A friend whom I hadn’t spoken with in years reached out to me last week. In the course of catching up, we talked about work, family, children, retirement, mission and purpose. He talked about wanting to “give back” to society in a meaningful way. He’s considering fostering under privileged children or mentoring them through big brother or the boys club.
Ever since I became an empty nester at the early age of 30 due to my spring/winter marriage, I thought about adopting, fostering or big brothering a kid. But, for most of the next 20 years, I had my hands full with work and increasingly during later years, with caring for my wife.
I’ve always thought highly of the “idea” of being a Big Brother or adopting a child. I admired the people I know who have done this. They volunteered their time, money and emotional commitment to help someone in need. Sometimes, it ended badly. I heard about some of their “failures” with children who could not escape the cycle of poverty, lack of opportunities and broken families. Occasionally I heard of success stories, like the family I knew in Florida who fostered a baby while her mother was incarcerated for drug addiction and eventually adopted her. (She graduated from high school and entered college 17 years after they first volunteered to foster her).
When I think about doing something like this today, I’m not too interested.
I was wondering, does that make selfish, self- centered or lazy? Have I become someone who I wouldn’t admire?
As I thought about this, I realized that in some ways I was a foster parent/big brother for 10 years. When my mother and stepfather were together, he moved 23 different wayward kids into our home. Some stayed for a few months, others for years. A few bounced in and out of our home several times.
I spent these ten years helping these kids acclimate to school, society and our home. The older ones didn’t need or want much help. They just needed food, clothing and shelter.
The younger ones were a mess. They came from impoverished and often chaotic environments. Some need to learn how to read, how to get up for school and basic personal hygiene.
Others needed to learn how to play without violence. Or have a conversation with someone who listened.
I never questioned any of this. I was just a kid and this was the way it was.
I certainly didn’t volunteer for the job. I would have preferred having a normal life without all of these intruders.
Looking back, I remember one particular kid. He lived with us for years and I treated him like a brother. Then he ran away and went back to his mother. A year later when he ran away from her and returned to live with us, he was worse than he was when I first met him.
It was so discouraging that I gave up. I think I was in 9th or 10th grade at the time. I consciously decided that I wasn’t going to try to change him. We lived together for the next few years and I kept my distance. He ran away and lived between our home and his mother’s home several times. Things never got better for him during those years. It was predictable.
As an adult, I helped parent my two step kids directly for 8 years and then as an empty nester for decades. I signed on for this when I committed to my wife and have no regrets about that decision.
Today when I think about signing up to be a stepparent, a foster parent, an adoptive parent or a Big Brother, I think “Not a chance.”
I’ve been there’d done that already. Those chapters of my life have passed.
And yet, sometimes, I miss coaching little league. Or I think about how I always wanted to be a grandfather. Or I think about my Uncle Bob and Aunt Es and Grandpa and the other old people who were there for me when I was a little kid. I’d be lying if I said a part of me wishes I was like them.