Foster Parenting: Open Homes, Open Hearts

by Karen Gibbs

She came in the spring with a plastic bag of used clothing, this wispy-haired toddler with big brown eyes. And she left six months later, her little fingers slowly waving, her tiny voice calling “bye-eeee” as tears spilled down our cheeks. We did nothing out of the ordinary—just treated her as one of our own. Yet, somewhere between spring and fall, she’d managed to steal our hearts. And we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

My husband and I became interested in foster care when our three daughters were all in high school. Life was good. We’d just moved to a new home in the country, had a couple of horses and lots of dreams. We both felt inexplicably drawn to share all of this with children as foster parents. The experience was beyond rewarding and fulfilling. It was life changing—for our daughters and us.

Our first little girl, Julia, quickly became the center of our family’s attention. We poured out our love in so many ways—from mealtime to story time, play time to bath time, our little angel occupied all our time. And did she make us laugh! Her favorite trick was to slip out of the towel after her bath and run au naturel through the house. Her laughter and antics were contagious, drawing every one of us from tasks at hand. What a transformation from the quiet, bewildered toddler who first came to us. The more we loved her, the more she blossomed.

The 10-week Model Approach to Partnership in Parenting (MAPP) course offered by the Office of Children Services had prepared us well for the demands of being foster parents. We knew we had to remain objective when dealing with the child’s parents, but, above all, do what was best for the child. We were savvy about the legalities and technicalities of getting healthcare, both physical as well as emotional. Julia’s social worker and her Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) became frequent visitors and trusted friends. We couldn’t understand why they kept reminding us that this was all temporary and that one day this child would leave us. In our minds, we didn’t know how to love less. Julia was family.

But when the time for “good-bye” came, we discovered they were right. It was devastating to us all. We’d invited the birth family over for a farewell dinner, exchanged stories of our little one, laughed and hugged. They promised to keep in touch, but that promise didn’t last long. So, just as quietly as she came, our “almost daughter” left us.

Within a few short weeks, OCS called again, this time with two children, primary school-aged siblings. They were beautiful children whose world had just been turned upside down. Their lives were more complicated and their needs more extensive, but, just like their predecessor, these children brought much love to us and called forth even more love from us. Their tenure was years, not months, and their parting painful. At that time, we decided to end our foster parent experience. OCS understood. As Tonyalea Elam, a recruiter for foster parents in our area, so wisely says, “Even if it’s not your season to foster or adopt, there is always something you can do to help spread the word about our need for more homes—tell a friend, invite us to speak at your church or host an informational party in your home.”

With the number of children in foster care always increasing in our area, there is an ever-present need for loving homes to nurture these helpless children while their families work out problems. Two such loving families are the Sawas and the Bonnets, who opened their homes to the rich experience of fostering. One fostered teen boys, the other younger children. Was it easy? No. Was it worth it? They say absolutely yes. Their stories speak for themselves.

The Bonnet Family–
Fostering and the Adoption Option

Traci and Steve Bonnet fell in love while she was in high school, and their marriage of 11 years was perfect except for one thing—they had no children. “We were united for a reason,” begins Traci, “and we knew we’d parent well together.” So it was natural that Traci was attracted to a newspaper article on the need for foster parents in St. Tammany.

After reading it, Traci looked at the postcard she’d put on the refrigerator. It showed homeless, hungry children and asked, “God, why do you allow this? Do you have a solution?”

And God responded, “I do. I created YOU.”

Accustomed to making faith-based decisions together, Steve and Traci felt they were called to be part of the solution. They contacted OCS and began certification training. The couple enjoyed the course and appreciated being shown both the pros and cons of fostering. “It’s important to have a realistic picture,” explains Traci, “because the buy-in has to be genuine. It’s a long road.” A long road indeed, as Traci and Steve’s ultimate intention was to adopt.

It wasn’t long before the Bonnets welcomed their first foster child, a 6-month-old baby boy. “We fell in love with him,” Traci smiles. She and husband Steve ultimately adopted this bundle of joy and refer to his coming into their lives as a miracle. They went on to adopt their next little foster son. (After all, everyone needs a brother.) Since that day, Traci and Steve have fostered nine children.

Wisely, the Bonnets include their sons in making decisions regarding future foster children. “It is amazing that at such young ages the boys know that they need to support and welcome each new child,” Traci marvels.

One night, the brothers took their night light, known to them as their “angel,” into the room of their new foster brother. Concerned that he might be afraid, they told him, “Our angel cares for us at night. You keep it until you’re used to this house.”

The boys are proud of their role as big brothers, something Traci and Steve preserve by only accepting children younger than their sons. Doing this allows the new children to come into a peaceful environment, welcomed by parents and brothers alike. The boys readily share their toys and clothes with the new foster-siblings, treating them as family from day one. Traci maintains a “life book” for each child that includes events from birth on. She knows that it is important to keeps a record of their first words, first steps and their growth. By recording this time away from their biological families, she is preserving continuity in their lives.

