Horror stories

Believe it or not you have a higher chance of getting murdered by your biological children than foster children. As for the comments, I had family members all across the spectrum, so were for it, some were against it. Yes some fkids can be difficult, but sometimes they offer so much more than the heartache. As with any child, they all have issues and can be difficult to deal with. Assuming your mom's not 20, if you think about it, your mother is from a different generation, where the foster kids had that stigma of being delinquents, troubled kids. That it was not the parents fault that they were abused/neglected it was because the kids were "bad". So whoever she is speaking to is more than likely around her age and grew up during the same time as her. There is a positive story about every kid in foster care. My kids, yes they have behavior problems, but can be so endearing and loving, it outways the problems. So its all how you look at it, and don't let your mom fool you. She will love those kids regardless!!!!

I have a positive story which ended with the adoption of seven children. Non of my kids have ever been violent. They came to me as scared and emotionaly drained chidren, but with love and time it heals some of those wounds. This idea that your mom has is part of the reason so many children are in foster care. When we took the kids out to eat all 8 of them mind you, we would get lots of compliments, but then when we said foster children their mouths would drop. My beautiful, sweet and well behaved children were not the monsters that society had invisioned. Unfortunatly the media is one sided at times, they like to get ratings with those horrible stories that have gone bad. Parenting a child who has been abused is hard at times, you have to win their trust and love. Sometimes it takes years for them to over come past issues and its tramatic to go through with the kids. You start to feel their pain, and your heart just breaks with them. I loved sharing with strangers that my kids were in foster care, it is eye opening because foster kids get horrible lables that arent always fair. Your mom will come around when she sees you parenting successfully. Good luck and hang in there, you are doing a great thing.

When we started kinship care my mother was aloof and tentative. She knew better than to talk us out of it, but I think she was thinking the kinds of things your mother is thinking. After a while, I realized that she was really just afraid of loving a child and being hurt when that child couldn't remain a part of our family. She did tell me once not to get too attached. Today we're adoptive parents and my mother is a wonderful grandmother to our daughter. So maybe she's just scared of loving your foster children and then having to let them go. Amy

I think that's probably part of her problem. She has made comments about being worried I'm going to get my heart broken when the kids leave, but I think she's afraid as much for herself as for me in that respect.

You can thank the media, prime time "entertainment", and every other thing that would rather focus on the negative aspects rather than the positive!