Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Each episode will feature a conversation between host Rebecca Harvin and foster/adoptive caregivers or members of the community who support foster care and adoption.
Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Single Foster Motherhood: Journeying Alone But Never Lonely
Stephanie Miller shares her journey as a single foster and adoptive mom to three young children, revealing both the exhausting challenges and profound joys of parenting alone.
• Adopted a five-year-old last December and a 16-month-old around Halloween, while currently fostering another five-year-old
• Drew inspiration from her cousin who fostered and adopted three siblings as a single mother
• Openly discusses the fears she faced - financial concerns, physical exhaustion, and emotional capacity
• Explains the hardest part is never getting a break, even after bedtime when household tasks remain
• Finds joy in getting "all the snuggles" and witnessing every first milestone
• Maintains perspective with a sign reading "Today is a good day to have a good day"
• Built a crucial support network of friends, especially other foster parents who understand the unique challenges
• Uses music as self-care - church choir, intentional listening, specific artists like Lauren Daigle and Ingrid Michaelson
• Finds purpose in seeing positive transformations in the children she fosters, even those who stayed briefly
• Emphasizes that fostering isn't about being special or a "saint" - it's about making a lasting difference in children's lives
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Hi guys, thanks so much for tuning in to Behind the Curtain. I'm your host, Rebecca Harvin, and this is where we have honest conversations about foster care and adoption. Today, my guest on the show is my friend, Stephanie Miller. She is a local to Jacksonville foster and adoptive mom. She's been doing this for a handful of years as a single mom, and so today we're going to talk about her journey as a single mom, how she got into foster care, how she chose adoption and what life looks like for her in the middle of it all. I hope that you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Hi Stephanie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and being willing to share your story with us.
Speaker 2:Of course, thanks for having me today. I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you come representing single foster moms and adoptive moms.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, single mom here. I've adopted two children now a five-year-old that I adopted last December and a now 16-month-old that I adopted around December and a now 16 month old that I adopted around Halloween, and then continue to foster and I've currently got a five-year-old foster in my home.
Speaker 1:So three kids.
Speaker 2:Three kids in my home, all in car seats, so it's you know, yeah, tight.
Speaker 1:Tight is one word for it. We had at one point car seats Gosh, the way that you have to maneuver your hand in between car seats. When you have to line three up together, you just come back with like bloody knuckles. Yes, can you, I guess, tell me how, as a single woman, you were like yeah, I want to foster.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean I certainly would love to not be single and foster right. I mean, I think in a perfect world I would love to have a partner to share in this experience with, but that has not been my story. It's been my wish, but just has been challenging to find my person. And so I have a cousin that kind of mirrored me or, you know, went before me.
Speaker 2:She fostered a sibling set of three, all at different times, kind of one came and then another and then another, and she adopted them and she did that as a single mom and so I had her to look up to for that and I kind of thought to myself well, if she did it, surely I could do it, and I know that she's not the only person out there.
Speaker 2:And my life was set up so that I am single and I really wanted to be a mom and I always knew that I wanted to foster from my some of my work experience and seeing her experience and just meeting people in my path that have fostered and adopted. And so really, the time and the space and the opportunity presented itself, I got licensed during COVID so I had a lot of extra downtime to take the courses and go through the training and when I moved here to Jacksonville five years ago, had the space in my home and so use those experiences and said, you know, now seems like a good time for me to do that and this is what I want to do. And I was terrified to do it but I figured, you know I'll do it and if it doesn't work then I won't do it again.
Speaker 1:One thing I want to note is that you saw it being done. The idea of watching somebody who had gone before you and going okay, if she can do it, maybe I can do it too and having an example of it. What? When you said that you were terrified? What was scary? When you said that you were terrified, what was scary?
