Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep. 184 – Adventures in Foster Parenting w/ Kavin Kramer
354 Plays1 year ago
This week we’re joined by our friend Kavin to talk about his experiences as a short term foster parent! Foster care is an important service that really doesn’t get the attention it deserves. The fact of the matter is that kids across the world through no fault of their own find themselves in difficult, scary situations where they are taken out of their home, away from their families, and placed in the care of strangers. The reasons vary a lot more than I was aware of. They can involve everything from respite to abuse and can last anywhere from a few days to the rest of their childhoods. Regardless of the situation, think about how you would feel to be 6 or 8 years old and suddenly be placed in a strange house with people you don’t know. Could you relax? Could you go to sleep? Could you find it in yourself to trust that these people have your best interest at heart? It’s a pretty frightening position for a youngster, and extremely delicate for the family taking care of them. Over the last year, Kavin and his family have cared for over 20 children through short term foster care. As you will hear, this is a labor of love that requires a lot of his family, but one that they are passionate about. I think you’ll find this discussion informative! If you’d like to learn more about becoming a foster parent, the rules and requirements in your state, or simply some ways to help children in foster care, go to www.adoptuskids.org
Recommended
Transcript
Arrival of the Foster Child
00:00:00
Speaker
because you get a child and you know nothing. They show up with maybe a bag of clothes and you know nothing about them. And they're scared out of their mind. This is the scariest day of their life. Everything is stacked against that first experience.
Introduction to Kevin and Lynchburg's Culture
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Growing Up Christian. I'm Casey. I'm Sam. And we're joined by our friend, Kevin, who we went to Liberty with. How you doing, man? I'm doing very well. You and I were in, so I came to Liberty my sophomore year of college and started in the quads the first semester that I was, or first year I was in the quads, I think. And I feel like you were on the floor.
00:01:03
Speaker
I was second floor, you were first floor, right? Yeah, I was first floor. I think I was the quad across the parking lot from you or like Gaddy Corner. And then the next year I was in the quad that you were in, but I think you moved. Yeah, so the first two years I was on campus and then I moved back home. Lynchburg is my hometown. I was the one there.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah, so I had been there my whole life and then four years ago, we moved out to Wichita. So we are in Kansas with Casey. Oh, cool, cool. Yeah. Growing up in Lynchburg, I always found that interesting for people who grew up there because it's obviously a very cult. I don't know if it's like, if Liberty made Lynchburg culturally more Christian or if it was mostly like that to begin with.
00:01:55
Speaker
regardless when I was there. Lynchburg is a very culturally Christian place, but you also have a lot of people in the area who are just also tired of liberty.
00:02:07
Speaker
What, like when you were growing up, obviously you grew up in a Christian home and shit. So like, I can imagine what side of things you fell on, but just growing up in Lynchburg, um, what was your, like, how did you, what was like the atmosphere like for you as far as the conversations around Liberty and things like that? Sure. I mean, it being a college town, um, it was kind of that in a nutshell. It's just like, Oh, that's the college. And so people either loved it or hated it.
00:02:36
Speaker
It was typically pretty polarizing your comments of liberty coming in and kind of making it more of a Christian place. I mean, that's not really how you said it and kind of weird wording on my side, but yeah, attributed to the Falwells for sure. Falwell was a local himself. I actually went to the same high school that he did and it's a public school. So I grew up going to public school.
00:03:05
Speaker
and kind of seeing those different opinions. And I'd say the town itself, it's like the government side of things is liberal. It's just the contrast of liberty. And then liberty, of course, being a very conservative opinion. And so it was always the contrast between the two. And it was like nobody could ever be that middle ground is what I felt like in Lynchburg. Now with that, it was a great place to grow up. There was like, there was so much
00:03:34
Speaker
Um, because of that Christian atmosphere, there was so much that was kept out and a lot of people would want it to come in, but like for me, it was, well, that kept me away from a lot of danger. Like the town was such a safe place to grow up. You know, it's, that was really cool. And, um, seeing how, um, there was, there was a lot of people you could just automatically trust.
Kevin's Transition from Lynchburg to Wichita
00:03:57
Speaker
Um, obviously not everybody, cause there's no utopia out there, but like it was.
00:04:03
Speaker
It was just, it felt comfortable, you know? And so finally branching out and moving away. I mean, I've done a lot of travel and I got away for grad school. I was actually in Los Angeles. So a very different dynamic there, but getting out and kind of experiencing a little bit different culture. And I was raised by Midwesterners. They moved to Virginia just before I was born, but grew up in the Midwest.
00:04:32
Speaker
I've kind of experienced a lot of not just Lynchburg growing up, but I've got, I mean, just positive things to say about it. I really enjoyed growing up there. And obviously, I mean, just so many people that I love and most of my friends are still there. So that's just really cool thinking of those memories.
00:04:54
Speaker
It's just a stark contrast between that and the new Babylon of Wichita is a cool place was is I don't know what it's like now, but I I know when I was there. I mean the downtown was constantly new businesses were constantly coming in interesting places new places to eat and drink and I
00:05:19
Speaker
a lot of people who stayed after they graduated and a significant amount of people who left Christianity but still stayed. I feel like there's this idea that it's so Christian that if you're not, it's weird or uncomfortable to be there and that's just not the case. There's thriving communities of all types. There was
00:05:42
Speaker
I feel like people were at least towards the end of my time there. I felt like every few months I would hear about a new place opening and it was usually someone that I knew who knew the person
Liberty University and Cultural Debates
00:05:54
Speaker
who was doing it. Like there was kind of an adventurous spirit of trying to do something fun, unique, different, even or the same, but re-skinned in a way that you'd do it better. I don't know. I really liked it. I thought it was an enjoyable place to go, like go downtown. I thought it was like,
00:06:11
Speaker
I ended up moving a little, I was like in Forest, which is a little outside of Lynchburg. So you're not like, just like, whatever, you're not just like, let's just pop downtown real quick. Which kind of, I think, isolated us a little bit more. If I could have, if I would have redone it, or could have, I would have maybe stayed more towards the downtown of Lynchburg. But it was great. I mean, it seems,
00:06:36
Speaker
Like it's still kind of like that too, from what I know, hearing from people who still have a lot of friends in that area. Yeah, I think so. I don't do any downtown things anywhere. Like going to that concert the other night. That's what it is. Like bars opening up and stuff like... I don't think I've ever hung out in a bar of my own volition.
00:07:05
Speaker
not unless you can open carry in it. That's like where you draw the line. That's the right. They gotta have spur friendly stools. You're the only person you can trust with a gun when people are drinking. Incidentally, everyone else feels the same way.
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, if they have knife-sized restrictions, I'm out. Yeah. I feel like this is the most liberty conversation I've ever had. We've already talked about abortion rights and, you know, gun control. Talking about how Christian Lynchburg is. How much more liberty can this get? Yeah, predestination. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Start talking about Calvinism. How do you feel about critical race theory?
00:07:54
Speaker
Let's just hit them all. Make sure we offend everybody right now. Did you go to, were you like a Thomas Road Baptist kid growing up or? Only the first few years, and I mean like literally first few years of my life. But it was cool, right? Before everyone was doing it. I mean, until I was alive.
00:08:21
Speaker
Once I was five, my dad became a pastor. And so he was my pastor from five to 15. And it was a second job. He was a part-time pastor. Otherwise, he'd been a professor the entire time. And so then he just went back to that right around when I was 15. So no, I never really went back to Thomas Road. I definitely prefer smaller churches.
00:08:50
Speaker
But again, with that too, it's like you'll see the things that people criticize, you're gonna see that everywhere in every culture. Like that's not exclusively Christian when people do corny stuff. So it's like, I don't have criticisms of Thomas Road either. I have a lot of good friends that went there and generally good feedback from them. So I mean, it's like, yeah, I don't have anything to criticize about Lynchburg.
00:09:18
Speaker
And even these hot button topics is like, I don't know, that was kind of the college experience too. So that's not really unique to Liberty either. It's just, that's what all of us talked about in college, right? I mean, we were to prove our point. Yeah. We, we just took a class on or I just watched a 30 minute Ted talk. And so I know all of the facts about this subject. Like that was, that was all of our take.
00:09:42
Speaker
you know? Yeah, it was. I love that's what's so funny about that age. And what's also funny about like, full full
00:09:50
Speaker
support of the protests going on in colleges around the country right now, or that were, but that's because I agree with the cause. But if I didn't, then I'd be like, eh, they're just fucking college kids. They're a bunch of idiots. You can just say whatever you want, however it fits your narrative, I guess. But it is funny because you go to college and you're like 18, 19, and you're like, I'm coming here to learn and to expand my mind. And then all of your conversations with your friends are about how you already know everything and everyone else is wrong about everything.
00:10:20
Speaker
So dumb. I do feel like to some degree, growing up Christian then going to Liberty kind of reinforced that problematic disposition simply because you go, I've always believed these things, now I'm going to this place and they're reinforcing them. It wasn't until like the end of my time at Liberty where I started being like,
00:10:42
Speaker
Maybe not on these, and it's still very Christian, but I just remember feeling like I had the courage to be a naysayer in a discussion board post or some random, just something shitty like that, inconsequential. It didn't matter. It's not like it affected my grade, but I felt so brave. That's bravery, being like-
00:11:07
Speaker
Uh, I don't know. I don't think I believe in a rapture
Kevin's Christian Upbringing and Faith
00:11:10
Speaker
and it's like, Oh my God. I can't believe I said that publicly for you. That was like making a, uh, a pro Hamas protest sign. Yeah. That reminds me, there was, uh, it was in my Joshua judges class. And, um, the Bible major too.
00:11:31
Speaker
No, no, I did a Bible minor so that I could go on and I did Christian apologetics in grad school. But otherwise I did web technology and design. So if you know Dave Kulp, he was one of the other guys. Oh yeah. He used to hang out at that first house that I lived in. I lived with Joe McElroy. So Dave was over all the time because we had a little practice space in that house. And that's when they were doing comrades. Cool. Cool. Yeah. I just saw Joe a couple of years ago. I visited him in Colorado Springs.
