Large Sibling Groups in foster Care with Jessaka Clark

Hello, and welcome back to foster care and unparalleled journey with Jason and Amanda. Today we have a special guest with us. Jessica is a woman who I met online who has who has a story. And I think it involves a little bit of insanity. Because people talk to us about things when they see us and wow, don’t you know what causes all those kids? And I always smile and go, I do actually I found on this paperwork, lots of paperwork is what causes those kids. But I very rarely meet somebody who has who has caught up with us with seven kids or even surpassed us. And Jessica has like, like nine. And my gosh, I can’t imagine what that’s like. So Jessica, we want to talk to you about that today. How are you doing?

Unknown Speaker 1:18
I’m great. I’m great. How are you guys today?

Amanda Palmer 1:21
Not too bad. It’s awesome to have you here.

Jessaka Clark 1:24
Yes, I appreciate the opportunity.

Jason Palmer 1:27
Hey, we’re glad to have you on here because we’ve talked about a lot of these topics. But some of them really bear repeating. One of the things we talked about a lot is keeping bio siblings together whenever possible. And you guys have done that with a sibling Group of Seven. Yes. I said seven. I can’t imagine having seven kids added at once. Or even in stages.

Amanda Palmer 1:52
Because we have seven total

Jason Palmer 1:55
years to get there. We sprinkled seven over 20 years. You did not sprinkle them like that.

Jessaka Clark 2:01
But no, not at all. We went to eight overnight,

Jason Palmer 2:05
one day, that’s a jump.

Jessaka Clark 2:08
Jump. And you know, people say oh, well, you know, when you have to you kind of learn how to juggle and you have three and it’s like, you didn’t get that like learn to juggle opportunity. It was just kind of good luck. You know, where you go

Jason Palmer 2:21
to sprint. And

Amanda Palmer 2:22
pretty much I would say go out running hard even spreading I would say.

Jessaka Clark 2:28
Yeah, it was it was quite the journey, honestly. But the hardest part, I think adding the seven was going from our youngest was a toddler. So it was going from a toddler to all the way from teenagers down to school aged kids, and figuring out school and you know, teenagers Good gracious teenagers. They’re fun. Yeah, that was that was the hardest part. We always tell people, you know, the one to eight wasn’t too bad. It was the learning how to do school and like, you know, schools by shopping and open houses and all that fun stuff. And then dealing with a teenager when I wasn’t much older than her at the time. So that was definitely the hardest part of it.

Jason Palmer 3:13
I bet I bet. Now, me and Amanda have shared our story in here quite a few times with people. But what was your introduction into foster care? Like, what what drew you in? Was this your idea? Your husband’s idea? What made you guys feel like that was the right move for you?

Jessaka Clark 3:29
Sure. So I grew up with my parents up in New York, and they were foster parents for most of my life. They we’ve had tons and tons of kids, a lot of sibling groups who’ve come in and out of our house. And then once they stopped being foster parents up in New York, they actually applied to the house parents at a children’s home down in Florida. And so they got that job. And they became it. I don’t know if you’re familiar with house parents, but there was like a campus with multiple houses on it. And my parents would go in for 10 days, and then they’d be off for seven or five, depending on the situation. And they would, you know, be foster parents for a temporary amount of time. And so they did that my senior year of high school, we moved down to Florida, and they did that. So I kind of grew up around it. And I always knew that I wanted to adopt eventually. My husband did not grow up around any of that at all. I’m not even like kind of sorta familiar with it. However, he knew that that was something he wanted to do when he had kids. And so on our first date. He actually told me that he wanted 10 kids and he wanted most of them to be adopted. Which of course I should have been like, but he had never even held the baby ever. And so like yeah, you’ll have one and you’ll be like okay, we’re good. That ends up not being the case. But you know if there I mean, I was okay with it. I grew up with lots of kids in the house all the time. So that didn’t scare me at all. And I knew what the need for for foster and adoptive parents was. So yeah,

Jason Palmer 5:14
how many kids do you think came through your parents home when you when you live there?

Jessaka Clark 5:20
I can clearly remember. I can clearly remember probably about 15. However, I know that there were some that I obviously I don’t remember. And I there was a sibling group of nine that we only got five of, and then they separated the other ones into other homes. So yeah, I would say probably 15 that I remember. But they at least had them for a long time. It was never, we never really had like short placements.

Jason Palmer 5:56
Okay. Yeah. Because we’ve had, we’ve had everything from a year and a half down to a day.

Amanda Palmer 6:02
Wow. A day. Wow. Yeah.

Jason Palmer 6:04
Yeah, that the on that particular one, I think it turned out, they were looking for some bio placements, you know, some some family members, and they were able to find them the next day. So they just stayed with us. Two little kids stay with us for I think, one one night and part of the next day. So yeah, turn deal. But Wow, that’s, I mean, how did that affect you growing up? Do you think, you know, did that did that affect you in positive ways? And negative ways? I mean, obviously, probably a little bit of both. But, but when you look back as an adult, how do you think that changed your childhood?

Jessaka Clark 6:34
Sure, that’s something that, um, you know, I do a lot of panels. I work with an organization called loved one. And they do like foster care panels at the end of impact classes. And so I do a lot of panels. And that’s one question that gets asked a lot is like, you know, how’s this gonna affect my kids, you know, how’s it gonna affect my bio children and, and I always like to share with people like, I think that I am the person I am today, because of my parents being foster parents. I, you know, I know that I did not grow up naive, I didn’t grew up thinking that everything was sunshine and rainbows. You know, I grew up knowing that there were kids in my own backyard, who were, you know, going through really terrible situations, some of them were starving, some of them were being neglected, you know. And so I think that ultimately changed my outlook on, you know, having more compassion for people knowing that, you know, you don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors, and you don’t know what situations people are going through. And so I always kind of, you know, I always kind of just had that outlook, knowing that my parents were experiencing these things with these kids. It also made me grow up quite quickly, which I know, my mom looks back and she’s like, I wish he didn’t grow up so fast. But I’m glad I did. Because, you know, I was able to make an impact at a younger age. You know, I didn’t, I didn’t have to wait until I matured, you know, to make an impact. And it kind of helped me to be a I guess, a more outspoken voice for foster care at a younger age. So all positive things I can’t there was nothing negative. That affected me. With my parents being foster parents.

Jason Palmer 8:25
Well, that’s interesting, because when we talk with our own bio kids, you know, we’ll get some some different, you know, thoughts about it, you know, one son has has talked about the difficulty of seeing kids come and go. And I know you said that most of the kids stayed there for a long time. But when we

Amanda Palmer 8:41
had a, we had a few long term placements that were was really hard on our children when, yeah, but we’ve also had a few of our children that have expressed You know, when they get older, and they start their family that, you know, they want to, they want to explore adoption too. Mm hmm. You know, so I think it’s kind of gone both ways. But it’s it’s definitely hard on our children when it’s time to say goodbye.

