Foster care provides a variety of experiences for every host family. Sometimes you will have a biological sibling group and other times you will have a rainbow of races in your home.
People’s responses to that diversity have encouraged, frustrated and amused us from the beginning of our journey. For the most part, we have had kids that were black, white, or most often – some combination of the two.
These kids are the kids that we call ours.
We don’t see kids as a matter of biology. For some people family is more a matter of choice than blood. DNA doesn’t bond you together as strongly as making the choice to love one another.
As you can see, some of them look similar.
Race and color is the way some people divide us all up into groups. I have been guilty of doing the same thing, but it does not serve us to try to separate people like that.
Some of them do not.
However, those assumptions will usually prove us wrong. We are in a time in America when a lot of families have a child that looks different than the rest of the family.
Boys and girls – young and old.
I often go back to the old saying that when you assume, it makes an “ass” out of “u” and “me“
White, black and anything in between.
Those judgments only serve to distract us from the fact of the awesomeness inherent in these “chosen” family structures.
They don’t know much about biology.
The complexity of these family structures is a testament to the beauty we can find around us every day.
They just believe that they are “family.”
Families are the building blocks of all society. What can you do to strengthen your community? Maybe fostering is not for you, but being open and supportive of the families that live out this calling could be your way to work on strengthening your neighborhood, city, community, and country. Maybe fostering is a part of your future.
Whatever your calling is, start living it out TODAY!
Leave a Reply