00:12:01
Speaker
Oh, nice. Yeah. But what I was going to say in that Joshua judges class, um, there, it was, I don't know. It was one of the times that Obama was running, uh, I guess probably the first time. And, uh, there was a student that purposely came in late and he was holding like a yard sign for Obama. And it was like very clearly trying to just make a scene. And like the whole class just went dead quiet. They're just like,
00:12:28
Speaker
I don't know how to react to anything right now. It was just so uncomfortable for this one student. I love it. Are you going to call yourself a Christian and not vote for John McCain? That was a wild time. I think that election was when I first
00:12:49
Speaker
like had meaningful conversations with people who were like, who actually started to convince me that I might be wrong. And that's was like, I just said, that was unusual, right? Like I don't I remember the first time really that was around that was the first time I was doing my first 180 in life. And it was truly because of
00:13:14
Speaker
people I loved who I knew were amazing people having meaningful conversations with me about what's important to them and why. And I was just like, shit, I don't.
00:13:26
Speaker
I don't know if I've ever thought about that enough. Uh, maybe, uh, maybe I am wrong. And that was, I feel like politically speaking, that was like the first time I remember that election was like a turning point for me simply because that was like that first moment other than just apologizing to a friend. But it's like the first time I recognize that I could be wrong about beliefs I've held my entire life. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I was like, I'd say politically I've just strayed from both parties.
00:13:55
Speaker
So I wouldn't say that I went from one to the other. And I mean, overall, I definitely just have tendencies of of conservative party just because it's been that's what I've I've grown up with. It's been so much so much of what's been around me. But at the same time, it's like I'm sympathetic to just the human element. And I think
00:14:21
Speaker
only speaking for America. I don't know how it's how it is in other countries when I'm really serious about it. It's like, I think that our parties just so badly miss the human element. And down to the advertisements, how the advertisements are just, Oh, well, that party is wrong. I was like, Yeah, but what is your stance? I don't even know what you're saying. You're just telling me that that person's wrong. As I that's so badly misses the mark of how
00:14:50
Speaker
I want, uh, how I want my government to treat other human beings as like, I care about my neighbor. Like I don't want to vote for this guy. I care about my neighbor. You know, it's kind of my feeling on it. And I'm typically the oddball in the room when I say stuff like that. Yeah. I think, I think that's that trend has just like ratcheted up from that point forward. Cause I feel like I, yeah, like I grew up.
00:15:17
Speaker
you know, in the early cable news days, you know, we were always having Fox News on and Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly and stuff like that. And like every election just got like progressively more and more like, you know, that the stakes are so high now. Like, you know, the country will be in ruins if so and so gets elected and stuff. And it's now it's to the point where, yeah, this at this point, like,
00:15:45
Speaker
What is it that Joe and Trump are even running on? Israel. That's pretty much it right now. It's the one bipartisan thing that both sides still say the other side is completely wrong about. And that, to me, shows how intentionally obtuse they are.
00:16:08
Speaker
I've never seen the two parties more aligned on an issue and they just can't stop mudslinging and you're like, this is all pretend. If you agree wholeheartedly and everything Biden has done from start to finish is in full support of Israel and then all the Republicans are like, I can't believe that Biden is doing this and isn't full. It's like, what the fuck else do you want from him? That's why Biden's not
00:16:33
Speaker
That's why Biden's losing the Democratic vote because of how hard he's going on that. And to see them agree and to see them both saying that the other side isn't agreeing with them, it's like we live in a fucking make believe now. It's like peak make believe.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah, like the marketing department doesn't know what to do with somebody agreeing with them. I still have to convince you. Stop making this easy for me. You can't run a, well, he's mostly right sort of advertisement. That's a waste of ad money. So you are still a, so you're still a church going guy, you and your family.
00:17:20
Speaker
I mean, you guys attend regularly and stuff. Have you pretty much been consistent with that, like going all the way back? Yeah, I've been consistent with that going all the way back. I'd say, I think actually when I met up with you shortly after moving here, there were two people I knew and I didn't know you guys lived out here, but I knew you from college and there's actually a guy out here that I know from high school. So just totally random on both fronts.
00:17:50
Speaker
You were one of the first people I met up with. And I think I actually told you, I was like, well, we moved out here because we felt like God was going to tell us to go someplace. And we didn't know where that was. And I was already working for the company I work for that's located here. And so I was like, well, I'll put in an application. And I got the second job and then my wife's a nurse. And so it was super easy for her to get a job, especially because that was during the, uh, it was as the world was shutting down for COVID.
00:18:20
Speaker
And it was like the pieces just fell into place. I definitely would not have chosen to move across the country as the world is shutting down, but it just fell into place, like I said. And so, and I felt that way the entire time. I hear the objections all the time to Christianity. And like I said, my graduate work was in Christian apologetics. So it wasn't like, I never heard that
00:18:47
Speaker
those objections and I was just like, Oh, I don't know about that. Or it's shaking my faith. It's like, it always made me want to lean into it and just be like, well, well, if this is true, then I believe there are answers more than just, well, you know, rely on your faith. It's like, that's a very important piece of Christianity and there's nothing that's going to replace faith. There's no amount of knowledge that will replace that, but it's not the answer to everything.
00:19:13
Speaker
That's something that God gives you, but then he also gives you a brain to be able to think through common objections, to be able to know him stronger and to be able to understand the word that he's given you in scripture. So he's blessed us with these things and we're not supposed to sit there and just not touch it. We're supposed to interact with it.
Teaching at Liberty University
00:19:35
Speaker
And so when I hear people saying, you know, their deconversion stories, it's like, I really listened to those things.
00:19:41
Speaker
I really want to understand where this person's coming from because I think they're asking really good questions. A lot of times- Just came to all the wrong answers. I wasn't going to say that. I was just saying is like, when people are asking questions, it's like we have a responsibility to help out our neighbor, right? Now we're not going to know all the answers. So it's not like I'm saying, well, I need to answer every single one of these.
00:20:09
Speaker
Because like the people I know, I want to walk with them. I want to pick them up together. I want to be able to support each other and just to be able to love my neighbor like I'm told to do and to take care of how Jesus says, take care of my sheep. It's like, I want to do that. Um, that's always been my mindset. And so that's what I want to do. Uh, I've done a lot of teaching, uh, both in the church as well as, um, I was even academically for awhile. I was actually a professor at Liberty. So.
00:20:38
Speaker
After that whole discussion, I was one of them. And I really, really enjoyed the whole student piece. But I really, really did not like the whole administrative piece.
00:20:51
Speaker
In fact, there's been Hulu documentaries released about that. I was going to say, you were there during the fireworks. Well, right before. I left right before. It's like, I mean, but you hear things and it's like, this just isn't headed in the right path. And still today, I'm thinking to myself, they actually fired him. They actually did that. Like that still feels like a dream, just as much as they
00:21:16
Speaker
actually elected Trump president like that's that still just feels like a dream those things actually happened like this is this is reality this is weird um and that's even if you like Trump like that's that feels like a dream right like they actually elected somebody like Trump I'm saying they I mean it's us
00:21:36
Speaker
But anyway. Your squad. Us as in your squad. So anyway, yeah, I take scripture very seriously. I try to allow that to change my behaviors. I think that a lot of the objections come from, well, I just don't want to do that. And I get it. Yeah. A lot of these things are difficult. A lot of these things are
00:22:06
Speaker
against our human nature to want to do.
00:22:12
Speaker
those things are talked about in Scripture, right? I feel like I have to interject and say I couldn't disagree more. Go for it. Yeah. Just this idea of like people decide to make, I don't like what this says, therefore I'm going to do something different. It's more like my experience is speaking in my beliefs and my shifts are speaking in different, are providing different answers and the Bible's not holding up under scrutiny.
00:22:41
Speaker
under the type of scrutiny that the Perspective that you're coming from I would say is is asserting So like I appreciate the language of taking the Bible seriously I feel like that's what I did so so seriously that I stopped taking it under the What's
Interpreting Scripture and Social Issues
00:23:05
Speaker
the word? How do I phrase this I stopped? accepting it
00:23:10
Speaker
the way that it was given to me by the evangelical Christianity. Yeah, I feel like there's, well that's, I do think that a lot of the things that I like deconversion, the deconversion crowd like finds themselves at odds with are almost like
00:23:32
Speaker
Culturally Christian rather than just like pulled from the Bible. It's like extrapolations that modern people have made and it's become kind of just the the theme that runs through things, you know, I mean,
00:23:47
Speaker
I think, uh, well, I'm struggling with an example here, but wait, even just like something as simple as, you know, I was brought up and the, the thing that was said at all times was that we gotta, you know, it's you, we have to support Israel. Right. And I think there's, there's definitely like scriptures that touches on that. Like I can think of the main one, you know, bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse the, or however it goes. Right.
00:24:18
Speaker
But I think that culturally, Christian thought leaders and politicians and stuff like that have extrapolated that to mean that we need to support everything that the Israeli government does and advocates for, and whatever their political and territorial goals are.
00:24:37
Speaker
And I don't know that that's what the Bible is saying there. Or if it is, like, if you want to extrapolate that, like, I feel like that's the problem is you can extrapolate that if you want to, because at the end of the day, all we have is negotiations with the text. Like there is no, I don't, I just, I fell into this category of thought.
00:24:59
Speaker
which is prevalent in academia, and it's not because I've done any of the work, but it's just like evangelicalism sold us this plain reading of the Bible. Even though they liked this idea of a plain reading of the Bible, they still had their academic circle, which
00:25:22
Speaker
obviously devotes a lot of time and energy and research to just real study of scripture, context, things like that. But at the end of the day, there's obviously a lot of textual negotiations going on. That's why we've had multiple councils and things like that to even decide which books are in. All we're doing constantly is applying meaning to certain texts.
00:25:50
Speaker
and then weighing meaning when even certain texts within the Bible don't come to the same conclusions. And I think the Israel thing is a good example because I think that's one thing that felt fairly prevalent throughout scripture and was easily extrapolated. But we still have to enter into a negotiation where we go, yeah,
00:26:16
Speaker
for whatever the narrative purposes were or whatever the authors were writing about as an oppressed people or a conquering nation or a conquered nation depending on where you're at in their history, you still get to the end of that story and have to go
00:26:34
Speaker
So how do we grapple with that now? What does that look like, knowing that that nation had been gone for centuries and then is back and then what does bless them mean? Just has it been that we have to like support them, you know, in their territorial ambitions and stuff? I don't know. We're talking in circles a little bit, but I don't know. What does that make sense at all?
00:27:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I would say I agree with with most of what was said and and you were saying I have to disagree as I feel like we didn't disagree and maybe I just didn't go far enough with what I was saying. It's like, yeah, we're making extrapolations all the time and we're making a lot of poor decisions when we're talking about interpreting scripture. Well, who says they're poor decisions for centuries? We've made bad decisions because what it says, it means something.