Jessaka Clark 9:04
Yeah, that was definitely not easy. Yeah, I mean, I specifically there were a few placements that I became very close with one of them was that sibling group and we actually had a pretty incredible story of how we reconnected with them years later, we ended up moving like two streets down from them and didn’t even know it years later and was able to reconnect with her and so I’ve been friends I’m so I still talk to several of the kids that when they’re not kids, they’re all older than me. But I’m still talk with several of the people that my parents were foster parents for. To this day. And my parents as house parents at the Children’s Home. There are still several of those. Again, I call them kids but they’re like two years younger than me. That we still they still come to Christmases, they still come to Thanksgivings, like they’re still very much involved in our lives, even to this day, you know? So yeah, it can be that part can be hard. And that’s definitely something can have to learn, I think with your own kids of how each one reacts, my brother was not one who got attached or anything. So it wasn’t really a big deal for him. But I’m more of an emotional person. So it was it was hard, but worth it. You know, you always know, you can look back and say, Well, you know, it was a necessary evil kind of thing.

Jason Palmer 10:24
Yeah, it sounds like it really had a lot of impact on forming the person you’ve become today, especially, you know, well, and I mean, I’m on backup for a second. I’m not here to say that Facebook is all awesome. We just finished up with the presidential election. And so we can all see the the evils of what social media does to us to crazy. Sure. But it also allows us that space to be able to reconnect with some of those people. Sounds like you guys have had a really good connection with a lot of kids and really expanded your family over the years.

Jessaka Clark 10:56
Yeah, yeah, I have. I have two adopted brothers that came from the children’s home My parents were working at, they adopted them six years ago, so and then they’re actually in the process of adopting another little boy who is, too, so they’re starting all over again. And there’s been many, many kids who’ve come through and stayed at their home, who aged out of the foster care system, and didn’t have anywhere to go, or a lot of girls who became unexpectedly pregnant, didn’t have anywhere to go. And my parents for months only got to probably a couple years really had girl after girl in there that was pregnant and had children. That’s actually where my youngest came from. was one of those girls looking to give her baby an amazing family. And yeah, so I mean, it definitely it definitely is continued to be a thing for our family to stay connected to those that they’ve had relationships with the children’s home.

Amanda Palmer 12:08
Wow. So I have to ask with nine kiddos, are you guys done? Are you still foster license open? Are you continuing? What’s the plan?

Jessaka Clark 12:18
We are definitely not done. We definitely want more, whether that’s biological or adopt or Foster, we would love to foster our county as well, you know, all counties are overrun right now. And we’ve talked extensively with several of the directors here in our county of trying to get our home open. But we just they won’t do it because we have too many kids in the house. So which is bumming because it’s like we have the space and we have the band. You know, we have all the things that all the love all the time. But their rules just stipulate that we have too many kids, so we can’t open our home. But eventually when some of these kids start moving out, we’d love we’d love to foster again and hopefully adopt and definitely not done.

Jason Palmer 13:08
Wow.

I yeah. Don’t get any ideas, Amanda. Right.

Amanda Palmer 13:19
He knows me. Well,

Jessaka Clark 13:20
yeah, you’re in the wrong business. If you think that that gives you ideas, right.

Jason Palmer 13:26
Of the three of us, I obviously have the most gray going on. And I really, really don’t want to be the guy sitting at graduation when people say oh, Are you here to see your grandchild? I’m already close enough to that.

Amanda Palmer 13:40
Yeah,

Jessaka Clark 13:41
yeah, I will be the youngest at my daughter’s I’m sure I’ll be the youngest at my at my daughter’s graduation. When she graduates this year. There’s only 11 years difference between her and I. So I’m sure I’ll be the youngest one there. But then I think about my three year old like, and I’m gonna be you know, I’m not gonna say but I’m 10 years old when she graduates that seems really old.

Jason Palmer 14:05
Our oldest we were young parents at his graduation and our youngest, we will be old parents at his graduation. We will be I’ll be knocking on 60. Before before Frankie graduates. So yeah, we’re looking at

Amanda Palmer 14:20
60 is not that all right.

Jessaka Clark 14:23
Yeah. This is not to offend you at all. My mom and dad turned 54 this year. So there Yeah. So they’re, you know, they’re starting over with a two year old. I’m like, you’re gonna be like using Walker’s to get his graduation.

Amanda Palmer 14:42
So he said that there’s 11 years between you and your daughter.

Jessaka Clark 14:47
Yep. So she when we first adopted the sibling group, she just turned 14 and I was 25 at the time and so Yeah, 25 Yeah. 28 next Yeah. 28 now, so

Jason Palmer 15:04
go for a 14 year old girl. I bet you when she walked in, she was totally cool with that. And he’s like, I’m gonna listen to you all the time. You’re smarter in life. Right, right.

Unknown Speaker 15:15
Yeah.

Jessaka Clark 15:16
Yeah. So we knew as soon as they said that there was a teenager in the mix, we were like, okay, like, I’m gonna have to earn and you know, she, she was the oldest of the sibling group. And she took care of the younger, the six younger ones for two, three years at the age of 10. And that’s an Amen. Yes. And so we knew once once, they said that there was issues 13 at the time that we met them. But once they said, there was a teenager, we knew that she was mama bear, and I was going to have to earn the kids from her. I was not gonna be able to walk in there and be like, Oh, Mom, now, you know, I knew that wasn’t gonna happen. In fact, the first visitation we ever had with the kids, I wanted to just sit down with her, you know, my husband went off and played with the other kids. And I just wanted to sit down with her and Okay, girl, I know, you got questions, bring them out what you got, you know? And she did, she asked me a bunch of questions and basically scoping out, Are you, are you going to take care of us? You know, what, what do you guys believe about this than the other, you know? Cuz she was trying to decide if her kids as she saw it, were going to be safe, where they were going to go, you know, but we knew that was going to happen. I mean, that’s pretty, pretty common place, you know, when you adopt a teenager. And of course, being a teenager who took care of her siblings, it did take a long time for the kids to adjust to, okay, she’s not the one that takes care of us anymore. She’s not the one that’s in charge anymore. Because even when they were, they were in a group home for the whole time that they were in foster care. And so that was nice, because all of them lived in one home together, which is rare, you know, but they, they got to stay together in one home. And so even then she still was mama to them. Like they didn’t listen to the caregivers as well as they listened to her. You know. And so we had to not undo that necessarily, but we definitely had to tread lightly on how to broach that subject of Okay, now, the kids are going to need to listen to me because, you know, we got to get into a normalcy of somewhat, but it’s years of, of it of, you know, one, getting the kids to understand that but also of her feeling like she didn’t have to be mom anymore. It just took a really long time.

Amanda Palmer 17:49
Yeah, I mean, you have to earn that trust. You have to have that right.

Jason Palmer 17:53
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s something I think most moms don’t understand is learning that right to motherhood is that’s a different path that you’ve taken than most mothers do.

