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Sunday, October 17, 1999 Oakville Beaver Weekend 35 Family Fare By Teresa Pitman SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER athy, at 22, is busy redoing the kitchen floor in the house she bought four years ago. She starts a new and better-paying job in a couple o f days, and has in university next term. Cathy's planning to go to law school. "I'm a pretty normal person," she says. "Nothing exceptional, and not someone to be pitied. My foster m other raised me to be strong." But she's the first to adm it that she's a different person than she was when she came into foster care at age 14. "I was very shy and very scared. I'd even attempted suicide." W hen she first met her new foster mother, she told her social w orker that she couldn't possibly stay. "B ut now I look back and I see how she helped me, how she supported me and encouraged m e to do the right things," Cathy says. "Sure, we had our conflicts, our disagreem ents but they were the same conflicts that anyone would have with their parents." T here's a stigma to being in foster care, Cathy adds, that is largely unde served. "I keep in touch with lots o f kids who were in foster care, and w e're going to school, holding down jobs, living ordinary lives. Once I was talking to a boy who said as though he was proud of it that he wasn't in jail and w asn't doing drugs anymore. I said, hey, wait a minute - ju st because you're in foster care does n 't mean you aren't expected to do the right things. T hat m eans finishing school, not breaking the law, not doing drugs." Foster parents know about that stig ma. "W hen we first told people w e'd decided to do foster care," says Suzie, who has been fostering for almost a year, "they thought we were crazy. People think that a foster child equals big prob lems." They were even more negative when they heard that the foster child who was m oving in w as a teenager, not the preschooler Suzie and her husband Bill had originally said they wanted. "I said, well, w e'll give it a try. And she has just fit into our family so well, she's great. W ithin the first month we knew this was C The rewards of foster parenting going to work out beautifully." That was eight months ago, and Suzie says their foster daughter has enrolled been a great addition to their fami ly. "She and Bill banter back and forth. He has his favourite spot to sit on the couch, but if he gets up for some reason, she'll fly into his spot and w on't get up again. He has to wait until she goes to the bath room before he can grab that seat for himself again. And they both love those licorice nibs candies, so if one o f them has some the other is begging for a taste. She has a great sense o f humour." M arcia and her husband Richard, with 10 years o f fostering experience behind them, have had similar experiences. Marcia says: "There are some children who real ly pull on your heartstrings. When I talk about one o f our foster chil dren, I tell people that he brings sunshine with him when he walks into a room, it's like sunlight com ing in a window." Sometimes, she feels "we make foster parents sound like saints and we want to praise the hard work they've put in by stressing how dif ficult the children are that they have cared for." But the downside of that is that many people who might be good foster parents are discouraged - they know they aren't saints, so they imagine they can't be good foster parents. "These kids often sound worse on paper than they are in real life," Marcia explains. "The reality is, you have the same joys and disap pointments as with your own chil dren." She has also been impressed by how ongoing relationships can develop between foster children, their birth parents, and the foster family. "For example, one child who was in our home developed a very good relationship with my mother. He really came to think of her as his grandmother. When he went back to live with his own mother, they stayed close, and his mother began to enjoy visiting her too. That boy's mother even plants a garden for my mother each year, and drives her to doctor's appoint ments. I never could have for seen how that relationship would blos som." Suzie says she felt it was impor tant to let her foster daughter "begin with a clean slate. We want ed her to have a chance to show us who she was.' Accepting `who you are' can make fostering easier. As Marcia says: "Just in being yourself, just going about your day to day life and welcoming this child into your family, you make an impact when you least expect it." And Marcia feels that fostering has had a very positive impact on her whole family. "My biological children have learned about kind ness not as a theory but in practice, and they've learned how to balance kindness with wisdom. They know how to respond to people's needs without being overwhelmed by it. I suspect both my sons will be social activists, but they also have a good sense of where to draw the line, of how much they can reasonably give." From her perspective, fostering has `Tilled up my life. O f course, I wouldn't have said my life was empty before I started fostering but now I can't imagine what I did with my time. My days are filled not just with things to do, but with love and laughter and lots of em o tions and lessons learned. I feel like I've packed 100 years o f living into my 10 years o f fostering." Suzie also speaks about how fostering has enhanced their fam i ly: "O ur foster daughter is like a big sister to our younger children. I really don't think it gets any better than what we have right here." "I know a lot o f people who would be great foster parents who don't realize their own abilities. If you have the heart for it, call and do the training. You might be just the family a child needs." Cathy is still appreciative that the right family was there when she needed them and that she did not have to live in a group home. She knows that being part of a family made the difference for her. "W hen I bought my house, I called my foster mother. I needed her to do all the motherly things for me - check over the house, reassure me that I w asn't making a big m is take." She adds: "I'm not that shy, scared little girl anymore. I'd never even think o f doing those risky things now. And I know I have my foster mother to thank for that. W hen I get a bit older - when I'm finished university - I'd like to be a foster parent myself." Holton Children's A id Society is especially in need o f foster homes fo r teenagers. I f fostering interests you, call Anne-M arie Keyes at 333-4441 E x t 258. 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