00:27:28
Speaker
And we think we know what it means, and maybe that interpretation continues to evolve as we try to learn more. Maybe we're getting closer, maybe we're getting further apart. It's like that's what makes that really difficult,
Faith, Identity, and Foster Care
00:27:42
Speaker
right? And so, especially when you're talking about Israel, and I'm not going to touch on that much because I am far from a scholar of current day Israel.
00:27:53
Speaker
I was like, when we were talking about that, I was like, well, we have historic detail of them moving into the land, the Israelites moving in. And so we have a timeline. So there are details that we can depend on and we can know to a degree of accuracy. But then when you're talking about spiritual meanings of different pieces and why this is important to multiple people groups, that's where that gets complex.
00:28:18
Speaker
And where I would step out from that and say, looking at the current event right now, and this is going to get me in a heap of trouble. But it's like, what I would look at and I would say, it's not whether you're pro Israel or pro Palestine. For me, it's Jesus is intensely pro you. He loves Palestinians. He loves Israelis.
00:28:46
Speaker
When we start to put one against the other, it's like, where is that coming from? It's like, yes, if we're talking about land allotment, I realize people want to draw lines on that stuff. And that's where I like, I have to take a step back. I was like, I am not the person to talk about those things. But like, if we're talking about a people group versus another people group, well, why did Jesus come? He made salvation available to not just the Jews anymore, to the Gentiles also. Like.
00:29:15
Speaker
He is intensely pro human at this point or like, like in, in light of that, like that's, that's what I take away. And if that's the takeaway, I'm not gonna, you know, obviously a different perspective, but I'm not gonna, um, I wouldn't bother starting an argument about that because if you land in a similar place where you just care about the humanity of the people who are suffering,
00:29:44
Speaker
and you don't weigh that based on nationality or religion, then great. But going back to like the, there are things in the Bible that people don't like, therefore they deconvert or shift or they, it no longer has meaning to them is where
00:30:04
Speaker
I would push back on a bit only from personal experience because I think at my core, I'm the same person I've been since I was devoutly evangelical and where I'm at now, which is
00:30:19
Speaker
Just it's up in the air and so just for those personal reasons I there's pushback but also. I don't think it's necessarily an invalid reason to shift away from that because you decided you.
00:30:35
Speaker
you didn't feel like applying the same level of meaning to scripture in its interpretation that your ancestors did. I think there's, I mean, you could just go, again, this concept of meaning being applied is go, that's meaningful to you only if you believe it. So kind of chicken egg, right? Like if you don't, if it's no longer meaningful, you stop believing it. If you don't really believe it, it's no longer meaningful. And you just go, you have to find another way to
00:31:05
Speaker
find your set of values and then work constantly. I think even within Christianity you see that, right? You can go liberal Christian, conservative Christian and they're still negotiating their value sets and they're using the same book and each side says the other side's doing it wrong. So where's the meaning? It gets lost, right?
00:31:25
Speaker
It just becomes like kind of in-group fighting and it feels like it's often just there's often a There's this idea that you have to use this text to support all your ideas and arguments all the time So you just people that's what people are
00:31:45
Speaker
doing. But I think, to some degree, everyone's doing the same thing. Some people are just applying the Bible to it when they're making those negotiations in their life. Yeah, sure. No, I agree with that, for sure. And obviously, we've come to different conclusions of where we are right now. But I would say of myself as like, I'm not going to say I'm 100% on anything until I die and I see it, right?
00:32:11
Speaker
It's like, I believe fully in my salvation as it's been described in scripture. But like, I'm not going to say, you know, pulling out, well, keeping on the Israel thing. It's like, I'm not going to die on that hill because those are things that are continuously argued about. Right. So we've got different conclusions in different areas, but there are some things that I hold very, very closely.
00:32:38
Speaker
as far as anything dealing with salvation and just those primary doctrines that you guys have heard throughout your time at Liberty and probably beyond that a little bit too. Otherwise, it's like, yeah, I guess the piece that was missing from my initial statement was that, like I said, how I really want to lean in to what those arguments are. And I did say that
00:33:06
Speaker
I don't believe I know the answer to every one of those questions. And I probably know the answer to very few if I'm being harsh on myself and being realistic with myself. But the part that I really wanted to emphasize was that I want to walk with my neighbor. I want to learn from them and I want them to learn from me. And I want to try and get to a point where we can just help each other out.
00:33:34
Speaker
Now, I believe in the authority of scripture. I believe that it is God's word. And you guys are familiar with a lot of the benefits and the consequences that come with that, if you want to put it that way. But that doesn't like that. That should never pull me away from other people. And that's probably where I differ from what a lot of people's experience has been. It's like that makes me want to reach out to other people.
00:34:01
Speaker
And I know Casey, you mentioned the foster care thing. I'm not sure how much we're, we're planning on talking about that, but like that's, that's one of the biggest reasons why I want to do foster care is like, that's pushing me toward people. My Christian faith is doing that.
00:34:17
Speaker
Which I think that's a good gap to bridge because I'm also a foster parent. Sam's foster kids aren't going to heaven. I got into it.
00:34:34
Speaker
for similar reasons, because at that time in my life, that's where I would pull my meaning from. And not that I don't anymore. I have a very complicated relationship to Christianity.
00:34:50
Speaker
I say I'm, I'm not not Christian, but I'm not Christian. Like I don't, I guess I just don't, I don't know. I don't think it matters. And so the word like there's, there's distance there. You pointed out the, uh, and just having differences with evangelicalism as like, surely there's all kinds of cringe that we can point to in, uh, in just Christian culture. It was like, but like.
00:35:20
Speaker
Where I'm coming from is those aren't representative of Scripture. Those are weak derivements from Scripture that we came up with as entertainment or quippy phrases, or it sounded good in a sermon. When we get to the words of Jesus where He's commanding us to love others, there's not much to criticize there.
00:35:43
Speaker
They're not there, but then people go, well, what does that mean? What does that look like? And then you end up in the entire segment of the population having a huge problem with even the conversation around immigration. And you go, well, then you can split that difference even within the Bible where you can see areas within it where you go, we'll keep it insular. And then you can see areas where like, well, let everybody
00:36:05
Speaker
do this and then you go well that and then they go well that was uh that was israel having those conversations but we don't need to apply it the same because this is different this is america and things have changed so things are things have changed when it's convenient and they haven't when it's not and i just don't find i guess i just don't like so even when you talk about like salvation when you when you
00:36:25
Speaker
you could have a conversation about how there's at least 12 different atonement theories that have been taken seriously throughout the past couple thousand years. And we've landed mostly culturally on one, but you can't ignore those, but we do. And everyone who's developed those, conversed around those, have all
00:36:44
Speaker
taken scripture seriously. So even when you have like make a statement like salvation as discussed in the Bible, I think that that's just not clear either. So there's that lack of clarity around all of it is what I find challenging, right? And not challenging
00:37:03
Speaker
to my faith or not faith or whatever. But I think when I say I'm not a Christian, I can't fit into any current iteration of Christian. There's not a single denomination of Christianity that I could walk into and probably have them go,
00:37:19
Speaker
you're Christian, unless it's Unitarian Universalist, which aren't really Christian. But, um, yeah, get out of here. So like all the, any real like denomination would probably have some benchmarks that you have to meet to for them to think that you're Christian or saved or whatever the fuck. And, um, you know, I'm pretty, um, agnostic. Uh, but I'm touching back here now to the foster care thing because, uh,
00:37:48
Speaker
I still pull a lot of my ethos from the teachings of Jesus and his stories and the parables and his disruption of religious systems and religious functioning and power. And that's what's meaningful to me, but you can't appreciate that and pull from it and make that your ethos, even though I would
00:38:12
Speaker
It's still Jesus. You can't do that and be Christian because you have to, you know, accept that he was obviously have to accept that he was God and they died for your sins or that some atonement theory, which I don't subscribe to any so like.
00:38:26
Speaker
When I, all of that, it's like I'm out, but that's what pulled me in. That's what made me want to start doing foster care, me taking all of that very fucking seriously. And I still take that as seriously as I did in my evangelical heyday. And I take it just as seriously now. And I feel like even my career shift into wanting to, you know, work in a school as an adjustment counselor in a challenging district is like that, that was,
00:38:52
Speaker
That's all there. That's all still there. That's all still in me and the things that matter and the paths that I've taken and my desire to participate in any sort of healing that I can is
00:39:06
Speaker
is strictly related to me going, I need a guide, I need a post. You put this post in the ground, it's like a lighthouse, right? You go, because you can, you know what, I'm gonna walk back something I said earlier because I could, I can agree with you that to some degree when people go, this isn't convenient for me anymore, I'm not gonna do it. So I'll walk back some of what I said, there is some truth to that.
00:39:33
Speaker
And they go, this is hard. I don't want to do it. I'm out. And I've just said this is my guidepost. And because I've set I've kind of planted my flag there, I can turn back to that when I need to to say, what should I do here? And it's still doing for me what it did then, despite an ever shifting set of beliefs. Yeah, yeah. Want to say something. I've just been talking for too fucking long. No, I just.
00:40:01
Speaker
Hate when I do that I leave good tips That's my contribution also known as tracks No, I love it thanks Sam for for sharing that I just I love hearing people's stories I love hearing how How beliefs have developed over time and that's uh, I mean i'm a listener of your your podcast Not just because I know you guys it's like I love being able to hear people's stories. It's very cool Obviously i've gone a different route than most of the guests that you've had
00:40:32
Speaker
but not all of them. And it's really cool just to hear those different things. That's one of the things I love about traveling to other countries because they were raised in an entirely different environment. And how did we come to the same conclusion and how did we not? I love those stories. Those are very fascinating to me. So, Sam, that's awesome.
00:40:51
Speaker
I'd also love to hear more about just your experiences with foster care, but here I am trying to interview you when you're interviewing me, so I'll shut up.
00:41:04
Speaker
I'm going to do a big shift, but staying on the foster care train, but moving outside of the religious aspect of it. And I'll preface it with perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of being a foster parent was we have in Massachusetts, DCF, Department of Children and Families. What do you guys have?
00:41:26
Speaker
Yeah, actually the same thing. I'm really surprised to hear you say that it's DCF, yep. Sometimes it's CPS, Child Protective Services, which might be different than DCF, but I think there's some overlap. Yeah, states do different things. Yeah. It was my understanding, yeah. So my quick synopsis, my intro to foster care was I lived in Boston for a little while. I was at a church. We were doing some stuff in a
00:41:52
Speaker
like a Section 8 kind of housing complex and got to know this boy. It was like an unofficial big brother. It was mostly, can you hang out with this kid because he ruins everything we're doing all the time?
