and social work masters) and dropping them.
• Feeling a growing desire to learn about hard work, and a curiosity about true service.
• Experiencing an abundance of opportunities to apply myself in different ways, unrelated to my classical view of “service” as a helping role. These roles include work as a cleaner, yard work, voluntary gardening for a friend, volunteering at a vegan café.
• An impending sense of doom about this new (and yet enjoyable) direction my life is taking, and how it does not provide me with the sense of being a good and loveable person (by my definition) in the world’s eyes.

In the background of all this has been my foster care application, progressively moving forward at an uncomfortable pace. I started with a “why” and lost it half way through. On the last day of the initial 4-day training I cried and said to the trainer “I don’t think I’m cut out for this”. I felt overwhelmed with just the thought of the responsibility of caring for a wee traumatized soul. I saw a glimpse of what was required and felt myself to come up severely lacking.  

I nearly chose not to hand in the essential self-assessment paperwork that would lead to the next phase of intake.

But there was something inside that whispered that if nothing else, going through the entirety of the assessment process would be a valuable, insightful, and perhaps even healing experience.

And it has been…

My “why” is still under the white sheet being deconstructed and reconstructed. It will probably undergo this process multiple times throughout the duration…perhaps it will be something that evolves as I evolve. I think perhaps the most important thing is honesty. Be honest about your intentions and motivations. When we’re truthful, as bad as it can feel at the time, it gives us something to work with. I can see that my desire to feel like a good enough person and avoid my pain has played a role in my initial decision to be a foster carer, and I know that motivation will not stand the test of time. But instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, which I’ve been inclined to do in the past when I’ve discovered things about myself, I’m going to keep moving forward and let God work with me to purify my desires. I’m going to stay with myself, in this messy, imperfect moment, because something deeper is calling me on.

One thing I’ve realized recently is that I’ve finally created a home. I’ve been searching for home for as long as I can remember; in people, places, lifestyles. But it crept up on me. The people and the place are an integral part of it, but it’s something deeper… This feeling of belonging, of having a place in the world. That’s what has changed, and I feel there is a link between this and my ‘why’ to fostering. It may not be quite what I was expecting, but I have a home. And there’s some love in it. And I want to learn how to share it.

Right now, I’m scared as hell about the next steps, but I feel more solid in my decision.

I feel something really deep inside when I watch things like these following videos. You might find them moving too. 

Removed: A short 12 minute movie about the experience of a child in foster care

The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez: streamed on Netflix, an intense and horrifying account of one child slipping through the cracks of the child protection system

In part 2 I will discuss in more detail the nuts and bolts of the assessment process, and some more of the emotions that I have been confronted with inside of myself.