Speaker 2:I think, knowing that you don't have an extra set of hands or eyes, an extra income Financially, can I do it? Can I physically do it? Can I emotionally do it? Because you have to carry all those things yourself, versus when you have a partner, you have somebody in all those areas to help, and so that that was terrifying to think. Okay, this is going to be a brand new experience. I've gone from being a single person to now being a parent and having to take on all of that responsibility all by myself.
Speaker 1:I mean, that could be a game ender before the game even begins. It could be, and for some people it might be really really wise thing to do. For that you did was to sit down and go okay, what do I have it inside of me, knowing that, as the cards are on the table right now, there's not a partner, how do I, can I do this? Can I sustain this? But I like that you also said, like, if I can't, then I don't.
Speaker 2:One thought that came to me is I had another mom that I talked to and she isn't a foster mom but her husband was military and she said you know, some moms do it on their own and they might have the financial support of their spouse, but physically do it all on their own, and so it kind of gave me encouragement in that realm, saying you can do this. It might be hard, but you can do it.
Speaker 2:And I'm certainly the kind of person who's never shied away from hard, so that's helpful to know that about myself.
Speaker 1:And she said that to you before you started. Correct, that's a really good person to have in your corner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a really good, not just for foster care and adoption, but somebody who can hold that space and say people can be married and still be single moms. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and that's how my mom described herself. She was a Navy wife. I'm a Navy brat, and my mom described herself as a single mom, a single mom who was married. Um and um, um. It's hard, it's really really difficult to carry that burden. So what does that feel like? You're in it. You've been in it now for four years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's honestly exhausting a lot of the time. I mean I am so tired that sometimes I don't know which way is up, what my name is, what you know which direction I'm going in, because I think the one thing about being a single parent that is so hard is you never get a break. I mean, yes, the kids go to bed at eight o'clock, but at eight o'clock somebody has to do the dishes and do the laundry and clean up the playroom and meal prep or whatever it is. There's always something to be done. And so I have to make choices on what is important to me and what has to be done versus what can I leave. Can I let the laundry pile up for an extra day, or can I leave the playroom a mess in order to give myself some retreat? Whereas if you have somebody in your home a partner, let's say then you have somebody to share in that responsibility with. Hopefully, if you have a good person, that you share the load with.
Speaker 2:But on the flip side of that, I will say that I get all the snuggles, I get all the love, I get all of the opportunities to, you know, kiss, their boo-boos to help them through emotional challenges. I get to be the only to see the first steps, the first, you know, day of school, the first everything. And I don't take that for granted because I cherish that I get to be the person that gets every single one of those opportunities to see the firsts and get all the snuggles and, um, you know, that's the good that comes with it. That makes me want to continue to do it. Um, and I have to look at those good things because if you don't, it's easy to get caught up in the hard. I would say the financial piece is by far the hardest.
Speaker 2:I think that in this economy we all struggle, right, two income households struggle but, a one income household really struggles and I can get caught up in that and I can focus on that, but that's not going to do anybody any good to do that. Or I can get caught up in the fact that, you know, I don't have an extra set of hands for drop-offs, Um. Or you know, if I want to do something, I don't have a spouse I can leave my kids with to go somewhere, and I think about those things and it does weigh heavy on me, but I try really hard to focus on the good and focus on what is going well in that day.
Speaker 2:You know, my baby is going through a very attached mom stage and so he wakes up at night and wants to be held and only I can comfort him and I can't get mad that I'm not having alone time, because he lifts his little head up and looks at me and smiles at me and gives me this look like you're my world. And that's it for me. And it's those moments that make this totally worth it and make me want to continue to do what I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the looks from kids. I was out of town recently and always if I go out of town, when the kids know that I'm coming back in, they will matriculate to the bedroom in the middle of the night. My youngest is the biggest culprit. He will. It's like his body senses mine. Like we say that there's a disturbance in the force. Like you know, if you try to wake up at like 5, 15, and you're like, oh, I'm gonna do such a good job, I'm gonna have like I'm gonna have my quiet time, or I'm, oh, I'm going to do such a good job, I'm going to have like I'm going to have my quiet time, or I'm going to have, I'm going to wake up, I'm going to work out, I'm going to meditate, I'm going to do whatever. Right, and you set your alarm clock but you wake up before the alarm clock even goes off, because you know that if the alarm clock goes, off.