Jessaka Clark 18:04
Yeah, yeah. It’s it’s definitely, that’s the perfect terminology is earning the right. Yeah, that’s exactly what it is, you know, you’re, it would be just like, if, you know, I tried to let my kids go live with somebody right now, you know, you would have to be a decent enough human being for me to let them go stay with you, you know, and that’s kind of where she was scoping us out and making sure that her kids were going to be safe, you know, with us. So,

Jason Palmer 18:31
over the first couple years with that, what does that look like for you guys?

Jessaka Clark 18:37
would say for the first year, um, we, a lot of the, you know, I had to it was mostly me, you know, because I was mom and the kids gravitated towards my husband immediately because they never had a father figure growing up. And then when they went to this children’s home, it was ran completely by women. And there we only male there was the maintenance man, who would try and spend time with them as much as he could, but you know, he had a job so. So they instantly all if my husband is still kind of that way, if my husband tells me to do something listens immediately, you know, whereas me, they’re like, yeah, we’ve heard female voices for years, like, whatever, you know. And so, for me, it was more of my own personal struggle of not getting upset when the kids would go to her for something, or not getting upset when I would ask the kids to do something and they wouldn’t do it. But then she would turn around, tell them to do the same thing. And then they do it. It was more of an internal thing for me, you know, to get over my pride get over. You know, how I felt about it, and just realize that this is only temporary eventually we’ll get to a spot where the kids will feel comfortable enough and she’ll feel comfortable enough. But it was that you know, I would tell the kids go do something and they would Do it and she could turn around and say, hey, go do this, and they will go do it. And it was like, like, Why? Why can’t they? You know, why does she need to say it before you guys listen, you know, that was definitely difficult. And then specifically for her because she took care of the kids for so many years. They, they didn’t have food, they were they were, there was no food in the house. And so she would have to go down to the corner store and steal food in order to feed them. So she would kind of sneak food in her jacket and whatnot, and then bring it home to feed them. And so we knew that feeling was going to kind of be a thing for her, you know, because she just, it was out of necessity for so many years. And so for the first probably about two years, we kind of gave her quite a grace of, you know, stealing was like a really tough thing for her. It would be necessity sometimes, but then it was getting the we were wasn’t necessity, it was more of a watch thing. And so we had to be gracious and saying, Okay, this is something that’s ingrained in her because she had to do this for so long. And so I would say it was probably two years before we were like, okay, we can’t let you use that as an excuse anymore. Now we’ve got to start taking responsibility for our actions. And now we’ve got to start moving towards normalcy. so to speak, quote, unquote, we always use that word very loosely, but normal normalcy of, you know, we don’t need to steal because everything’s provided, you know? Um, so yeah, that was her biggest struggle. I think with that.

Jason Palmer 21:43
How are you able to regulate your own emotions as you walk through that weather? Because I know that’s, that’s a big struggle for all parents to learn how to regulate your own emotions, when they’re when they’re kind of off in their headspace. Is there any anything that really helps you figure out how to how to navigate that successfully.

Jessaka Clark 22:00
Um, so I would say I’m still working progress on that, I don’t think I’ll ever be done working on that. But I think that I’ve made the most progress on that over the probably the past two years, of just not being reactive, you know, that’s the biggest thing is my kids want to get a reaction out of me, they’re not so much anymore. But especially when we first got them, they wanted to get that reaction out of me. And so they would say specific things or do specific things that they knew would really get under my skin, or they knew would really hurt. Just so they could see me kind of lose it. Especially my oldest one. She’s very good at that. But now, I think I’ve gotten to a place where, oh, oh, okay, sorry, I thought I lost you there for a second. Now, I’ve kind of gotten to a place where I can hear them say something and instead of reacting, I can look into it and say, you know, maybe there’s something else that happened that I’m not seeing, you know, maybe something happened at school, and that’s why they came home with this attitude. Or maybe something happened, that maybe I said something that triggered them, and I didn’t realize it. And so just being very open with them, like, hey, did I say something that made me upset you, you know, did did something happened at school that’s kind of set you off, you know, and then just knowing when to give them their space, that was really hard for me, because I’m the problem one of those, like problem solving people. And so, especially my teenage boys, it’s like it when they get mad, they just want to go in their room and be mad, you know, they don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to, they don’t want to sit down and solve it. And I would kind of follow them and into the room. And then they will get even more mad. And it’s like, well, I just need to know why you’re upset. Why are you upset? Why are you upset. And finally, I’ve learned, okay, just let them go cool down. And then usually, once they Calm down, they’ll come out and they’ll talk about it, you know. But that’s definitely been my learning thing is not reacting and trying to see what the underlying issue is. Because a lot of times, it’s not what they think it is, you know, it’s not the fact that you told them to clean their room, it’s that. I don’t know, they, you know, they had a really bad dream last night, and they don’t want to talk about it, because it’s really scary. And, you know, and then that’s just fuming in them while you told them to go clean their room, and now they’re mad because you made him go clean their room. You know, I’m saying it’s just there’s more underlying issues than that.

Jason Palmer 24:32
Absolutely. I had a guy much smarter than me once told me that, that grace resides in the place between anger and response. And the more time you can put in there, the more grace you can learn to pack into that moment, and the better that will become but I’m just gonna say that guy’s smarter than me and he was probably better at it than I am as well.

Jessaka Clark 24:53
Like I said, it’s still a work in progress. It’s still something that you know, there are times where you just you You know, your man, I can tell you some doozies of things that have been thrown at me that how I responded was not how I would have responded. But that’s just because mostly the Holy Spirit took over and answered for me, because there was times where I said stuff. And I’m like, that’s not how I thought that would happen. Thankfully, because what I would have said, would have not been helpful, or, you know, developed a relationship with my kids to know that, wow, I really can’t come to mind with anything because I came to her with this doozy, and she didn’t freak out, you know. And so they’re more comfortable coming and talking to me about things like that. Right. Now, you

Amanda Palmer 25:42
mentioned the stealing of food. So food was obviously an issue. have you dealt with food issues hoarding and things like that?

