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Friends United Meeting |
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September 1998
Challenge and Joy: Foster Care for Teenagers
By Evelyn Cook
For more than 30 years my husband served on the board of Quakerdale Children's Home, which has campuses in our community as well as in four other cities in Iowa. The young people residing in the group home here attend our church and school. We have informal contact with them on a regular basis. Our concern for those "kids," and our desire to give some a Christian home, led us to give foster care to two young people at separate times.
A tall young lady, almost 18 years of age, entered our family in May of 1969 and was welcomed by my husband, our four daughters, ages 12, 10, 8 and 6, and myself. She had just completed her sophomore year of high school.
Her weekend pre-visits in our home had convinced us that God was calling us to give her some of the affection and direction she had missed in her own home. Although her parents loved her, their own lack of self-esteem had made it impossible to give her the affirmation and guidance she needed. As a result, she had shied away from attending school and had shut herself up in her bedroom day after day. In desperation, she had sought the help of social workers and, with their guidance, had chosen to come to Quakerdale, a home for "dependent/neglected" children and youth. During the year in the group home, loving houseparents and a dedicated home economics teacher at the high school had helped this young lady gain the confidence to cut the hair she had been hiding behind and to be more willing to converse with people.
Our daughters seemed to adjust quite well to having another sibling and seldom complained about the time and attention we gave to this one who was now the oldest "kid" in the family. She needed much more help with school work than they did. Our daughters could undoubtedly see what lay ahead for them as they observed us setting down guidelines for teen hours and explaining our expectations. They didn't like having her "baby-sit" or tell them what to do and, years later, one of our daughters admitted that she was a bit jealous because her foster sister received a monthly clothing allowance from her home county and got to go to some specialty shops for clothes because of her height. However, our daughters seemed as excited as we were about giving their foster sister new experiences-a family trip to the Southwest, her first plane ride, an opportunity to go on a foreign mission trip. They encouraged her to go out for track and to try out for a part in a high school play.
Perhaps I, her foster mother, had the greatest difficulty adjusting to a daughter who was much taller than me and one who needed a father's attention and affection. There were times when she would plop down, without thinking about it, between my husband and me on the sofa, and I resented that at first. Had she been a younger child I wouldn't have given it any thought. When my husband and I explained our feelings concerning this, the matter was easily resolved. There were times when strangers were confused as to which of us was the mother of the family because of her maturity in stature. I lacked patience when she had great difficulty making a decision. However, this helped me to see the importance of teaching the younger girls how to make decisions and to live with the consequences of those decisions. As we struggled together through some catch-up correspondence courses, my empathy grew for this girl who had never been taught how to study or to pick out the main points of a chapter. She was eager to help and please us and very appreciative of what we did for her. Our love for each other grew continually.
Graduation, her training to become a Licensed Practical Nurse, and her wedding to a fine Christian man, were all wonderful shared experiences. Our home remained her home right up until her marriage. Her biological parents came to visit a few times and were on hand to give her away at her wedding.
Now, twenty-nine years after she became our foster daughter, we share portions of holidays together whenever possible, though we live in different states. Our foster daughter's son calls us "Grandpa and Grandma" and enjoys playing with his "cousins," our grandchildren. The love and concern shared between our daughters and their foster sister have increased greatly through the years.
In 1986, after all four of our daughters had moved out of our house and had graduated from college, my attention was repeatedly drawn to a young man who was living at Quakerdale. He was a real "charmer" with a very unfortunate past. His mother and father had each died of cancer when he was quite young, and he had been shifted from relative to relative. One of them had cared little whether or not he attended school on a regular basis. Therefore, he had missed many of the basics in his educational journey. We had been warned by social workers that he could be a "con artist," but we decided to take our chances and see what we could do for him. One of our basic goals was to get him through the last two years of high school and, if possible, steer him toward some vocational training.
All of this proved to be a real challenge. He got by with as little study as possible; spent all of an inheritance on a car and, because of speeding, wrapped the car around a tree a few days after he got it; stole some money from us, etc. Smoking became an issue. There were matters we had never had to deal with before, and our age probably added to our impatience.
Even though we felt like failures at times in this venture, God did honor our endeavor. The young man graduated from high school and attended Junior College. He is now married to an accountant, has a son, is attending church regularly, and has purchased a farmstead about fifteen miles from us. We see them occasionally and sense that he has gained stability.
We praise God for expanding our horizons, for giving us the opportunity to share our resources, our home, and our love with these young people, and for the many ways God is blessing their lives.
Evelyn Cook lives with her husband Kenneth on a farm in New Providence, Iowa, and are active in Honey Creek New Providence Friends Church. Three of their daughters and their families live in the same community.
Copyright (c) 1998 Friends United Meeting
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