With such an outpouring of love, it’s no wonder the family needs time to grieve and heal when a foster child leaves them. To prepare the children, the Bonnets talk about it beforehand and involve their sons in helping the children pack. Notes Traci, “It’s not unusual for the boys to send a favorite toy with the child when he returns home.”

After a child leaves the Bonnets, they may be out of sight, but never out of mind. Scattered across the house are photos of all the children that ever came to them. And every night, without fail, when the family prays at dinner, every foster child is mentioned by name. They stay part of their memory and part of their life.
Traci and Steve are obviously passionate about foster care and willingly share responsibilities at home. “It’s about partnership,” says Steve, “and always having time at the end of the night for one another.” With both of them working full time, that’s very important. “My husband cooks, bathes and daddies with the best of the mommies,” brags Traci. And because both spouses are dedicated to this mission, their children follow suit. Their younger son, although still in primary school, says he wants to be a foster parent when he grows up.

Often people tell the Bonnets that they’d love to have foster children but would have a hard time letting the kids go. Traci reminds them that what foster parents give to these children far outweighs the costs they may pay. She adds that people must go into fostering willing to invest in the children, to be part of their lives.

Indeed, friends and both sides of the Bonnet family have become involved with all nine of their foster children. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings—all treat the foster children as their own, including buying clothes and toys. Not wanting to miss the excitement, their niece and nephew in college make trips home to welcome new foster kids. Even co-workers at The Strawberry Patch, where Traci is manager, have given her gifts for the children.

In retrospect, Traci and Steve know the reason they didn’t have their own biological children. They believe they were chosen to be foster parents so they could make a difference in the lives of these kids. “We’d rather have that as a legacy than any other,” declares Traci.

The Sawa Family
From Double Trouble
to Twice Blessed

A child of adoption herself, Jan Sawa empathized with troubled youth. So did her husband, Greg, who met Jan, a single mother of three, while she was working and studying at the University of Wisconsin. In 1989, Greg married Jan and welcomed her three young children as his own.

Five years later, the young family moved to Louisiana, where Jan worked for a glass company. One spring day, she received a call to go to a house for a repair estimate. She left that house with the certainty that the two scrawny teens skateboarding in the driveway needed her. There was trouble in the air, and Jan couldn’t ignore it.

She invited the twin 16-year-old boys to her house to skateboard with her own teenage sons. The twins, Mikey and Eric, had just moved here from California and were happy to meet kids their own age. Soon they were spending more waking hours at the Sawas than they did at their own house. By their own admission, Mikey and Eric were a little rough around the edges. For the previous three years, they had been virtually on their own as their single mom fought her own demons. As a result, they became street smart—stealing, lying, manipulating in order to survive. With no one making them attend school, the boys had gone only 32 days in three years.

When Jan and her boys left to visit family in Wisconsin that summer, Greg stayed behind to hold down the fort. Mikey and Eric practically took up residence with him. At first, Greg felt awkward, but soon developed a bond with the lonely boys, sharing TV favorites, movies and wrestling. Worried for the boys’ safety and well-being, Greg reported the situation to police and OCS. This panicked the twins’ mother, and she fled with the boys to Florida. The youths were sent to live in a mission for men, sharing quarters with the homeless.

The frightened boys called Jan and Greg, explaining their situation. In an effort to rescue them, Jan called their mother and persuaded her to return the boys to the Sawas’ care. Jan also tried to get the boys placed in foster care, with the hope that she and Greg could be their foster parents. Having been foster parents in Wisconsin, the Sawas felt certain they could get certified in Louisiana, but they wanted immediate custody of Mikey and Eric.

OCS agreed to accept the Sawas as the boys’ foster parents provided they took the mandatory MAPP course. Jan and Greg talked with their children about fostering and adopting, if the possibility arose. All agreed—Mikey and Eric should become part of the Sawa family.

Imagine importing two teenage boys into a home that already had three teens! Daughter Alecia, who was 17 at the time, recalls, “My first reaction was to question why. Once I got the whole story, I understood. Family is important to me, so the more the merrier.”

Son Chad was two years younger than Mikey and Eric, and shared their blonde curly hair and body size. He admits he was skeptical at first; however, once he got to know them, he regarded them as a blessing. “I wouldn’t change our decision for anything,” he offers.

Brandon, nine months younger than the twins and the older son in the Sawa family, sums up the experience with a laugh and one word—crazy! He remembers that the family was just getting accustomed to their new life in Louisiana when this change came about. But despite normal brother stuff, he says it was “awesome” having two more brothers.