Jessaka Clark 25:51
Oh, yes, yeah, we, um, you know, we took all the, you know, impact classes, they tell you all those neat little little tricks like keeping a basket of, you know, fruit on the counter, you know, whatever, we found that we couldn’t do that for multiple reasons. One being that all the fruit would be gone very quickly, like a day. And to the peels and stuff to that fruit would end up in rooms and whatnot. So, we, yeah, we dealt with a lot of hoarding of food. Probably the first, my daughter, my second eldest is looking at me laughing right now, because she knows, I’m probably like, the year first year or so everybody was different times, you know, because like, the younger ones don’t remember most of what happens. So they don’t remember being without food, it was mostly my older ones who, you know, would hide Pop Tarts or snacks or, you know, come out in the middle of the night and grab popsicles or whatever, you know, in middle of the night, and, and, but I never wanted to lock food up, that was always there was never something that I want, I want it to be a normalcy thing. So I just kind of had to be like, you know, we’ll get past this Eventually, the biggest thing was the amount of food that the kids would eat at meals. You know, when we, when we first got the kids, it would take two giant crock pots of chili to feed them. And it would be gone. There’ll be no leftovers. Now we make one pot of one crock pot of chili. And we still have leftovers, you know, because they’ve just, you know, the first like, two years it was they would just eat and eat and eat until they were sick. And they didn’t know like they didn’t they didn’t believe that another meal is gonna come, you know. And so for the first like two years, it was like, our meals were huge. And now I tell people all the time, I’m like, we really don’t eat as much as you would think we do, because now they’ve kind of calmed down and realize like, Oh, I don’t have to eat five bowls of chili because there will be food in the morning, you know, which has been great for our grocery budget.

Jason Palmer 28:14
Know what you’re talking about there? At one point, I think we had three teen boys in the house. Oh, man.

Jessaka Clark 28:22
Yeah, there’s no keeping up with that. There’s just there’s no way.

Jason Palmer 28:26
Yeah, we’ve got a discount grocery store not far from us. And they would see us coming with two carts at a time.

Unknown Speaker 28:35
Yeah.

Jason Palmer 28:36
You know, your parents of teens when you get used to other people trying to hurry to get in front of you in line because

Jessaka Clark 28:46
I’ve tried to figure out all the ways to you know, not I used to take all the kids grocery shopping with me when they were young when we first got them. And so we would have two cards. Yeah, this is before train was walking. So we had two cards that had just kids in them. I had two my younger girls and my two younger boys were in two cards. And then I had two of the older kids with I think older they were like 10 and nine, pushing those kids around. And then I would baby were the youngest one and I would be pushing a cart with groceries and then one more cutie pushing the other car with groceries. So we were four carts deep, walking through aisles getting groceries, because I just had to contain the younger ones in carts, just to get through the store. Um, yeah, for past those days now, because I’m old enough teens now that can watch the kids like go grocery shopping.

Jason Palmer 29:38
That’s a blessing that teens have their own struggles, but when they can watch kids, so you can. That’s

Amanda Palmer 29:45
great. Yeah, well,

Jason Palmer 29:47
we haven’t really disgusted but we talked just before we started recording here, and so listeners have kind of a feel for what we’re talking about here. Today, you have a three year old seven Your old 810 1112 1315 and a 17 year old? Yeah. Oh, my gosh, do you not hit like pretty much all of the developmental stages and those difficult places for kids? Somewhere along that line?

Jessaka Clark 30:17
Yeah, yeah. And it’s interesting, because I, you know, you would think that you would, I guess, maybe not, maybe I just thought this, I thought that, you know, we’ll deal with each stage in the order that the kids go, if that makes any sense. So, you know, my 15 year old will deal with, you know, moody teenager starting to date situation with her. And then, you know, we’ll deal with preteen boys and all their hormones and their like fight or flight response, I’ll deal with that with this one who’s the older, that they’re all out of whack. Like, you know, my, my 13 year old is not in the same maturity level as my 12 year olds, you know, and so my 12 year old has kind of jumped him as far as the maturity level. And then my 15 year old is way more mature than my 17 year old. And, you know, then you go down the line, I’ve got my seven year old, Noah, he is great. He just great accelerated, he skipped a grade and went into third grade. And his older brother, though the eight year old, we had to hold him back this year. So he’s still in second grade, he’s about to be nine, and my seven year old just jumped to third grade because he grade accelerated. So they’re all kind of just out of whack. Nobody really, you know, I’m not hitting the stages that I thought I would have the time I would hit. And so I’m not getting as much practice with the stages as I would like before the next one comes. Especially when the girls like it, my 15 year old is so easy. She’s so she’s like, She’s so much easier than I would have anticipated. But I know that’s not going to be the case with the other ones. And so I don’t feel like I’m getting enough, like, practicing for those.

Jason Palmer 32:07
Well, you know, with that many kids coming in from that many different places, you’re bound to have some special needs in there somewhere. So do you have a bunch? A lot of special needs or diagnoses or things like that, that you’re dealing with as well?

Jessaka Clark 32:22
Yeah, well, that’s actually something that’s been both a blessing and a curse, so to speak. We’ve had a couple of situations we didn’t know. And I’m sure so many people can relate to this. We were not told that any of our kids had diagnoses when we were visiting with them. We assumed because, you know, in foster care, they just kind of throw diagnoses that kids constantly and throw medications at kids. And so we assumed that some of them were ADHD, we could kind of see that ADHD and a couple of them. But we didn’t know that any of them were even on medications until the day that they were moving in with us. And they handed us this giant cardboard box full of medications. And we were like, Okay, I need to go look all these up and figure out what these are for. So I did I googled all of the medications to try and figure out what what is this for? Why are they taking it because nothing was in their medical histories. Their medic, first of all their medical histories were joke because it was like an inch thick for seven children. It just it was a joke. And so I ended up having to go through all these medications. Well, one of my my 13 year old is severe ADHD. So he is still medicated. But we I think we’re hitting a pretty good spot with him right now because he is starting to mature. And I think he started to grow out of it quite a bit. But he has severe ADHD. And so he’s always been on medication. But as long as we monitor that it’s pretty good. My the one under him my 12 year old Jason, he was apparently diagnosed at like six with bipolar disorder, which is absurd. And they had him on an adult dosage of trileptal, which is a seizure medication that they use for bipolar disorder. And he was on a ridiculous amount of this stuff. And we were told, don’t mess with that. Don’t touch it. Just give it to him at this time. Trust me, you don’t want to tweak it. Like he gets crazy. And we were having like severe outbursts with him. I mean, he would like rip apart a room. He would throw dressers. I mean it was like, and then he would take off and run. And so we were having so many behavior problems, but we knew that that they were having the same issues at the children’s home with him. And I kept thinking to myself, you know something’s not something is not in the right spot either. This is the wrong medication. This is the wrong diagnosis or something is not right. And it took a year and a half for me to finally, man up, I’m gonna say because I should have done it way sooner, but man up and say we got to do something different and it actually took him running away. And it took three cops to hold this little man, he was like, eight or not his little eight or nine, took three cops to get him in the house. Because he was so like, outraged and out of control. And that was the final straw for me. I’m like something is not right. And so I shouldn’t have done this and don’t do this. But I took him off of the medication and wean him off slowly, of that trilateral. And it was like night and day. I mean, he was a completely different child. So sweet, so compassionate, loves kids, never been on anything ever since then. It was like the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. And he’s has never needed to be medicated since then. And he is a he is one of my he’s been one that’s way mature compared to the older ones above him. And he, he’s the sweetest kid. But that medication was doing something that was just sending him on these rages where he just could not control himself. So we have that. And then my youngest in the sibling group who’s eight, he’s about benign James. We believe that there’s fetal alcohol syndrome there. He was never diagnosed because their biological mom was an illegal immigrant. And so she used lots of illegal identities. When she gave birth, all my kids came with like several different last names.