00:42:07
Speaker
He would go to the things that my church was doing and he would just like ruin it for everyone because he was hostile. I was like, yeah, I'll just take him and we'll do our thing. We'll hang out. And then you keep, I kept that going. And then when he was removed from his family for the first time, he came to live with me because they called me while I was at work and they said, your name came up in court. Can he come live with you? We had a conversation, my wife and I had a conversation about how
00:42:34
Speaker
we thought there was a possibility that that could happen based on what we knew about the family situation.
00:42:43
Speaker
So we were kind of had talked about it preliminarily and agreed that we would definitely take him if that came up and it did so we did on and off for for several years he lived with us when he was 16 he moved back in on a permanent basis big shift he was a big city Boston kid getting involved in some bullshit that was
00:43:05
Speaker
obviously going down the wrong path. He recognized that, which was beautiful and incredible. He's into drop shipping. And so then he asked if he could live with us through high school and shit like that. So that's what we did.
00:43:21
Speaker
And he was it was challenging. You know, he went from doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to us trying to set guidelines and having to do this thing where we go, well, this is what we think is right. But also it's not feasible because he's grown up in an entirely different world and these worlds are colliding. I made plenty of fucking mistakes.
00:43:40
Speaker
But the biggest fucking burden of all time was dealing with DCF. It's always been. They've just lied to you to get you to do what they want. They ignore your phone calls when it's not convenient for them. They tell you, we're going to do this and they don't do it. It's a nightmare navigating the system. And now as an adjustment counselor at a school, I actually spend a lot of time speaking with DCF and social workers on a professional level.
00:44:05
Speaker
and not on that personal level. And it's just, it's so fucking frustrating. And to be fair, it's an underfunded agency. They underpay and overwork all of their employees. They're burnt out. They can't be everywhere all at once. They have too many caseloads. It's a disaster.
00:44:21
Speaker
Um, that's my experience and they caused a lot of problems, you know, being like, well, he can't have it overnight at this friend's house. We won't approve it. So then he's leaving and taking off and some nights he was just taking off with my car as a high schooler. Yeah. And they would like, until he's 18, they're like, well, we don't know the family and we can't get it approved. And it's like, it was blowing my mind that a 16 year old with a driver's license wasn't approved to go stay.
00:44:50
Speaker
at certain people's houses and things. It was a nightmare, dude. He's less of a foster kid and more of a live in bully. Yeah. So I'm done. I'm not, unless you have a question or two, but I'll stop there. But just putting out like that was so fucking aggravating for us dealing with DCF. I want to know like kind of what your experience is like, how you got into it and what your experience is like, Ben, I'm like a system. It's a higher caliber of people out this way.
00:45:20
Speaker
Yeah, you think starting from a different starting salary is $23,000 instead of $34,000. All right. So, um, well, I mean a lot of similarities. All right. So, uh, yeah, so we've got DCF, but like, um, I think, so there's like, there's three layers above foster parents for us. And I'm not saying it's like of importance or anything like that. I'm just saying a DCF is that government layer.
00:45:50
Speaker
And then I think this might be fairly unique to Kansas where there's like a contracting agency where if, what is it? If the parent gives up rights for whatever reason, then that contracting agency steps in and they become the guardian. But not DCF? Not DCF. Okay. In Massachusetts, DCF gets custody of children. Yeah.
00:46:19
Speaker
So yeah, so my interactions with DCF is that have actually been fairly good. They're the ones that came out and you know, inspected our house and they were very much just like we want you to pass. So hey, change this and this and you're good to go. Like they obviously staying to the letter of the law, but like they wanted to work with us. It wasn't this cold shoulder of well, try and catch me when I'm not busy kind of thing. DCF has been good. They also come and they'll
00:46:47
Speaker
the transport kids. So you know, when it's time to come to our house or time to go, a lot of times we'll go and pick up the kids. But sometimes if they're well, different situations, different things, they'll come and they'll pick up the kids. And every time they come, they have taken an interest in the child. It's like, Oh, and what's your name and try to learn one or two things about them for the car ride. And I'm just like, I'm really impressed with that. Because
00:47:15
Speaker
If you're dealing with that on a daily basis, that's what I've seen. And just saying it a little different way, but I think we're saying the same thing, is that it chews you up and spits you out. I mean, this system is so bonkers bad that it's just like, that really impresses me about people. When I interact with them and I see that human element, I'm just like, I love you. I hope you come to my house every single time. I love this person.
00:47:45
Speaker
So then that, that contracting agency, that's where we've run into a lot of those problems is that they're the ones that assign a social worker to the child. And then me and my wife have a different social worker. Our social worker is that third layer. Yeah. Yeah. So that contracting agency then.
00:48:05
Speaker
contracts the children out to all the different agencies that have pools of foster parents. Is it a family resource worker? Do they call it that?
00:48:17
Speaker
I've heard that before, but I couldn't confidently say it. I said, oh, I had never heard of that, and then they remembered we actually had that, and they were so fucking useless that we never spoke to them ever. There's no point. Our family resource worker was like, oh, that's actually up to the social worker for your foster son. Then we tell them, no, that's it.
00:48:42
Speaker
That's, that's your family resource workers business. And then we're just stuck in the middle with no answers in an angry 16 year old. Sure. Sure. No, that's very common story in my experience too. That's what people are saying. We really like our social worker. Um, I think she does a lot of great work for us and, uh, and connecting dots for things. Cause I mean, you get a child and you know, nothing, right? I mean, they show up.
00:49:12
Speaker
with maybe a bag of clothes and you know nothing about them. And they're scared out of their mind. This is the scariest day of their life. Like everything is stacked against that first experience. And so I think our social worker has done a good job of working with us and answering some of our questions. But what you're saying of, well, that's been my experience of that contracting agency, that second layer there of like, they'll contact us
00:49:42
Speaker
any hour. I mean, we'll get a text 11pm and they expect us to answer. And we're just like, well, we're already sleeping. So we'll see that in the morning, you know, not dishonestly, like we are already sleeping by 11 o'clock, you know, kind of thing. And they well, but they expect our answers. Whereas we follow up with a question, almost never do we get a response. Yeah, it's just no, you're not allowed to answer or you're not allowed to ask me questions, kind of thing.
00:50:09
Speaker
They've even straight up asked us to break the law. I mean, just flat out, we want you to break the law of like, Hey, I need you to take this kid from here to here. I said, like, I don't want to give away too many details, but it's like, so, you know, active court case with this kid. And we know that she's asking us to take him to his abuser. They're just like, first of all, no, it's like, like that is
00:50:39
Speaker
That is completely crazy. No, we're just, no, not entertaining that idea. And she's like, no, I need you to, and you're responsible as the foster parent to do this. So there's multiple things wrong with that statement. But what we did was we pulled up the court documents because it was public record and we sent it to her and said, no, according to the DA, we are not doing this. And that's when she finally backed off. And then she talked to her boss.
00:51:08
Speaker
And two days later, she calls us and says, Oh, I'm so concerned. Uh, let's make sure we don't make that mistake. Right. And so like you start seeing these things as like, you are paid by the government and you're telling me to break.
00:51:26
Speaker
what the DA has just ordered. This is crazy. Being paid by the government isn't mutually exclusive from breaking the law. It's almost a pre-write. Fair point. And so then I started asking around. We foster parents in various circles, not just through certain avenues, and we definitely don't shelter ourselves
00:51:51
Speaker
Um, and we started hearing how other people were saying the same thing of like, Oh yeah, you, you need to know the law. Cause they ask you to break the law here. Like that was just a normal consequence. It was just like, you've got to be kidding me. And it does get to the point where foster parents get sued.
00:52:10
Speaker
because they don't know any better. Because they're trying to do the right thing. Being a foster parent, one of the scariest things about it was like, if I fuck up, not only will I obviously lose my foster son, but if I fuck up in the eyes of DCF.
00:52:27
Speaker
I'm a fucking target. My kids, I have biological children who could be taken from me. And I that's that's when you like, you know, you watch fun movies like John Wick and it suspends reality. And then you that's the first thing that comes to mind if you think about somebody taking your children, you're just like, it's like I was sick to my stomach sometimes. Yes. In fear of what would happen. Do you have biological children? Yeah. Yeah. So how old are they, if you don't mind?
00:52:57
Speaker
They are six and eight. Oh, yeah. Mine are seven and eight. And how old are your foster children? Right now, we don't we don't currently have any. Okay. Did you? But you were fostering when you had during the time you had biological children, right? Yeah. So we've done a lot of short term stuff. We've actually had more than 20 kids. And it's always four plus is the age.
00:53:21
Speaker
Okay, four plus. And right, so when you have them in your home checking up on stuff, like, I mean, honestly, if you make a mistake, not even make a mistake, if you have an 11 year old that decides to walk out of the house and disappear on you, all of a sudden you're a neglectful parent, and you have to worry about them taking like I that was that was always my biggest fear. And I think that's where I made some mistakes was like not really knowing like what your own rights are. Or
00:53:51
Speaker
But you hear these nightmare stories and they're not common. So I also want to be clear, I think, especially now working with social workers on a professional level. And I've really mostly worked with good social workers, like the ones that do that. I'm not telling you they can stay over their friend's house. But if they go over there, like they do that kind of stuff. So I think there are, I think if you're a social worker, you're
00:54:17
Speaker
That's a hard fucking job. None of this is to throw shade at social workers. They work in a broken system and they're trying to navigate that. It's not normally social workers who you know that are like, sorry, it's time to take your children now, you fucked up. It's a broken system that will force somebody's hand on that.
00:54:42
Speaker
just getting that out of the way. That still was the scariest thing where I'm like, I was I sometimes I when I especially when I first became a foster parent, I feel like they instilled a lot of fear in me. I mean, I was straight up told there's a we have there's a hotline you can call right if
00:54:57
Speaker
It's a mobile crisis is kind of what they call it. It's called different things in different places, but it's like 24-hour like maybe they're having like a you could have it because as a One of the girls that we had living with us at one point. She would have like Major depressive episodes where we were feared that she was suicidal. She was she made three attempts in her time with us so like
00:55:23
Speaker
as a teenage girl we're like when that would happen we would call they were kind of useless they're like everything seems fine and then like 24 hours later she swallows a bottle of pills so you're like ah it's not it wasn't we knew it wasn't thanks for your name um but we're just like
00:55:40
Speaker
They would tell us things like when we first got our foster son, they're like, oh, if you call this number, they might think that it's because you can't manage him and you're not a fit foster parent. So they might have to replace him. And that was emphatically a lie. There's absolutely zero truth to that.