Speaker 1:a kid in the house will hear it, and so you wake up two minutes beforehand and you turn off the alarm before it can even go off and you like slip out of bed and you go to the living room and you light your candle and I'm telling you my process of what I do when I wake up in the morning and by the time that I've lit that candle, there is a kid in the living room.
Speaker 2:Oh yes. I'm convinced that they wait for me to breathe and my friend and I call it a disturbance in the force.
Speaker 1:Like they feel a disturbance in the force and they go to follow it right. And when I come home from a trip, if I come home after bedtime, it's like the opposite. It's like their force has been brought to equilibrium and my youngest can feel that and he will come in at some point and then he'll slide into bed and he'll go. I missed you, mommy, and I'm like I missed you too, like it's just so, it's so, so, so sweet. Um, you beat me to my question, though, because because I was going to be like what makes it worth it? What makes all of the hard hard worth it? And I guess my next question then would be yes, you can get locked into the heavy and the hard, and that is 100% a trap that I fall into. I fall into. Do you have any mental practices that you do or routines that you do to bring awareness to the good or to get you out of the pity swirl? If you just get locked into staring at your bank account and the stack of bills, how do you recalibrate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's a few practices. I mean number one. I think that for me, I have a little sign in my house that said today is a good day, to have a good day. It's a choice we have every day and I know that. I encourage myself and I hope to instill it in my kids, that we can choose to wake up and look at the bad, or we can choose to wake up and look at the good.
Speaker 2:And I'm by no means perfect. I have days where I wake up and whatever I mean you know money is tight, or I know that I've got daycare bills out the wazoo, or whatever the case may be but I always try to find something good in my day, whether it be through work, a positive interaction I have with somebody I'm working with, or, that evening, a positive interaction I have with my kids at dinnertime, and I always ask them you know, what was the best part about your day? What was the best thing that you did today? That's part of our routine, and so to try to instill that in them and also to try to help myself to remember to do that, because I think it's important every day to find something good, and that doesn't mean that I don't see bad, but it means that if we can find one good thing in every day, then I think that that can really help turn things around yeah, your attention doubles back and becomes it begins to dictate the life that you have.
Speaker 1:The thing that you focus on begins to dictate the life that you have. And so if you can focus on what is good, man, this is, you have no idea. You have no idea how right up the alley this is for me right now. I just spent my weekend where my one thought was about. This was about what's my attention on? Is it on the thing that's going wrong? Because the thing that's going wrong is true.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, and it doesn't go away either, Right.
Speaker 1:But if I'm only looking at this, instead of all of the things that are going right around it, then I'm telling myself a narrative that is, in my perspective, true right, Because everything is perspective but also it's not serving any purpose. I had to sit in that this weekend, and not not sitting in a way, but sitting it in a way that just is realizing that I've gotten stuck in this rut of narrative and there are other stories that can be told.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I mean that is easy to do to get stuck in the rut, right, but that's how you get yourself out of it, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you look at your sign, you have it standing there, it's like today's, a good day to have a good day. What's another way?
Speaker 2:I think, having a support network. You know, I would say that for the first two years of my journey I really was in silo. I was doing it alone and I didn't connect to any supports, and some of that had to do with the system and things I encountered that made it feel like I shouldn't have support. And some of that was just my own stubbornness, because I am fiercely independent and feel like I have to do things on my own and can rest pretty easy in that in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2:But, I think having children has taught me that you can't, you have to have a village.
Speaker 1:What does yours look like?