And so we don’t think she ever got not only were pretty positive, she never got the care that he needed to after his birth to get that diagnosis. But we know that there was a lot of alcohol and possibly drugs introduced in utero. And so we believe he has fetal alcohol syndrome. But to get it diagnosed now is just it’s really difficult, because it’s something they usually would do, you know, when they’re born. So he has really struggling with processing, like visual processing. And so we he’s in speech therapy, we’re working on his IEP. He’s the one that we held back, you know, last year, and we’re actually potentially going to have to get him evaluated again, to be either held back again, or put into a special education program, because he’s still not ready to move forward into third grade because he still can’t read and he still can’t process. And so those are the only two crazy things that we’ve had. But we did have another situation where in 2019, where my son developed gi on baray syndrome, which is a sogi Andre is a autoimmune disorder, where your body you’ll get a comedy virus, which he got like a stomach bug. And that stomach bug triggered this reaction in his body, that what it does is it creates so your your nerves have insulation on them, right? To help them conduct, you know, the signals that they need from your brain to your extremities. And this autoimmune disorder, your body starts attacking that insulation. And so he It started with just tingling in his hands and feet. And then he couldn’t feel his hands and he couldn’t feel his feet, then he couldn’t walk. Then he couldn’t feed himself and it it slowly paralyzes you, basically from your feet up. And it was the craziest thing we’ve ever experienced, because we’ve never heard of it, you know, it’s not something we’d ever even seen. And we weren’t even sure if he needed to be seen by a doctor. But then thankfully, just by people who mentioned stuff, we went to the emergency room and they had to do a spinal tap and all sorts of stuff and and they’ve diagnosed them with Eon Bray and he was actually really, really lucky. Most people end up getting paralyzed and have to have a breathing tube. Because it just keeps working its way up and but we were able to catch it pretty quickly and get the big treatment that he needed in order to stop it. And then it’s just a matter of letting your body kind of rebuild that insulation. And so we were in the hospital for 11 days and then it took him probably about six months before he can walk without a walker. Again, he was in a wheelchair for a while. Had the kind of learn to feed himself had to kind of learn to, he was all it was a whole weird, it was weird. It was crazy. And so thankfully, it’s something that, you know, hopefully he won’t ever have a regression or regression, but I. So what I’m looking for,

Unknown Speaker 40:19
ah,

Jessaka Clark 40:20
I can’t think of the word but it shouldn’t come back again, it should just be a one and done thing, he will always have that in his system. But it shouldn’t be triggered again. But with all this COVID stuff, we’ve had mixed opinions that people say, Oh, it could cause it to come back. So kind of an extra, you know, extra diligent with that, just so we don’t have to go through that again. But be I was just like a fluke thing. It was really weird.

Amanda Palmer 40:49
That must have been an extremely stressful time.

Jessaka Clark 40:52
It wasn’t fun. It was not fun. My husband had to take off work to watch the kids so that I could stay in the hospital with him. And then just being in a hospital for 11 days, I just feel for people who have to sit there, you know, in the hospital. I mean, it’s just not my kids really missed him. And you know, they weren’t they, they were able to visit a few times. But it was also just really overwhelming for him because he was just so tired all the time. And, and for the kids to kind of see him like that was kind of rough. And but yeah, wasn’t fun. But thankfully he you know, he, he didn’t he had a light case. Very mild case. So very grateful for that.

Amanda Palmer 41:36
How did that affect the oldest son she was used to be in mama bear did that kind of throw her back into that role.

Jessaka Clark 41:43
So she went all of this happened. She was at a military camp. A military school, I guess you could call it program called yca Youth Challenge Academy. And she was there when all of this happened. And so she wasn’t able to really get much of an update. We did, because they weren’t allowed to receive phone calls or anything while they’re there. It’s like a six month program that’s supposed to help troubled teens. And so she was there and they don’t get phone calls or anything. And so we called the school and just let them know what was going on. So that she was aware in case we needed to pull her for any reason. But um, she really wasn’t here for that. So the only time it really kind of she got a glimpse of it was when we went up to visit her for her graduation ceremony. Not the graduation, it was a family day. That’s what it was. It was a family day. And he was still using his Walker at that point. And so she kind of got to see, like, how it’s been going, basically. And she definitely was upset about it. But um, but it wasn’t anything that like, I think she was just really, you know, she was really trying to focus on herself. And and, you know, the Youth Challenge Academy, and she really enjoyed that program. So I think she was more focused on that, which is good. That’s what we wanted. We were actually conflicted about whether we were even going to contact and let her know, because we wanted her to focus. But yeah, I think I think that wasn’t too difficult for I think it was more difficult for the kids who were home and kind of had to do without me for 11 days. And then when he was home, you know, we PT we had physical therapy constantly. And you know, just it was it was it was interesting, we had to move his room to downstairs because you couldn’t go upstairs yet. And that was more of an adjustment for the kids who were here. Really?

Jason Palmer 43:46
You guys have been through a lot with these seven kids. And if I remember right, just a few months after you brought them into your home, you adopted another infant on top of that.

Jessaka Clark 43:59
Yeah, yeah. So we we had the so we have my biological son. And then after he turned two year old, we started the adoption process again. And that’s when we got the phone call for the seven. We brought the seven home and then a couple months before we were supposed to finalize their adoption, we were approached by a birth mom, who was living with my parents, one of the girls that was living with my parents, and she asked if we would adopt the baby and obviously I wanted to because I would love to have another baby but we hadn’t finalized our adoption yet and so we didn’t want to mess anything up. So we told her well we really can’t right now but I’d love to help you find a family I know tons of families who are looking to adopt so let me let’s let’s find somebody. So we I’m I introduced her to a few families and nothing ever really stuck. Just nothing really felt helpful. Go for her. And then we finalize the adoption of the seven. And one day we went to the zoo and she came along with us. And her my husband talked to the entire time. And we got done at the zoo. And he was like, we’re supposed to adopt that baby. I was like, yo, God saw me twice. I want to baby. Let’s do it. And so I ended up being able to go to the rest of her appointments, and I actually birthed her and cut her cord and, and so we we have had her, technically we’ve had her since birth, she had to spend three months in Florida with my parents, because icpc she had to stay there until we could get the paperwork to go through for her to come to Georgia. But thankfully, it’s only like a 30 minute drive. So we were able to go and see her regularly. But she had to stay in Florida until we could get that paperwork that said that she can come to Georgia. And so she moved in with us about three months. And so we’ve had her since then. And we have an incredible relationship with her mom. She’s aunt Laura to all my kids. And she shows that she her and her husband who her husband’s fantastic that they’ll take my money and they moved away recently. But before that, they’ll take my kids out, they’ll take you know, one to go get pedicures, or they’ll take the boys and go take them to go play baseball or you know, take them out to go have dinner or, or whatever, you know, and they are always involved with her with torian. And we actually have I have a great relationship with trans biological grandmother, her dad’s mom. And so I talked to her probably twice a week and we send pictures and she sends her gifts. And we’ve done FaceTime video. So we have a really, really, really awesome birth mother relationship. And, and we’ve kind of just always been, you know, there for each other. And they’re actually trying this, her and her husband are trying to start a family now. And so I get to be, you know, Aunt to her kid. And then so it’s just a really, really rare and really great relationship.