00:55:56
Speaker
It was inconvenient for them for us to do that and they didn't want to deal with it because what my situation was is I Lived in Worcester. He lived in Boston. We had social workers in Worcester managing our home We had his social worker in Boston and that I was working in Boston. So I'm driving him from Worcester to Boston Every day for school. That's an hour drive. It's just
00:56:19
Speaker
It was just such a convoluted situation that it was so inconvenient. You, Kevin, talked about transportation, and we were told that that was something that they were required to do, but they made us do all of it.
00:56:34
Speaker
Yeah, we usually do. Yeah. And even the times where we needed it, they pushed back. They're like, the best we can do is meet you halfway. And I never had the fucking balls to just be like, just fuck off then. He's not going. If you want him to see his mom, show the fuck up at my house at 8 a.m. and get him there. I'm not meeting you 50 minutes from here.
00:57:10
Speaker
and I'll tell everybody. If you had those kind of ideas, that would have fucked me up big. If I had to worry about you like that. He would have won that argument. Big time. I know you probably can't
00:57:22
Speaker
I didn't know I could do that. I learned a lot, but it was so fucking crazy.
00:57:34
Speaker
get into detail but like in the like in a situation like you described where they were the person was like telling you to take the kid back to his abusive parent what what what's what's motivating that like what are i mean are they getting pressure from a different side telling them that that needs to happen or like
00:58:02
Speaker
Is it just like crossed wires or? I can't speak to what she was told. So I don't know whatever conversation that was, but I can speak to some of the things just just that we've encountered. The textbook reason is that anytime there's a foster situation, reunification is always the goal. Yeah.
00:58:28
Speaker
And it's like, that sounds good. And I think that a lot of the time I agree with that. But it's like, that's a big red flag. Like there are many situations where reunification should be off the table. If that parent has sexually abused that child, reunification should absolutely be off the table. That is my opinion, but I feel pretty certain about it.
00:58:59
Speaker
The fact that our state disagrees, that makes me sick to my stomach. Those are some difficult situations. That one gets tough. You are a contrarian.
00:59:15
Speaker
No, I can't. Here, let's hear this argument. No, it's tough. Or I should say it gets tough from a moral standpoint. It gets convoluted from a legal standpoint. As again, I mentioned I'm an adjustment counselor. One of the students on my caseload, there was allegations of
00:59:35
Speaker
sexual abuse from the parent. They seemed fairly substantiated, but at the end of the day, the DA never prosecuted because there wasn't enough to convict and our system is built entirely upon convictions or acquittals.
00:59:54
Speaker
I'm sick to my stomach that this child is back is placed with the parent even though we don't have a conviction and you in this country you are innocent till proven guilty but I have a lot of assumptions and I don't trust this person. I do not trust this parent.
01:00:13
Speaker
And some of the behaviors that I see make me trust them even less, the behaviors of the student, of course. So yeah, it's it's wild. And then I think of times where people were thinking allegations have been made and someone could be wrongfully accused and they're acquitted. Great. It should be on the table. What if you're wrongfully accused but convicted?
01:00:36
Speaker
And the chance of you ever getting your children back is off the table. I don't have enough trust in our justice system to make, um, to make like, but I feel you, I feel the sentiment. If it, if it actually happened, then they, then they should not go back to their abuser. Yes. A hundred percent. Um, I'm literally not trying to argue that I'm just speaking to the, how convoluted it gets from a legal standpoint to
01:01:05
Speaker
Just paint a bigger picture. And if they're convicted, then hopefully that means they're going to jail. Right. And then they can't reunite at that point. Right. Or at least until then they come out of jail. But it's like that didn't correct the wrong. That's you served your time, but that did not correct the wrong between you and your child. So I still have a problem with that. I
01:01:27
Speaker
I have a question about the Christian church aspect of things with foster kids from your perspective and how you handle it. When I became a foster parent, my foster son was when he first moved in with us was young, and we were
01:01:44
Speaker
actively involved in a church at that time. And we would have, he was too young to stay home by himself. So he came with us. I guess you said four plus. So this will depend on how high the plus goes, because if they're too young to stay home by themselves and you and your wife and family are active churchgoers, they go. But there is like, the oldest we've had is 12. Okay. It's 12 years, 12 years old as tech. And you're kind of, you're old enough to stay home for an hour and a half by yourself at 12, right? Depends on the child, I guess.
01:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, I legally they're allowed to but we have not had one that that would be okay. Okay, so you haven't had any weird issues of like how to manage going to church with a with a kid when they want to stay home and them saying you're forcing them to it hasn't crossed any any of those like it hasn't made it complicated for you guys. Yeah, not in that regard. I will say to though that
01:02:41
Speaker
every child has willingly gone. And I think that's, it has a lot more to do with, I mean, most of them don't have experience with church. Most of them have said they've never heard the word Jesus before. Like even as a Spanish kid named Jesus, they've never heard that word before. I was like, all right, that's interesting. But they are always fine going with us. One, because it's that healthy attachment.
01:03:10
Speaker
Well, they feed me. It's when I'm with them, I'm safe. When they drive, they're not drunk. It's those things. It's those associations that are being rewritten. And a lot of times that takes at least months to really start gaining some of that trust. But that's where a lot of it comes from, I think. And then when they're there, I get to tell them, I trust the people here.
01:03:40
Speaker
That's part of how we love the child is that we start identifying trustworthy adults in their life. If it is their parents, then we say that. If it's not, then we don't say that. We're not supposed to talk bad about the parents, and so we don't. But if the parent has done something to the child while they're with us, we can still speak to that. That's that line there.
01:04:08
Speaker
As we're walking through our life, we're building trust. And so we're pointing out this is a trustworthy person. I know that they're trustworthy because they're being honest with me. Uh, they, they care about my needs. You know, you're, you're pointing out these different things to do the same thing with their school of you can trust your teacher. Uh, for one, I've talked with your teacher. You can tell that your teacher cares for you, you know, pointing out different things throughout his day.
01:04:35
Speaker
stuff like that. So I think a lot of it has to do with trust. At the beginning it's blind trust, but as that continues to grow, they really start to enjoy that. We also do devotions as a family. We're a super Christian family. You've heard this already, right? So we do devotions, we do prayer time, and at the beginning it's, hey, yeah, feel free to just listen. We just want you to be here with us. This is our calm downtime before bed.
01:05:05
Speaker
And almost every time on that third day, somebody will, and on that third day, they'll start praying themselves. And usually very basic is like, we encourage them to, but I never, I've never said, no, you have to pray. I've never said that, right? It's, you come to this if you want to, and they usually do because they see how we enjoy doing it and they want to be part of that is usually how that goes. And so that's kind of,
01:05:34
Speaker
what our feel has been with church as well. Also, the kids there, they love playing with. I mean, they love playing with other kids. And there's an awful lot of nice people at our church. I do have a story I think would be interesting to go ahead and go into. This is a very bad start to one of our placements and a very embarrassing start. And I want to show how our church is kind of
01:06:05
Speaker
got around us and supported us through it. But we were new to this church. We were only there for about four months, long enough where we had gained trust and I was asked to teach a group. And so we're at this person's house. We hardly know anybody, but I'm leading it. And we got a call like two hours before we go in and we're like, all right, well, yeah, let's pick up these kids.
01:06:32
Speaker
And so we brought these brand new kids. We would do this a little differently today. Um, we'd figure it out, but we do it a little differently. And, uh, and we show up, all we know is their names and they're like kind of jittery. Uh, it was like, well, I mean, they've had a tough day, but anyway, we're there. I teach. And, uh, as we're finishing up the, uh, what happens is the adults are together and the kids have one or two sitters, just depending on how many kids are there.
01:07:02
Speaker
And so when the sitter comes up to us and just, you know, very politely is like, Hey, I think I saw some lice in one of the kids hair, just so you know. And I'm thinking to myself, Oh my goodness, we just brought lice into a person's house that we don't even know. We are new at this church. Like this is one of those like mortified situations. And so we just want to get out of there and we're like, I,
01:07:28
Speaker
Like, we hadn't confirmed yet that it was lice. It was like, if we were thinking clearly, we should have gone to those people and immediately apologized. But we were more just like, oh, no, we have to take care of this. So on our way out, one of the moms comes up and she's like, well, I want to help. Like, can I help you? And we turned it down because, again, we're mortified. It was like, we just need to take care of this. And she's like, all right, well, at least when you go to Walgreens or whatever's closest,
01:07:56
Speaker
get this type of lice medicine. It works great. And it did. That was an awesome help. Thank you so much. It was perfect. I wish I knew the name because I would give it a plug right here on this podcast. But it worked so well. We did all three that night. And so anyway, by the time we get home, there was another person that gave us a call and said, Hey, can I can I come over? She had been to our house already. She said, Hey, can I come over? I want to help you guys like, you know, do the lice medication myself or
01:08:26
Speaker
you know, just offering whatever help she can. And by this point, it's like 9.30. So I mean, it's like, you wouldn't typically go over. So it's like, this person's really reaching out, trying to help us. And we still turn that down. It's like, no, I think we've got it under control. We just need to plug through it and start working toward bedtime. So there's already two people that tried to help us. There's one person that very politely alerted us to a problem. And I'm standing there with the kids
01:08:56
Speaker
uh, at the foot of the steps. So my wife is, is getting the, oh, she's at the store, getting the, the medicine. Um, and like, I'm talking to the kids and I'm, I'm doing that thing where like their, their mind's just going a hundred miles per hour. So I'm, I'm kind of like trying to demand their attention, like being pretty forceful with my voice, not yelling at all. Not like that. Just like trying to establish, all right, you need to listen to me right now kind of thing. And then I realized, I was like, they literally can't sit still.
01:09:26
Speaker
I was like, I'm not sure what this is. And it's like, yeah, sure. That might be life, but I think there's something else. Like there's something else going on. And, uh, we found out two days later, so we didn't even know this, uh, at the time, but they were coming down off of a meth high. These three kids. Yeah. Let me, let me tell you their ages. I have it written down here. Their ages were five, six and eight. Yeah. Coming down off of a meth high.