Speaker 2:I have a good group of friends and especially, I would say I have in the latter two years of my journey, connected with more support groups and made some good foster mom friends and have really found that some of those people are my people because they get it. I have some single mom foster friends and so we can kind of talk about the struggle of being single and you know what challenges that brings and how that looks different, and so it's really helpful just to have that village and so I go to support group and connect with some of those girls there and have a good support group of friends too, and not just foster parents but I would say it's just good to have a sounding board of somebody to talk to, to work through some of the hard things, just to validate my emotions, because sometimes when you're going through the hard, you just want somebody that can say, hey, that really sucks, or hey, that's hard, or I'm sorry, or what can I do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, to have that. Yeah, I think it's so important to have a group of people that can validate the hard what.
Speaker 1:what I can see happening sometimes in support groups or even amongst my own peers, is when we're all simultaneously in the spiral of or the rut and somebody says something is hard and it turns into just an absolute like suck fest right like and sometimes I, I think sometimes like and I don't know if I'm in the high like number of people that would say this ever in life, but like like number of people that would say this ever in life but like, sometimes you just got to sit in it Like there is a place, time and space to just wallow in self-pity Because you got to get it out of your system. Michelle Obama at one time said this thing. She said you know when, like when they go low, we go high. She said that's a very public thing that I say she's like. But what I don't say is there's we go low. First I have a group of girlfriends and we go low, we go down to the basement and she's like, and then we pull ourselves out of the basement and we go high.
Speaker 1:And I loved hearing her say that to a room full of women because it was like, yeah, let's validate, like we have to have these moments that validate. It is really hard to be the only one responsible for the well-being of children's lives. Those kids have their own schedule, they have their own needs, they have their own doctor's appointments. They have to be at daycare at a certain time so that you can be at work at a certain time, and if a shoe gets lost in the house and there's nobody else looking for it, and then you find the shoe, and then Johnny spills his cup of grape juice all over himself and then you have to change these clothes. And now you're 15 minutes late to this and you're driving like, do you hear the anxiety in my voice?
Speaker 1:and like you're like, I hear it, but I also live it. Yeah, I hear the anxiety and that was yesterday yeah, I must hear a few times a week.
Speaker 2:Stephanie, I don't know how you do it and I'm like friends me either, me either.
Speaker 1:But we do it, you know I mean I hear that all of the time and I'm gonna be really honest. Sometimes I look around and I'm like am I supposed to be doing it like? I don't. I don't know the way that somebody's saying that I'm like is it weird? That. I'm doing it. And then I'm like okay.
Speaker 1:No, we all have our roles. We all have our very unique role to play in the world, and some they it looks different and, um, okay, so we have today's a good day to be a good, to have a good day. You need support, and I'm assuming that your friends go low and then they go high most yeah, or alternatively, one person has to be good, like if everybody's having a spiral. I have found in my support systems if, if we're all spiraling at the same time, we'll just go get ben and jerry's like.
Speaker 1:This is not gonna be true or wine, or wine, or queso and like, stick a fork in it, we're done like we're just gonna be here, we'll. We'll come back to this tomorrow, but nobody's really. But.
Speaker 2:But it can be um addictive to to spiral for sure it can be addictive to stay in that heart one of them is a funny friend and that helps because she brings the comedic relief to the situation it's good to have somebody who can just lighten yeah the load just by existing you gotta have one of those. It can bring the humor, because otherwise, you know, things can get a little too serious and that's just never good. Yeah, yeah, and you can like, you can, and I can too serious and that's just never good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you can like, you can sink in it and I can be pretty serious.
Speaker 2:So it's good for me to have that balance, and that's what it's about is balance at the end of the day, you know.
Speaker 1:It is about balance at the end of the day, but finding that as a single mom has got to be. It's hard If it's about balance. And so then you're looking at that playroom, right, and you're making all of these choices. How do you determine what choice to make and when? Because at some point I would imagine that the playroom begins to feel overwhelming because the playroom is messy.