Amanda Palmer 47:16
Yeah, that’s really awesome. I do have to say, though, I think we I need to have your husband talk to my husband about babies. Because Yeah, I would

Jessaka Clark 47:26
see, I would take another one of my husband’s like nom, good now that we had her, he wanted a girl. When we found out we were pregnant with my son. He wanted a girl really, really bad. In fact, when we found out it was a boy, he kind of had like a moment of disappointment on his face, before he realized that he was making that face. And so he fixed it real quick. But he always wanted a little girl. And so he even though we didn’t know that she was a girl at the time when we were at the zoo, and he decided that that was our baby. He didn’t know, we didn’t know that she was a girl yo hadn’t done a gender scan. And he was like, no, it’s a girl and her name is going to be Joanne because that’s the name you picked out way back when. And we didn’t think he was going to be right. But he was right. It was a girl and so that that fulfilled it for him. He wanted a little baby girl. Because he never got to go through like the baby stage with a girl. But now he’s like, I’m over babies now.

Jason Palmer 48:22
Ask It sounds like you guys have an amazing community around you of people, not only parents and bio parents and grandmothers and aunts and uncles and just a huge collection of people around you. But what about that foundation where you guys start from? You know, you and your husband? How? How have you guys seen this really affect your relationship? Is it been a strengthening effect? Or has it caused troubles in it? Because that’s, that’s one of the places I think we’re all a little bit scared of when you step in?

Jessaka Clark 48:54
Yeah, I think I’m not I think we definitely really struggled. I would say was it last year? No, it was 2019 I can’t bring what you’re wearing. That was a really, really, really rough year for us. We were dealing with all this stuff with my oldest and she was really putting us through the wringer. And I mean that that really hurt our marriage. Just the stress of it, you know, she was making home life really miserable. And we had to be super careful with my husband being alone with her because she had made some false accusations and we had CPS reports and stuff that she had filed on my husband. And so we just have to be really careful. And that added extra stress because I was always stuck going taking her to this appointment or that appointment. And you know, she didn’t like me. And so then it was you know, I’m stuck in a car with her and so that really tested our marriage But once we got through that year, I, we are so much stronger now than we were at the beginning of this. I mean, it’s definitely been a learning curve but it’s it’s something that we’re we’re definitely growing in the new thing definitely has been that he is working as a hotshot driver now, so he’s gone from three to five weeks at a time. And so and then he comes home for about a week. So that’s been a new adjustment, because he’s not here for a while. So handling all this, without him can kind of be rough. And then when he’s home, you know, we kind of have to get back into the routine of him being in charge and me, you know, taking a break. And so that’s been a whole adjustment of its own as well. And then me starting work back up as a bus driver adding that to it. And, yeah, it’s just been a lot of periods of adjustment, I think. And you have to make sure that you keep your marriage a priority. You have to do date nights, you have to make sure that you’re both communicating about every you know about everything, you know, even with him on the road. I talked to him several times a day and we just make sure you know, even with all this COVID thing that started happening in the house and you know, he healed you know, how’s the kid feeling okay, they do they still have a fever. Okay, did you get my be perfect, you know, he’s still trying to stay as much involved as he can even being far on the road. And especially with my older boys, they really, you know, they really respect him, and they really thrive being around him. And so whenever I’m really struggling with one of them, I’ll just be like, hey, just talk to your son because he doesn’t want to listen to me right now. So and he will he’ll get on the phone. Hey, dude, what’s going on? Why are you why being a butthead? You know, which let’s problem. And then once they talk to him, they’re good. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. All right. Yeah, I

Amanda Palmer 52:00
believe the real times a day. But that must be really difficult for you to you know, you’re home all the time. How do you get a break? How do you decompress?

Jessaka Clark 52:11
decompressing? Funny. I don’t I don’t know, I don’t have an answer for you for that one. Um, as far as getting a break, I really do try and get a break as much as possible. When my husband’s home. I even like at like the first day or two that he’s home, I’ll just kind of hang out in my room and read a book just to kind of, you know, one, let the kids get that reset with him. And then for me to be able to kind of, you know, bring my mind back down. And just get a minute to not have a kid interrupting me every two seconds. But I’m sure all of you can relate that even when he’s home the walk right past him to come find me in my room and asked me a question.

Amanda Palmer 52:57
Yeah.

Jessaka Clark 52:59
So I mean, but honestly, I’m not much of a I like to read. So that’s, I think the biggest thing that I do is, you know, get away with the book for a little bit. Um, but my kids are really are really easy. So I don’t have too many challenges so far with, you know, feeling like chaos has ensued. This COVID thing has been the most chaotic thing that’s happened so far, because we’re all stuck in the house, and can’t go anywhere. But I mean, we write, but I mean, other than that, it’s, you know, hasn’t been too bad.

Amanda Palmer 53:41
Sorry, go ahead.

Jason Palmer 53:44
No, go ahead. Go ahead.

Amanda Palmer 53:45
I was just gonna ask, you know, how is all of this affected your biological child?

Jessaka Clark 53:53
Yeah. So he likes that we had we had him first. I’m sorry. We have him first. And so he was three when we first when the rest of the kids moved in. And so he was still the youngest at that time. And so that was kind of good, because he still kind of got to be the baby, so to speak. But for him, I think the hardest thing has been his love language is touch. Whereas the rest of my kids that is not their love language, which makes complete sense regarding you know, where their upbringing and whatnot. And so for him, it’s been hard because he likes to snuggle and he likes to, you know, lay on the couch with us and stuff. And so trying to make that time for him, but also not make it seem like there’s favoritism or you know, or anything like that. And so that’s been the biggest struggle for him is getting that snuggle time in because that’s his thing. But other than that, he loves You know, people will ask him all the time how he likes having somebody and he loves having all the siblings. So it’s been a pretty, pretty easy and positive thing for him.

Jason Palmer 55:11
Yeah, there’s nothing like those little ones when they want to snuggle right?

Jessaka Clark 55:15
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, he’s seven now. But yeah, he’s still very much. So. Yeah, he would snuggle all day long if I could.

Jason Palmer 55:23
Yeah, we have a godson who comes over and hangs out a few days a week with us and, and that one wants nothing more than to sit on your lap and play and just have a good time. And if you happen to have a large beard, he wants to grab a hold of it and hang off of it as well. I might know something about that.