01:09:55
Speaker
Holy shit. And they all have lice. And so, took care of the lice. We somehow got to bed by about 11.30. Finally got these kids settled. That sounded pretty good though. They did. They slept well. I think people came off meth and slept for three days. Oh my goodness. Back to three days. Very Jesus Christ of them.
01:10:24
Speaker
I said the thing about three earlier and I almost brought up numerology. I was like, I don't think we have time for any of that. I want to brag about these kids. The more that we got to know them, it was so cool. The oldest one, the eight-year-old, he desired so strongly just to be a great big brother and he was. He was so loving to his siblings.
01:10:50
Speaker
You know, the stories they told about their parents were really difficult to hear, but he was so loving to his siblings. The youngest one, the five-year-old, I heard him say that he could do one-armed pushups. And usually, I mean, that's a lie, right? When a five-year-old says that. And so I asked, I was like, hey, can you show me? And he just whipped out 10 one-armed pushups like it was nothing. I was like, what did I just see right now? You know, I took it to the park. I've never been able to do that.
01:11:20
Speaker
I took him to the park and he had never played basketball before. And because of his strength, this five-year-old, he's bouncing the ball so hard that it's hitting him in the face. He couldn't control it. He just kept hitting it so hard, bouncing up and hitting himself in the face. The things this kid has been through to be that strong at five years old is I can't begin to picture that. He's also one that
01:11:47
Speaker
He was really afraid to go to sleep that night. That's a very common thing. I'm sure you hear that a lot, Sam, is that they don't want to go to sleep. For one, they're afraid of your house because it's a new place. They come to school. All the kids in foster care at my school, like so many of them come to school tired. Even the ones who were in foster care, they're back home and there's been all this. That's when the, you know, they have a lot of nightmares. They have a lot of anxiety at night. Sometimes things happen to them at night.
01:12:15
Speaker
And so it's yeah, it's a very scary thing. And so, you know, we spend I spend a lot of time, especially with the boys and my wife does with the girls have just like bringing things back to me of when you're in my house, I protect you. If there's a knock at the door, I'm the one that's going to that door and making sure that I'm taking responsibilities off of their shoulders and and for bedtime, especially it's like, all right, well, we're going to keep praying about this until you can. And so.
01:12:42
Speaker
We prayed about, I think, three times in a row, because he was just like, I can't do it. I can't go to sleep. I'm not ready for this. And this is like almost midnight. And so he finally did. And then the next day, after I came home from work, he was so excited. Like when you have a dog and you come home, they jump into your arms. He practically did that. He was so excited. He started singing a song that he just made up on the spot about how God is so much stronger than his bad dreams.
01:13:09
Speaker
God beat up his bad dreams. I was like, well, that's awesome. That was day one, right? And so I know that's not everybody's story and that's not everybody's approach, but like to see the way that that changes somebody's outlook. And I'm really careful not to do it in a brainwashing way, though maybe somebody would accuse me of that regardless.
01:13:37
Speaker
I'm really careful not to do that because if I'm doing it to that kid, well, the second they leave me, then they're just going to believe something else. Like that's, that's not doing anything. That is brainwashing. But if I'm modeling it for them, um, I'm not talking about just Christian things. I'm talking about, you know, putting my seat back, you know, pushing my seat back in or, you know, the everything from the little things to the big things, but I'm modeling good behaviors for them and how that starts to change their perspective.
01:14:07
Speaker
Um, there were, you know, a couple other kids where it was, you know, they're, they're fighting because that's all like, that's what they do and they're brothers. And when I told them they shouldn't punch each other in the face, like the look they gave me, like, why would I not punch my brother in the face? Like that's stupid. Why would you tell me that? And then the more time that they spent where they weren't punching each other in the face are like, Hey, I kinda like not punching my brother in the face. Like I'm not.
01:14:37
Speaker
I don't have that anxiety of like, I always have to defend myself and, and, uh, uh, and communication is a big one where it's like, well, we wouldn't, we need to listen to each other. We're not going to talk over each other and making sure that people have their space to be able to be heard. And to be able to hear instruction is like, that starts to, I mean, we see the physical, uh, effect of that where their shoulders are up to their chin and then it starts lowering down as they're letting go of some of those anxieties.
01:15:06
Speaker
It's a lot of upfront work and you have to be consistent with it. It's just family rules that we came up with over the years of being parents. We've only been foster parents a little over one year. You said 20-ish kids and that's a lot. Good for you guys. Over 20. Yeah, mostly short-term.
01:15:31
Speaker
for Casey's benefit, but also obviously the listeners. Uh, maybe I should define that a little bit of like, what does short-term mean? Should I go ahead and do that? All right. So Sam, you let me know if you had any others you thought of, but I really just thought of four situations. So like when a kid comes to your house, it's either for respite care, PPC, which is police protective custody. Uh, it can be long-term.
01:15:58
Speaker
or then it can go to kinship. Those are the ones I thought of. If you think of anything else, just shout it out. But for respite, I mean, there's a variety of reasons for each one of these. And so I want to paint a little bit of a picture of what foster care is, because it's not always just the worst case scenario. It certainly is sometimes, but it's not always that. Sometimes it's a misunderstanding. Sometimes it's an honest mistake, right? Somebody messed up.
01:16:27
Speaker
And now they want to get their kids back. I would say some of the shorter, it's like, it's something happened. It seems problematic. There's an investigation and during that investigation, the children aren't with the family. And then they go, actually, we're going to, everything is actually, we think is okay. Children go home. We'll just stay involved for a while to make sure everything moves forward appropriately, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh,
01:16:55
Speaker
Well, I'll start with PPC then. So that's, that's where a lot of those kids have come from. And that's the 72 hour investigation. So somebody called the cops for whatever reason, and there's a 72 72. Yeah. We have like, it's like 15 days. They have 15 days for PPC. Yeah. For the investigation. Yeah. Which is troubling sometimes. Cause it's like it.
01:17:20
Speaker
I don't know if that has to do with how over, I mean, it's wild how many, like the investigators, how many 51As? So, 51As, is it a 51A for you? Do they call it something different? Do you know what a 51A is? No, I don't know what that is. 51A is a document that you file. If you call DCF and say, I want to report suspicion of abuse or neglect,
01:17:46
Speaker
That's a 51A and you call it in and you can call anonymously. I'm a mandated reporter. So I can't, there's nothing anonymous about it. Now they don't give my name and information to the family, but they have my name and information. So if I suspect abuse or neglect for a student at school, I call in a 51A and then I file the report online. And then DCF has 15 days to investigate that.
01:18:13
Speaker
Okay, that might mean they they might if it's a non-emergence if it's an emergency If you go, I'm worried that this kid's gonna get their ass beat as soon as they get home That's an emergency certain. I'm worried that this parent is High out of their mind. Obviously Massachusetts weeds legal and that's not really a concern Unless they leave it out all the time. We've had situations where like investigations happen It's like you can't leave your weed
01:18:42
Speaker
out on the coffee table. Sure, makes sense. But like, with that, if it's not an emergency, though, it's the yeah, 15 days to do the investigation, they you might file it and they don't do a visit for three, four or five days even. Okay. If they're not, if it's again, not an emergency, like something happened outside the hall. So they're not necessarily like out of the house for that whole time.
01:19:10
Speaker
No. And then when they're not emergency, children are almost never removed. They just usually intervene and talk about appropriate ways to handle situations. So you're talking more about situations where they are removed from the home.
01:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, for me, it's, they've already been removed. So that 72 hour might be like more than emergency thing. If it's an emergency, they might get in right away and then place a child somewhere. If they find that there's potential problems, that might be the difference. Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. And I mean, I would assume we probably have the 51 a, but I've just never dealt with that before. Well, that's interesting. And so that 72 hour, it does not include weekends or holidays. So, I mean, we've had kids for five days.
01:19:54
Speaker
And it's still within that 72 hour range. Um, they'll come and they'll do an interview and that, that interview is such a double edged sword for me. Cause it's like, you want to hear it cause you want to know something about the child to give you some context to help. But then it's just like, man, that was a lot. That's really hard to hear. That's a hard conversation. And, uh, the kid is usually crying. Right. That's that stuff.
01:20:19
Speaker
Um, then thinking about the respite situation. So respite could be, I mean, any number of days, I mean, I'm sure there's a limit, but like it's, it's for, um, you specify the number of days you said, I need, I need a break. And this could be a vacation you're going on, you're going out of state all of a sudden. Um, and so somebody else needs to just temporarily, uh, have that kid. Um, it could also be burnout prevention. It's like a camel. A little bit, yeah.
01:20:50
Speaker
Okay, I'm following. I had to put some blue jeans on that example and help out. It could be a burnout situation.
Respite Care and Foster Care Challenges
01:21:02
Speaker
So it's like, man, I'm on my last nerve. I've got to take a little break. So that could be respite. It could be special events. Like somebody did it for, hey, my son is graduating. I want to take this weekend, focus on my son. And so they went ahead and did that, those kinds of things.
01:21:20
Speaker
We've taken a couple of respites and then the only respite we did, like giving to somebody else was for a vacation. What were you going to say, Casey? I see. So that's something, I guess I, I had no idea that that was a thing that like people electively did just like for, so, so that all still funnels through the state and stuff then, like they just need to turn the kids over for a week or something like that for a trip or,
01:21:50
Speaker
Yeah, it has to get approved. And so it has to go through the system. And then you can, like, like, if you're wondering, a lot of times when you talk about this stuff, I was like, well, how can I help out? I was like, well, one of the ways you can help out is you can actually get that certification to be a respite parent. You're not actively taking foster kids, but you will do respite placements. So it's like for a few days at a time kind of thing.
01:22:18
Speaker
which can be really because I believe I kind of forgot about this. It was earlier on for me. I mean, I've my father's son first moved in when he was 10 or 11, but he's 21 now. And I believe we used to respite because we had
01:22:37
Speaker
We had already had a week, a long weekend away planned and it was like, you know, it's all booked up. It's just with my wife and I, we planned on going somewhere and we just needed a few days. So it's like, we were like, shit, what the fuck do we do? You know, actually.
01:22:59
Speaker
Man, this is bringing it back. I totally forgot about this. We had to get my in, that's what it was. We had to get my in-laws improved for respite care. And he was able to stay there, which ended up being really complicated because they had a pool and apparently DCF hates pools. And trampolines. Yes. Which I mean, I get it. Well, you can't drown in a trampoline. I'd rather feel about three wheelers.
01:23:29
Speaker
You should be on a no parenting list if you have a three wheeler around your house. It's like just handing out head injuries. Seriously. Talking about long term, maybe I should talk about kinship first. Kinship is what it sounds like. When a kid is put into foster care, they look for family first. They need a foster parent first.