These rosy remarks, however, belie the culture clash that took place the first year Mikey and Eric were with the Sawas. Accustomed to life without rules, Mikey and Eric resisted the expectations and boundaries on behavior that Jan and Greg imposed. School became a mandatory part of their lives. Greg proudly boasts that the boys made up four years of education in one year. They initially tested at 5th and 6th grade levels, yet should have been in the 10th grade. Jan put her bachelor’s degree to good use, taking a one-year leave of absence from her job in order to stay home and work with the boys. The following year, Mikey and Eric were performing at grade level, bringing home A’s and B’s.

While the boys were catching up on book learning, they also had a lifetime of other issues to master. Simple things such as eating a family meal were foreign to them. They wolfed down their food and had to be taught that mealtime meant conversation with family and eating in a leisurely manner. While they were on their own, dinner might have been putting an open can of string beans on a stove burner. Now they had seasoned green beans that tasted heavenly. When Jan served steak to them for the first time, Eric put the entire piece in his mouth and nearly choked to death trying to swallow it. For years, the family kept that piece of meat in the freezer, a cold reminder of “the early days.”

Sadly, the boys knew little of grooming and personal hygiene, not even how to bathe. This was where Greg stepped in and taught them all they needed to know. Chores were another foreign word for the twins, and they speak lovingly of Jan’s army sergeant-approach to raising them. Jan recalls that when they came to live with them she asked what they hated to do most—wash baseboards, mow the lawn, etc. She wrote down their answers and later used those chores as tools for discipline.

Mikey remembers how Jan was vigilant when she meted out a punishment. Once, he was expected to mow a certain area of the yard, but he stopped short of finishing the job, thinking that Jan wouldn’t notice. To his surprise, Jan was on him like gravy on rice, exacting the last bit of work she was owed. “Consistency,” says Mikey. “If a person is consistent, people will respect you and Jan was consistent and structured.”

Language was, of course, more colorful with Mikey and Eric. Four-letter words rolled off their tongue easily, and Jan chose a creative way to curb their use. She put a cuss jar in the living room and anytime someone uttered an expletive, he was fined accordingly. “If they said it to my face, the fine was bigger,” Jan reveals. The strategy provided enough relief from foul language that Jan considers it a success.

Sometimes, however, the twins slipped up on their verbiage, totally unaware that they had said anything improper. Jan loves to tell the story of the day she got dressed up to attend the inauguration of a local dignitary. “How do I look?” she asked Eric, expecting a modest compliment. Trying to sincerely praise Jan’s outfit, he blurted, “Well, you don’t look like a [street walker], that’s for sure.”

The whole family agrees that Mikey and Eric challenged as well as blessed them. They all developed a greater appreciation of the value of rules, the importance of faith in God and the gift of family. To that end, over a year ago the children, now all in their twenties, decided to honor their parents and celebrate Family Night every Thursday. They take turns bringing the dinner or going out to eat. Since all five work in the restaurant business, providing good meals is never a problem—a far cry from green beans in a can on the stove.

When asked to comment on their lives together, the children unanimously praise Jan and Greg for their unqualified love. They extol Jan’s organization, structure and even her rules. They likewise are proud of Greg, his gentleness, patience and sense of peace. They marvel that this man took in three little children who still bore their birth father’s name, raised them as his own and then fathered the twins in like manner.

What a sacrifice for a man who thought the Sawa family name would die out with him. There was no hope of continuing his family heritage. That is, until last Christmas, when Greg and Jan asked Mikey what he wanted for Christmas. He replied, “Greg, you’ve been the guy who’s always there for me. Will you adopt us for Christmas?”

Through tears, Greg said yes and, with that fiat, he received the gift he’d always wanted. Early in 2008, Mikey and Eric took the Sawa name, honoring the people who may not have given them birth, but most definitely gave them life.

To find out how you can help the foster children in our community, contact the Office of Community Services at
985-893-6363.

Foster Care 101

What are the different ways one may foster children? The most common form of foster care is having children join your family until their family life is stable or they are ready for permanent placement. Emergency care lasts only a few days; respite care gives foster parents a break by watching their children for a day or longer.

What do foster parents do? Everything that birth parents do and sometimes more. They open their hearts and homes to children who have been abused or neglected, nurture them and provide support and stability in their lives.

Who can become foster parents? Applicants must be at least 21 years old; have sufficient income to meet their own basic needs; be in good physical, emotional and mental health; and may be single, married, divorced or widowed.

Is there financial help to foster? A daily board rate is paid for the child’s monthly expenses. The agency provides for the medical needs of each child, therapy expenses and evaluations. Special needs children or siblings adopted together are eligible for further financial assistance.

If I am a relative of a child who needs care, may I apply to be their foster parent? Yes, if the child is in the custody of the state.
May I specify the ages, gender and number of children I accept? Yes. Some people accept only babies, others just teens or only boys or girls. The harmony of the home is important to all.