Jessaka Clark 55:40
Right, right.

Jason Palmer 55:41
I don’t think I have any nerve endings left there, but he’s not the first. Yeah. I have a couple questions. I like to ask people, you know, the foster care system is not perfect adoption system is not perfect. If you had a magic wand, you could just wave and fix one part of the system, what would you change.

Unknown Speaker 56:07
Um,

Jessaka Clark 56:09
my husband and I always say that the reason why the foster care system has been becomes such a terrible necessity is because it is it was it is now run by the government, whereas it was originally built to be run by the church, and run by the people of the church. And so we have always believed that if the church would take its responsibility back and run things like they were supposed to do when it first started, I think a lot of the issues would would go away, you wouldn’t have a lot of the political garbage, so to speak, in the system, but with that being said, if the churches wants to, you know, stand up and do something, then it’s not going to get any better. And that’s something that we’ve always had a huge heart for is, you know, getting the church you know, for instance, we we attend a church that is has six campuses, so pretty big church, and there are 10,000 ish members, between the campuses. And we have calculated out that if one in every once say it’s one in every 500 people would Foster. Yeah, would foster a child in foster care in our just our church, which there are several mega churches in our area. If just one in every 500 families would foster a kid, we would be able to wipe out our state’s foster care system. And it’s like, you know, that kind of a number. It’s like, how is that not doable? I you know what I mean, I don’t understand why that’s not doable.

Jason Palmer 57:59
And if you’re not careful, you get me preach on topic. For years,

Amanda Palmer 58:04
to

Jason Palmer 58:05
political leanings, left or right, I don’t care where you’re at. We could take all the problems out of that. If the churches were to stand up and take care of people who need help. And they’re doing what they’re

Jessaka Clark 58:16
supposed to do.

Jason Palmer 58:18
Yeah, that’s one of the we’re talking foster care, just Family Services, welfare. If the churches would put in enough effort to outwork the government, which shouldn’t be hard, no. could easily get rid of those systems and a much better, more efficient job of it. And so yeah, I’m gonna stop there. So I don’t start to preach on it.

Jessaka Clark 58:40
Like I get it. I do constantly, you know, people stop me. And, you know, you get all those questions all the time. While you’re while I’m sure you guys do too, with your family being you know, bigger, you know, you get all those questions all the time of, you know, what, you know, what causes this of that which you what you said is exactly the same thing I say I say yes, lots of paperwork, lots of paperwork. And I but I always tell people, I always use it as an opportunity to say, you know, there’s such a need, just in our own country, that there should be no reason why. You know, that we can’t make a difference if our churches would just step up and do what they’re supposed to do. And thankfully, our church has been doing an incredible job. They actually launched an initiative called foster compassion. They launched that two years ago. And they have made that their full almost their full time priority of they do impact classes. They have support groups for foster parents, where everybody has a circle of people that surrounds one foster family. And then they provide services and meals to foster families every week and just a whole bunch of initiatives that they’ve that they’ve kind of ramped up and trying to get more foster Parents out of our church, not out of our church, but create more foster parents in our church. And so they’ve started this initiative called foster compassion. And it’s really, it’s been an incredible thing to watch. Because it’s something that for years, my husband, I’ve just been like, you know, like you said, you just how these numbers don’t add up. They don’t add up. How is it possible that you can have all these churches and all these people who claim to, you know, want to do God’s word, and then all these kids that are without families, it just doesn’t add up. So that would be my magic wand, taking it out of the government’s hands and putting it back into the church’s hands where it belongs.

Jason Palmer 1:00:39
I’m with you. 100% there? What do you wish people knew what’s what’s one thing you wish people knew about you guys this journey that you think they totally don’t get?

Jessaka Clark 1:00:55
One that big families are normal? quote, unquote, normal? Again, we use that term very loosely in this house. Um, big families are not we’re not any different than your family. You know, yeah, we, you know, we have a bigger van, you know, yeah, we might eat a little bit more food. But other than that, I mean, we’re not, you know, we believe the same things that you know, you do about, you know, mom, dad, brother, sister, you know, big families are no different than your family, we might be a little bit louder, but even then, you know, you get a couple kids together, and it gets obnoxious. So, um, but I always tell people that I’m like, you know, don’t think that just because I have a bunch of kids, I can’t, you know, put a meal together and bring it to your house, or, you know, that we can’t come and help them pray, you know, pray with you. Or that, you know, we can’t go to the zoo with you guys, you know, or whatever, just, our family is just like any other family, you know, we’re not, we’re not crazy or not. We’re not Little House on the Prairie. I don’t know, you know, people ask us all the time, if we’re Mormon or Catholic, or, you know, all sorts of things. Nothing wrong with that. But we’re like, no, we’re just, you know, normal family that just likes to have kids in the house all the time. So, um, but that in and also just, um, I really struggle with people who, when they hear our story, or if they when they hear like, nine kids, they’re always like, Oh, you know, bless your heart, or, you know, which is the southern phrase, you’re an idiot. I’m

Jason Palmer 1:02:32
a couple years in the south, I know, bless you.

Jessaka Clark 1:02:37
I get that a lot. But also, you know, just people who, who say, just the craziest things, and, and I always tell people just educate, you know, don’t, you know, my husband’s great about coming up with like, witty responses to people. And I’m like, I just just educate, you know, I teach my kids just educate. You know, my daughter had an experience. As back in December, at school, these kids were making jokes about abortion. And she, they were saying that it’s better to abort than for your kid to go into foster care. And so she was really struggling with that. And she was trying to talk to them to educate them. And they wouldn’t listen to her. And so she was Hold on one second.

Sorry, they were going a little crazy upstairs. That, yeah, yeah. We’ve held it together so far. So.

But yeah, in she was really struggling with that. And she was trying to just educate them. She wasn’t trying to condemn them about anything, or tell them they were terrible, or, you know, whatever. She was just trying to educate them. And, you know, being from foster care system, who better to speak on that. And so she was trying to tell them, you know, not all foster care is bad, and not all foster parents are bad, and adoption is great. And I was adopted, and they just wouldn’t listen to her. And they were saying, really, I don’t even know the polite way of saying stupid things, stupid things. And, you know, so she came home in tears because she’s like, I just wanted to educate them. It’s not that I wanted them to necessarily agree with me or believe what I believe but I just wanted them to listen and to allow me to at least tell my story. You know, and I always tell people, just educate, educate, educate, you know, educate people about when they see a family that’s blended you know, we’re we’re a blended family I have. My siblings are seven, they’re Mexican, and the seven siblings and then my little blonde hair biological one is blonde, pale. And then the youngest one is actually Ukrainian. Her mom came from Ukraine was adopted from the Ukraine. And so, you know, we’re very blended family and my brother’s life to black brothers and then one apparently mulatto, but he looks Cuban, it really doesn’t make sense. But so we’re very blended family. And people always have just the weirdest things that they say. And they’re saying in front of their kids, and it’s like, that’s not educating your kids properly, you know, that’s teaching them to, you know, to react before they think about it, you know, because if you looked at my family first, you’d be like, That’s weird. Doesn’t make sense. But instead of just saying that or asking a snide, you know, asking a snide question. You could be like, when can you really? Can you explain to me how your family became to do this, you know, this diverse and you know, something, just instead of saying, your husband must be really dark, or, you know, well, jeez, that’s, that’s a really mixed bag, and nutsert you know, all sorts of things. Um, you know, my friend had an experience at Walmart the other day where she has, she’s a foster mom, who just adopted and she has two African American little boys. And then her rest of her kids are, you know why, and they were all acting kind of crazy at the checkout. And a lady looked over and said to her daughter, you know, looked at her daughter and pointed to my friend. So that’s what happens when you mix races. And it’s like, like, you’re teaching that to your daughter. So now she’s going to continue on with the, again, don’t have polite way of saying stupidity. Because you’re teaching her to see things that way. So yeah, anyways, long story, I’m sorry, long response, but education, education is the thing you know, and I know that you guys are doing an incredible job with, with that with what you guys are doing with the podcast. And that’s huge.