01:23:58
Speaker
put you with a foster parent in the PPC situation, and they're looking for kinship. If they get that, that's their first choice. DCF still does a walkthrough, make sure the house is safe, your basic qualifications, and then they'll place them with them. Otherwise, a PPC say- They make sure your smoke detectors aren't beeping. Yeah, yeah. They are definitely strong and pinned in about that. They do. They love smoke detectors. They love smoke detectors.
01:24:27
Speaker
They checked all of ours a couple of times. So yeah, the PPC will turn into long term if no other placement is found. So no kinship. And so then that's still a foster parent will take in long term. It could be the person who's doing PPC. So that could just, well, they stay in your house or they could move to a place that's deemed more suitable or there's any number of reasons why.
01:24:54
Speaker
And long-term stays the same until something changes. So that could be a court ruling. That could be they age out of the system. That could be it moves toward adoption. And so once adoption happens, well, then you're no longer long-term foster care, you're adopted. That could be reunification or that could be disruption. And so disruption is that tough piece where it's like, all right, something happened in the home where this kid can't stay here any longer.
01:25:22
Speaker
And so that's that emergency situation of they can't be here, take them back to the agency, and then they get taken to the next place. That's typically what happens, is my understanding, when you hear about kids that were in like 15 homes in a year. Now, my opinion is that still should not happen, because if they're being bounced house to house to house- Right, they need long-term. Yeah, that speaks to there being a problem that needs looked at,
01:25:51
Speaker
rather than just giving them to the next house. Like if they're constantly being disrupted, we need more professional help, uh, engaged in that. But that's, you know, that's a separate issue. But anyway, that's kind of the rundown of, uh, different avenues for foster care. Uh, what else? If I wanted to open up a license plate factory and just staff it with foster care, which
01:26:18
Speaker
What respite, is that a good option for me? Less traceable, perhaps. Yeah. I think you'll spend all your time and effort just training. So I don't think that'd be a good idea. But at the same time, you have them for five days. You go, you guys want to try something fun and neat and cool? Like, I heard you don't like to sleep. If you don't know. Oh, Casey went there.
01:26:44
Speaker
If you do it for more than five days, they might be like, I don't like this place. But you make it fun for a few days, throw some gumdrops at them, you know, that might just like, do it, you'll have less chance of being reported, I would say. So respite might be your best bet. If you're just quoting lines from the Santa Claus, is that is that what we're going to? I was trying to think of the movie. Oh, God, what was the movie where there was like the
01:27:11
Speaker
They went to live with the foster parents and they ran a junkyard. Was that It Takes Two? It was like a Mary Kate and Ashley movie. It might have been that It Takes Two. I think one of them got shipped. Yeah, they got shipped to like it was just like a short thing at the end of the movie, but she got put in like with the foster family that owned this junkyard and they just like put her to work in the junkyard and the kids were all like
01:27:39
Speaker
Yeah, one of them wore a backwards hat. It's so cool. That was a great version of foster care, I guess. It's starring Kirsty Alley and Steve Gutenberg. Are you looking it up right now? Yeah, yeah. I would watch that movie again. Film focuses on two local light girls. How many, honestly, we wonder why everyone's like, oh, I can't believe it. I wonder what happened to Mary. It's like we know what happened to Mary Kate Nash-Jolson.
01:28:09
Speaker
They couldn't do anything other than look-alike movies after Full House. They were just finished. No career opportunities. They met by chance at a summer camp, so it's basically the parent trap. One is an orphan girl and the other is
01:28:24
Speaker
uh, wealthy heiress. The girls decide to act as matchmakers for their, that's, that's the exact plot of, uh, the parent trap. They are both valid kid flicks that were very fun back in the day, though. I will give a fun fact, um, about the parent trap. You know the nanny in it? The red-haired woman? No. She was also
01:28:49
Speaker
I don't know. She was in a lot of things. Well, a lot of the listeners probably know the nanny and the parent trap, the red haired woman. I recently found out is the aunt of one of the women that I work with. And I love. Yeah. Wow.
01:29:08
Speaker
And it's kind of like it was like, I can't believe it. She's also a main character in Abbott Elementary, which is oh, yeah, that's a fun show. It's fun. It's not like that doesn't deserve an Emmy, but it's just it's something to watch, you know. Yeah, that episode that had the Eagles players and it was hilarious.
01:29:31
Speaker
Yeah, I do like it. I'm not, I don't even mean to criticize it, but it's just when I think of comedy greats, like the off, it doesn't hold up to the greats, but it's like, you know, when you look, when my wife and I don't like a lot of the same things, um, like when it comes to shows. So.
01:29:49
Speaker
We like every once in a while we find something that works for both of us. That's one of them. We watch that. She's in it. I found out while watching that because I mentioned it to this woman and she's like, oh, fun story. She was she was married to her uncle, her biological uncle. They're divorced, but they have kids together and they had an amicable divorce. So her aunt still comes around for some family holidays and shit here and there. And I'm like that.
01:30:17
Speaker
It's very fun. I can't watch the show now without thinking about that every time. That's the closest I've ever been to a celebrity. You said your coworker is related to her? It's her aunt. Her aunt. Okay. Nice claim to fame. Yeah, there you go. Casey's like, you're the dumbest person I've ever met. He's like the weirdest tangential.
01:30:41
Speaker
Connection. I think it's a fun one. If you knew if you worked with someone whose aunt was someone who was in a TV show that was on primetime television. Don't fucking tell me you wouldn't tell me about it, Casey. My old boss is related to Angela from The Office. Really? Oh, I don't remember how. But yes, she also does The Office Ladies podcast and it's one of the top 10 podcasts or some shit like that in the in the world. Yeah, that's nuts.
01:31:08
Speaker
Yeah. Interesting. What's your story, Kevin? Better be a banger because it's closing us out. Don't disappoint. It's a banger. Get ready for this. The guy from Chips, Eric Estrada. I was working for a company that had a warehouse. And since he's a celebrity, he just walked in there one day. And this is when I was in Virginia. Eric Estrada does not live in Virginia. He just walks in there. And I start seeing all the ladies in our workplace just flock
01:31:37
Speaker
to the center of the room where he was to take pictures with him. And I was like, what's going on? And they're like, it's Eric Estrada. And I'm like, I'm in my 20s. I don't know who that is. And then they said chips. And I was like, yeah. Well, they said chips. And I was like, oh, yeah, actually.
01:31:55
Speaker
When I was being babysat as like a six year old, I did watch a lot of chips. I did watch some chips too back in the day. Chips in the A team. All right.
Support for Foster Parents and System Critique
01:32:09
Speaker
Well, I was thinking the only other stuff like I really wanted to make sure I said was expound a little bit on the, what can you do to help? Cause that, that usually is like, when you're hearing these stories, it's really hard to handle.
01:32:24
Speaker
Like if you ask me how I'm doing and I tell you the truth, like I just left something with you that's probably ruined your day and you're probably going to be like trying to think through that for a few days. So I don't want to leave people on that. I want to talk about some practical ways that you can help foster parents like me and Sam. So, uh, I will start by saying not everybody should be a foster parent. If that wasn't clear, I'm trying to make that point now.
01:32:51
Speaker
Um, couple reasons, uh, or a couple of situations. You're too selfish. Don't become a foster parent out of guilt. So if you're listening to this and you're like, Oh, I just feel so guilty or the person came and talked and, and I feel bad that I'm not helping out. It's like you will fall on your face and start hating kids. Like that's tough. That's how Christians get people to do most things, Kevin. I'm not disagreeing with you on that.
01:33:22
Speaker
I am not disagreeing. I actually had to talk about that a couple of weeks ago, and I was not nice about it. So don't do it out of guilt. That won't work. Also, don't do it out of loss. If you've had a miscarriage, if you've lost a child for whatever reason, experience that sorrow. That has a hole in your heart, and work through that. I'm not saying get over it.
01:33:52
Speaker
experience that sorrow, experience that and let it be. Don't use children that are in vulnerable situations as some sort of therapeutic mechanism for yourself. Yes, and they confronted that in our training. I don't know if it was in yours, but they do confront that. I don't remember.
01:34:11
Speaker
I do remember they wanted us to role play situations in which kids might have been taken from their homes and I thought about- The kid has a steak knife. What's the safest way to disarm him? We had to watch Taken to learn how to disarm someone and put them in a choke hold quickly.
01:34:33
Speaker
The other reason I came up with, and there's obviously more and there's all kinds of situations, but if you're a drowning parent already, don't do it. It's not good for you. It's not good for that child. It's not good for if you have, well, your parents.
01:34:48
Speaker
It's not good for those children at home. It's not a good scared straight opportunity. Don't bring in one of these foster kids to make your other kids behave and be like, look, what might happen to you? Yeah. It's a good way to put it. Yeah, let's try to avoid that. So.
01:35:06
Speaker
I like that there's that I feel like is a that's a weird one because it seems like certain people are prone to doing that where it's like you have so much on your plate like do you really want to add another thing like are you going to be able to do a good job of this if you
01:35:27
Speaker
It's, it's kind of the same, uh, it's like the same thing that you see happen with like your redneck friends who are like, ah, we decided that we're going to breed dogs as a side business. And you're like, I don't think that's it. I don't think you need more responsibility. We don't need more half pit bulls in the world. I think you should just make sure your kids have clean clothes first. Yes.
01:35:55
Speaker
I'll add one. It's funny. These people are just doing it for the money thing. And that's true. There are those people. It's actually not a good statement to make because if you're one of those people who are doing it for the money, you're already a sociopath because being a foster parent is hard.
01:36:18
Speaker
And the money is very helpful and it covers a multitude of things and can even, I want to say in Massachusetts, it's like 950 a month. You get an extra 950 bucks a month. For me, when I became a foster parent, that helped me finish my basement. So my foster son had his own bedroom instead of I moved, when he moved in with us, I moved my son into my daughter's room on a mattress on the floor.
01:36:44
Speaker
found someone to finish our basement as soon as possible didn't this is here's another example Kevin was going back to what I talked about earlier you can say whatever you want on a podcast doesn't matter I didn't pull a goddamn permit I didn't pull shit and we just had someone that we like new finish our new ish finish our basement do all the electrical do everything so he's got his own bedroom
01:37:08
Speaker
And then that was helpful. My son got his room back. We had him downstairs. So if he was screaming at his video games, we didn't have to hear it as loudly. So the money is very helpful when you're trying to do right by a kid. But if you don't care about anyone but yourself, you could have three foster kids and not care what happens. And it's shocking how many of those people do exist as bad foster parents that don't really parent.
