When Support is Not What You Receive

There are certain experiences in your life in which you expect support from loved ones, and sometimes that support is absent. I am feeling very nostalgic today and am thinking a lot about my ex-husband and I’s decision to become foster parents as today is the 1 year anniversary of us welcoming a sibling set of 3 into our home.

How It Began

Before my ex-husband and I got married, we discussed creating a family. Having a family was something that both of us valued and we were okay with however that love decided to grow. This was important because I have a physical disability and chronic illness and we were unsure if I would be able to have children. Once married, we had this conversation again. He was very insistent that we not try to conceive children and that fostering children was what he wanted to do. Although, I was unsure about giving up on the idea of conception, I was very willing to go the foster care route. I knew that I would love children we brought into our home and wanted to make sure that we could give children a safe space and love for the time that they needed it (no matter how long).

We knew that our friends would be supportive of this decision. We also were confident that my family would support us on this journey. However, we had some concerns about his family. In particular, my mother in law, because she had been asking for a long time when we would have kids. She would talk about what they would look like and what we would name them. She was very excited for a curly haired baby to come into our lives.

Sharing Our Decision

My ex-husband and I waited a long time to tell his family about our decision. We talked to just about everyone else in our close circle of friends and family before we talked to his mom and dad. We were nervous and tried to find the perfect moment to tell them that they were going to become grandparents to potentially many kids of all different ages. When we finally revealed our secret, we were met with pure silence. It took a little while for them to process and when they finally spoke it was not with excitement and support, but with questions and concern.

• Are we sure this is what we want to do?
• Don’t you understand how hard that will be?
• Don’t you want kids that are “yours”?

Further Lack of Support

It was anticipated that his mom and dad would have concerns and we were hopeful that they would get behind our decision. Hopeful that they would see that this was important to us. However, this was not the case, especially from my mother in law. What I received from her was the opposite of support.

My mother in law berated me and made me feel lesser and “at fault” for this decision, as if it were a decision that I made alone.

• It was my fault for “not being able” to birth children
• I was denying her son biological children and denying her grandchildren

She drilled in to me that DNA was what truly mattered to her and that because our children would not have our DNA that they would not be her grandchildren.

• Why was I keeping her from having a grandchild that looked like the myself and her son?
• Didn’t I remember what we were going to name our children when they were born? How could I give those names up?
• Why wouldn’t I just get a surrogate to have a child that matched our DNA?

She also would not relent on the concept that she felt like foster children were “other” and were not a good fit for her and her idea of family.

• “Those kids have problems that we don’t want to deal with”
• “There is something really wrong with them”
• “We know other people who foster, those kids ruined their lives”

What To Remember When Support Is Missing

Sometimes we do not receive the support we need from the people we feel we deserve it from. That does not make you less deserving of support. That does not mean that the harmful things that are said to you are true.

Always Remember:

• Those who truly care about you will support you
• There are people out there who do care about you
• You can cut out toxic and unsupportive people from your life
• You deserve to have boundaries that fit you and your family