Speaker 2:Oh, the whole house feels overwhelming. Yeah, I mean. So I'm currently in a phase of life where everything has felt overwhelming and I think you know over time, having kids and life and just things pile up and then you get to a point where you look around and you say, oh my gosh, what is this? And so I'm.
Speaker 2:I've been watching all these organizing reels and different things and people that have said get rid of everything in your house, and I promise you you won't miss it. And that's kind of where I'm at, because I've thought if my space can reflect little to no chaos which I realize is not possible with little kids, but as close to possible as I can get maybe I will feel less chaos internally. And I've started to get rid of stuff and organize stuff and I've got clear bins and things my sheets go in and the playroom bins have labels and place for everything to go and slowly I'm starting to feel the transformation as I'm seeing the transformation. So that's the other thing that I'm really focusing on this year is more simplicity. I want to be a minimalist.
Speaker 1:I am not a minimalist.
Speaker 2:I'm not a minimalist. Nor am I sure you can be a minimalist with little children and especially a baby, that they just come with lots of stuff. But if I can do a little bit each day then that has to be good enough for me. I can't take on the culmination of my house. There's no way.
Speaker 1:That's so wise. It's so wise to say what. What is mine to do for today? Not all of it, not the whole piece of the puzzle. Going back to, like, how, what keeps you afloat and what keeps you looking at the good and not always the hard? What's another thing that you do, aside from support groups and this decluttering? I think for me.
Speaker 2:Self-care practices like music is a big one for me. And so I mean I do music for work and so I have to separate the two, but connecting with music in a way that is almost spiritual for me, and so some of that is singing in my church choir. I do that and that's important to me. It's a way for me to connect to music and to connect to spirituality.
Speaker 2:That's important to me and then just using music as a tool to help me calm and center and ground myself, I would say is very important to me.
Speaker 1:How do you use music like that?
Speaker 2:So some very intentional and active listening, and so if I am feeling a particular way, I'm going to use music to reflect that feeling. By listening to said music, I mean it's going to be individual to the person, but for me I may pick music that is resonating with how I'm feeling in the moment or where I want to be, how I want to feel. That can take me to that space. Do you have playlists? I don't. I just kind of. I mean I have, like my Apple Music knows me, and so I have different genres that I can go to or different albums that I'll go to that I know that just center and ground me. So sometimes one of my albums is like Lauren Daigle not her most recent, but I forget which one it is.
Speaker 2:But it's just a really good kind of centering. Another one for me is Ingrid Michaelson. I don't know, it's like that's kind of my, tell me a. Songgrid Michelson. I don't know, it's like that's kind of my, tell me a song that she sings.
Speaker 2:I just want to be okay, be okay, be okay, that one. And then sometimes it's classical music for me. If I just really need to be grounded and be in the moment, I can listen to some classical music, not all, but certain pieces that really help just kind of bring me into the moment and ground me and allow me to feel centered.
Speaker 1:Back to, like, motherhood and the tasks at hand. Can you think of a moment when you were like this right here is worth all of the sacrifice? And I know it's like in the snuggles and it's in the thing, but like, is there like a moment that you've had over the last four years where you just knew like heart, body, mind, spirit, soul, all of those things just in complete alignment, I am doing exactly the thing. I'm so glad that I did it. Scared.
Speaker 2:I'm sure that I've seen that in both of my adoptive children at some point, but I can't think of a specific time. But I can think of a time in my last placement who was no longer with me that I saw such a difference in that child in such a short time. I saw a child who was screaming at bedtime melting down just lots of challenging emotional behaviors go from that child to a very happy, engaged child that was in good structure and routine, and it was in those moments that I said this is exactly why I do this To be able to see the difference that you're making in these children, whether it be short-term difference or a long-term difference told me that this is something that I will continue to do and something that I'm meant to do, because it was heartbreaking when that child left me but despite the short time she was with me, I knew that I made a difference in her life.