01:37:37
Speaker
And it also shows you how much the system needs more people because when it's an overburdened system, they'll place children with people who are not great foster parents simply because they need warm bodies to watch children that haven't been convicted of a crime. And that's kind of it. And it sounds
01:37:58
Speaker
sad and dark and fucked up because it is but anyway uh yeah if i mean if i had three foster kids it's like 9 18 22 you know thanks for 2700 bucks a month i could do shit with that um but i couldn't personally because i care about the kids who have been home but it's just it's hard to believe how like that there are those people who are like we'll do it and then they just don't really provide basic necessities
01:38:24
Speaker
Um, and yeah, it takes a while to get that shit. Some, sometimes it feels like kids are taken from homes faster than bad foster homes are shut down. That's weird. No, I fully agree with that. That's, um, that honestly, when we were finishing our paperwork for our license and they asked for the paper for direct deposit, I was like, what, what is this for?
01:38:47
Speaker
I didn't even know what it was for. I didn't realize there was money that came with it. Yeah. And then it's like, yeah, this is your type end. Yeah. And so, I mean, they, what they say, and this is mostly what it goes toward is it's reimbursement, you know? So a kid shows up at your door, doesn't have anything. You go out and you buy him clothes. Exactly. You have an upfront cost of making sure that they have a bed and those things that you just described, Sam, of
01:39:15
Speaker
you finished an area of your home for that child. That's what that money's going for in most of those cases. It's birthdays, it's driver's ed, it's cars. You can make money off of it, but it's like
01:39:32
Speaker
Nobody's getting rich off of that. That's not a rich route. That's an insane way of looking at it. That's why I'm saying you have to be a sociopath because you're like, yeah, I'll take five foster children. And you're like, why don't you just flip a used Corolla?
01:39:47
Speaker
I was losing my mind for months at a time with one because I cared. So that's why I mean, you have to be, so if you have five kids in your home and you just actually don't care at all, and you're like, I'm just going to stay in my bedroom, watch TV and live my life and be emotionally unaffected by what's going on on the other side of that door. It's good money. Yeah, it's tough to think about. Yeah.
01:40:15
Speaker
So I mean, those are the reasons not to do foster care. So here's some actual helpful things. So I was thinking, you know, as you've heard us.
01:40:23
Speaker
talking through some of these situations. Saving children, convincing you to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and savior. Thanks for that plug. That's not what I was going to say. I'm sorry, dude. I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. All right. So I was thinking, if you're listening to us and you're hearing this, and if you're thinking along the lines of, oh yeah, I can talk to that person. I know what I would say to that person.
01:40:50
Speaker
the horror stories with DCF or the contracting agency in my situation, those kinds of things. If you're problem solving that, if you're thinking about, okay, well, I see an unhappy face of a child that I'm imagining and I want to turn that into a smile. You probably should, you know, look up some stuff, start clicking on some links, start looking into foster care. If that's something that's pulling on your heartstrings and you're thinking along those lines already.
01:41:16
Speaker
Other ways that you can help. We already talked about the respite thing, so becoming a respite resource for friends. Become friends with foster parents, so seek them out.
01:41:29
Speaker
Over time, they'll be able to start telling you some of those stories without feeling like, oh no, I just ruined their entire week with this story. Having friends you can just dump on is helpful. We had friends who knew we loved our foster son, but there were times where we just needed to go out and just be fucking annoyed and talk shit and be angry. You could also plug your Venmo.
01:42:01
Speaker
I feel like you're shutting down all of my, I think I really bring in the heat. Mine is, if anyone's wondering, it's just at ST Shipman. I don't know. You should spring this into a legit nonprofit mission thing. I came on this podcast to promote my brand about that. You have T-shirts.
01:42:26
Speaker
It's just my goofy face on them. It's like with a wink and one eye and a thumbs up or something. If you were going to make it, yeah, if you're going to make a t-shirt. I can see on your face that you don't actually like that idea. You don't have to play along with that. No, I don't have a brand. I am such a bad salesman, as you can tell. Well, that's where Casey comes in handy. He's pretty good. We can talk messaging.
01:42:55
Speaker
All right. Uh, another one. So around gift giving holidays, uh, obviously Christmas is a big one and this is where this example comes from. But a guy in my church said, Hey, I want to get your kid a gift. What does he like? Well, actually, he doesn't know what he likes. And so that's kind of a difficult question. So I had to think about it for a little bit. I was like, well, you know what? Uh, think about what you liked when you were six and get that form and talk it up.
01:43:25
Speaker
That's how you scored yourself a PS5, isn't it? He likes making pipe bombs. And so he did that, and it gave him a great avenue to start building a relationship with that child as well. So that was really cool. That was a really cool idea. Another one is, we'll bring up the politics here for a second, but stop pointing the finger at other parties. Point the finger at your own party.
01:43:54
Speaker
demand better from your party because the parties we talked about, both of them suck. They are so bad with foster care and both of them pretend like they're doing a lot of good things and they're not. And so we need to hold them accountable. Um, that also goes for, I mean, my, my disgraceful comment was about political parties, but in thinking about, uh, donations that your workplace makes, Hey, maybe I'll suggest doing angel tree or, Hey, there's this nonprofit that does a lot of good work.
01:44:23
Speaker
How about we consider them next year for our workplace donations, that kind of stuff. So just take those opportunities as they come along. From there, yeah, just build relationships. That can be really difficult. Like I said, a lot of these kids don't know what they like. A lot of these kids don't know how to play with others. We recently, our most recent assignment, we took him to the park and he punched three kids. I was like, well, I guess we got to go.
01:44:50
Speaker
We can't just come here and bunch kids. And it's because he didn't know how to play. And so he just started swinging. And it was weird to talk about. But then on the other hand, too, I don't want to just say the bad stories. There's a lot of really cool things. When you're able to take a kid that has a crumbled up face because he's so bitter, looks like a troll, and when you can turn that into a smile, it's like, man, that's a really powerful moment.
01:45:18
Speaker
It's a really special moment to be able to see that there's something that changed. And he's going to look at his life and still see all the crap that he has to deal with. And I can't blame him for it. But if I can make him smile today, hey, I'll count those a win. And if I can teach him how to not just exist in survival mode, if I can teach him how to live for today and then tomorrow, I'm going to teach him how to live for tomorrow. And then if I can start to expand that a little bit to where he has more of a week to week focus and then month to month and so on.
01:45:48
Speaker
It's like, that's where I've really started to see some of the progress in some of these kids. It's like the way that the system is designed, and I get it, like this isn't a criticism. It's like they're seeing, in a lot of these situations, they're seeing a therapist. They have to do weekly calls with their parents, whether that's a good or bad thing. A lot of times you'll experience, they'll have bedwetting right after. Like there's a lot of trauma involved with these things. And so they are literally keeping one foot in our house
01:46:17
Speaker
and one foot in their trauma. And that's a really difficult thing to do on a daily basis. That is so hard for that child. And so when I keep, it's like I have to continuously think about this child. Think about this child. Where are they coming from? How are they seeing today through their eyes? Those kinds of things. A lot of times they have just a very warped sense of reality. Sometimes I have to keep an eye on them in the store because they're pulling tags off of stuff because I want this. I'm going to take it.
01:46:47
Speaker
I had to do that with shoes. We had to do that at a restaurant. We came out and I saw that the kid was holding the receipt. Like, no, we have to go put that back on the table so our waiter can get his tip. Like, we need to pay for our food. Those kinds of things. Just teaching those on a daily basis and they'll pop up. So yeah, this should scare some people away from foster care. Not everybody should be a foster parent. But if you're starting to think through some of this stuff, starting to have that idea of, you know what? I want to love this child.
01:47:18
Speaker
I want to do something for this child. I want to make a difference. Um, start looking into that. I have personally started reaching out to local pastors and said, Hey, if you have foster parents, I mean, I know do a little chitchat first, uh, to start gaining some trust and build a relationship as like, Hey, if you have foster parents that are on their wits end, I want to talk to those people because I'm a foster dad. And I know those are experiences already in just a year.
01:47:47
Speaker
from the variety of situations, and I want to start building them up. I want to pick them up because unless you've been in foster care, it's like, yeah, you can help that person for sure. I'm not taking that away, but somebody who's been through the same thing, it has a little different impact. It hits a little different, and so I've started doing that. All of this comes back to, of course, I'm going to bring up a Bible verse, and it's a good one. I think you guys will agree with it.
01:48:17
Speaker
It's Isaiah 117, learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. And then a personal favorite, especially with parenting in general, but also applies to foster care. First John 4 18, there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. So those are things that I shoot for.
01:48:46
Speaker
I am actively rebuking the oppressor when I run into that. And I am actively seeking justice. I'm living that out. I'm inviting it into my home. And Sam, you're doing the same thing. I'm so thankful for each one of us as we're doing it. Maybe for different reasons, you spoke to a lot of the same reasons and especially our experiences and what we do with it. There's a lot of similarities there and I think that's something that we can celebrate. So I'm really excited about it.
01:49:15
Speaker
And I'm not stopping anytime soon. I'm motivated. That's awesome, man. I would have preferred the King James version, but that's fine. No, but that's, I mean, I love it. I think the world needs more people who, obviously the world needs more foster parents and maybe that's because the system's fucked and they take too many kids or maybe it's because kids need help. Regardless, there is a deficit there. And I see that pretty regularly in my work too.
01:49:45
Speaker
Well, thanks for coming on, man. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. I know some of these topics are heavy, but I appreciate you telling us about them and then enduring our nonsensical cracks. For your jokes in my, what did you call me, Casey? Oh, just a contrarian, suffering that too. Thank you. Well, Sam, we haven't really talked much, but Casey, you know me, I joke a lot with you guys.
01:50:15
Speaker
Uh, the jokes did not hurt my feelings at all, but I will say that as I was writing out some of these notes and just going over some of these stories, especially just thinking about the kids, it's like there were many times that I cried just writing out these notes. So, and I'm, I'm actually floored that I did not, uh, while I've been talking with you guys. So that's, that's where my heart is. And, uh, it's been awesome talking with you both.
01:50:39
Speaker
Well, I'll, uh, I'll put a link to the organization that you talked about that you said is doing some good work and stuff in the, in the notes below. And, uh, yeah, thanks for listening, everybody. We will talk to you next time.