Jason Palmer 1:06:57
Yeah, that’s part of what we do. Because we understand that that journey as well, we have a

Amanda Palmer 1:07:02
biracial family and people you know, we get the looks, and there’s comments here and there. You know, but it almost You know, when we go out it kind of looks like a his and hers because my husband’s darker and I’m nice and pale. So we have some that are pale, and we have some that are mixed. And we do get a lot of a lot of looks and normally just me, you know, he get it so much. And I don’t know if it’s just because he’s big and He’s scary. My husband’s you know, yeah, I get it more when I’m with the kids,

Jason Palmer 1:07:34
I think I’m just able to look people in the eye and exude hate a little bit easier. And they don’t. Yeah, I played that one, my that card a timer, too. So one more question in this big support group around you, a lot of people helping you guys, you know, kind of reaching into your family. But what when you when you’re talking to the, to the general public to people, you know, to friends or coworkers? What does support look like for your family?

Jessaka Clark 1:08:02
What does support look like for our family?

Unknown Speaker 1:08:04
Um,

Jessaka Clark 1:08:06
I think mostly it’s, it’s people understanding where our passion and our heart comes from. I mean, you know, like, like you said, we could preach all day, you know, I could, you know, you put me on a stage to talk about this, I’ll go for hours. Because we just have such a passion for it. And so, for us, it’s, you know, as far as like, with coworkers and stuff, you know, especially with my job, they’ve been really great about understanding that, like, when we’re going through everything with my oldest, you know, understanding that, hey, you know, I just kind of need a couple days to get the house back in order because we’re going through kind of chaos, and we’ve had the cops here every other day and you know, kind of thing. But as far as like my family, you know, the support we get from my family as if that’s priceless. I mean, we have, for instance, this week was you know, the whole COVID situation. I needed Chromebooks for my kids to do their schooling while they’re on quarantine. And so but I can’t go to the school to pick them up. So my mom drove up here from Jacksonville and grabs Chromebooks and dropped them off and I actually Oh, sorry. Sorry, got interrupted again. Um, I actually had I have a family that’s from our church that stopping by this afternoon to drop some stuff off and just kind of help us with this. I have amazing friends two amazing friends who have kind of been through there through all these crazy things. And for them, it looks like hey, I can you just come over here so I can cry for a little bit in my room. Yeah. Can you just come over and watch the kids so I can just go boohoo for a little bit my room.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:55
Or hey, can

Jessaka Clark 1:09:56
you just take these kids so that I can get these kids calm down? For a little bit, you know, and they’ll take a couple of the kids with them so I can get the ones that are going off, you know, kind of calm down before we bring the kids back, you know, all sorts of stuff. I mean, the situation was, with my oldest has been the most challenging thing I’ve ever been through in my life. But it’s been great to have my mom and dad who’ve been through pretty crazy situations themselves. there to kind of not only be a voice of reason, but also, you know, I can look at how they’ve handled the situation with my brothers and be like, okay, okay, that’s a good idea. Maybe we’ll try that, you know, that being able to call them and be like, hey, what would you do? You know, what, what should I do? This kid keeps stealing Chromebooks from school. What should I do? You know, we have a punching bag in our garage, because my dad was like, get a punching bag, your kid your boys are getting to the age where they’re getting angry, get a punching bag,

Amanda Palmer 1:10:53
we got one big weight set, you know, they’ve got to have a way to express themselves. Yeah, that’s really awesome that you have a lot of people in your life that you can draw experience from and that understand, because I know that too often. A lot of us foster and adoptive parents, we just feel so isolated. Yeah. There’s nobody that understands. So yeah, awesome that you have a lot of people, especially your parents, you know, but Yeah, sounds like you’re really close with your parents. That’s really awesome. Yeah, yeah.

Jessaka Clark 1:11:26
Yeah, I do. I know, some families who, you know, unfortunately, have not had the same experience with their, even with their like said with their parents and their own family, you know, that don’t support their decision to foster and that’s really difficult because, you know, when you have a heart for and you have a calling for it, you know, that you’re supposed to do it. And even when it’s really challenging, and then to have family or, you know, friends who say, you know, something difficult comes up, and then they say, Well, you know, you kind of asked for it, you know, or this is what you signed up for or or just give it back? Yeah, yes, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, I couldn’t imagine doing this without having support, especially for my parents. You know, that’s, that’s been huge. Just being like, especially during this really challenging time with my oldest is definitely been, like, the most trying thing I’ve ever been through. So having them there to guide us has been great.

Jason Palmer 1:12:23
That’s amazing. Well, Jessica, I want to thank you for coming and talking to us and telling your story today because my gosh, do you guys have like a just a ton of experience and, and have gained some, you know, all kinds of wisdom and sharing it with people is is the best thing we can do once we’ve, once we’ve fought through these battles. We’ve had these struggles. It’s a shame to waste it not share it.

Jessaka Clark 1:12:45
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Jason Palmer 1:12:48
So I want I want to just want to make sure we said thank you for being so open and honest and talking with us.

Jessaka Clark 1:12:54
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity.

Jason Palmer 1:12:57
Okay, foster care nation. Thank you for listening to Jessica’s story. Now, take her knowledge and wisdom to heart so you can create love and healing in your family and community. Be sure to come back next week with new episodes every Tuesday. If you’d like to share your story as a guest, you can reach us at foster care uj@gmail.com You can also connect with other like minded people on facebook@facebook.com slash groups slash foster care uj. Don’t forget we have a Patreon where you can support our mission for as little as $5 a month. It’s at patreon.com slash foster care nation. The links to everything are in the show notes on your podcast player or at foster care nation calm and as always,

Unknown Speaker 1:13:37
you are so super awesome. I thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:45
Thank you. thank thank thank