Speaker 2:And I see that day in and day out with my son James, and I, of course, see that with Mark just in the bond that we have. Think that being a foster parent that's what it is is that whether you have them for a long time or a short time, you're making a difference that could last forever.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:We don't know, but you're making a difference in these children's lives and that's worth it for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was in a room with a lot of foster and adoptive moms and at the end of this conference we all got glow sticks. It was 1,300 of us in this room. There was 1,300 of us and they had ordered 10,000 glow sticks and they ran out our. We were instructed to get a glow stick for every child we had loved in any capacity, um, no matter how long or how short they were around us. And so, um, I I actually got two more than I normally include in my number because there was these two boys this one weekend that Zoe and I hung out in the hospital. They didn't have anybody in the hospital. They were waiting for placement, they were in between. There was a possibility they were coming to us. There was a possibility they were going to medical, but nobody was with these two boys that were in um cribs that have, like, they're not a cage, but it's like the zippered crib. It's no, it's a metal bar crib where the crib walls go up.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah yeah, no, it's not.
Speaker 1:It's not a cage because it's not like covered on the top right. But the walls are so high on this crib and you have to lower them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've seen them.
Speaker 1:And they had to be inside of that if we were not at the hospital to be with them and to have them outside of it, and this is not to say anything negative about the hospital or what they do for children in care. The nurses who love them and want to engage, but those nurses have other patients, they can't be in that room the entire time.
Speaker 1:I don't ever include them in my number because they never were officially a placement of ours, but we do include them, zoe and I, when we talk about, when we are talking about our journey in foster care, because they made a huge imprint on us in just that weekend. But it's that moment where you're like I know that I made a difference for them, I know that I reduced trauma for them, that weekend.
Speaker 1:And that every hour that I spent in that hospital room reduced trauma. Yeah, and having that moment, knowing that you're making that difference, it's like, oh, I can wake up and I can do this again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:I can wake up and I can handle all of the stress and all of the everything, because, because lives are literally being changed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:There were 10,000 glow sticks and they ran out and it was 1,300 moms. That's wild. It was wild and I'll tell you what. And we can end here, like I'm sure that you hear people tell you all the time like you're a saint and and you hate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Just doing a kindergarten assessment this weekend, a mom said, you know, asking me about my kids, and I say I'm a foster parent. She goes, oh, I could never do that, but I'm glad there's somebody that can. And I think I am not special. I mean, I guess maybe I am but, realistically, you could do it if you wanted to. You just choose not to, and it's not meant for everybody right, it's not meant for everybody, and so we don't want everyone to do it, but I would be curious.
Speaker 2:I would love to do a study to know what sets foster parents apart from non-foster parents.
Speaker 1:Their ability to handle chaos I suppose I mean that's one of it I've said I like chaos, but you know I mean our ability to sit in chaos and I'm not a saint, um, yeah, and our drive for justice. I think that most people in this like line of work, line of yeah, we're gonna call it a line of work we're doing yeah, yeah um. Inside this calling um, have a high drive for justice like you see high need.
Speaker 1:We don't want to be called saints. We don't want to be told like oh my gosh, blah, whatever it's like. We cringe because we know every time that we fail yeah I, there's a running record in my head of every time right and because I'm not doing any, I don't feel like, oh, I'm doing something so special. But then you sit in that room with 1300 people and 10 000 glow sticks. You sit on this couch with a single mom who's?
Speaker 1:actively pouring herself out for kids and is actively making a difference, like you are actively making a difference in children's lives. And I'm not going to call you a saint, but I'm going to say I'm really damn proud of you, stephanie.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1:You're doing good. You're doing good work and you're doing it in a way that is really hard and in a way that a lot of people wouldn't choose to do, and it's no small thing the sacrifice that you're making. So thanks for doing it and thanks for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 2:And yeah, thanks for having me hanging out with me today. Yeah.