Fostering or Adopting as a Single Man - Weekend Wisdom

Questions: I am a 58 single man and I am considering fostering. 

1. My first question is how much of a bias is there against men? 
2. What are the unique challenges that single foster dads face that discourage so many? 
3. What can we do to get more single foster dads to help families reunify, foster, and possibly adopt?

Resources:

• Creating a Support Network as a Single Adoptive, Foster, or Kinship Parent (Article)
• Adopting as a Single Parent (Online Parent Training course)
• Resources for Adopting or Fostering as a Single Parent

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

Hello and welcome to creating a family's weekend wisdom podcast. I'm Tracy Whitney.
I am the host of today's episode I'm also the content manager of creating a family
org on this podcast We talk about all the real -life issues that foster adoptive and
kinship families face because we can't do it alone and We love it when you send us
your questions because it helps us think through what we are hearing that families
need, but it also gives us an opportunity to learn right along with you and today's
question is an example of that. Today we got a question from Andrew who had a ton
of questions that don't probably get enough attention in foster and adoptive and
kinship care circles and that's why it caught my eye. He sent us a lovely note
with several questions, as I said, that all centered around what it would be like
to foster or adopt as a single man. So in the next few minutes, I'm going to try
and hit the highlights of his questions and the answers that I was able to dig up
and share them with you today. So Andrew, thank you for your lovely note and for
writing into us. And before I go any further, I I wanna remind you, if you have
questions, please send them to info @creatingafamily .org and we will do our best to
answer them like we're gonna do with Andrew's questions today. So let's dig in.
Being a single parent will come with challenges no matter who you are. It's true
that single men often face extra layers to their experience and some of that is
rooted in outdated thinking, like the idea that men can't be as nurturing as women
or that men shouldn't raise daughters alone. You might also get met with questions
that other prospective parents are not asked. So in some cases you,
because of that may face a waiting, a longer waiting period, you may face some
difficulty being matched with a child until those case workers and adoption or foster
professionals feel satisfied that their questions, again, that may be outdated or may
be biased, can be answered successfully. So it might also be that down the road,
once you receive a placement, you find it a little harder to connect in parenting
groups or support communities where most of the participants are women and often in
couples. So none of that matters when it comes to you being qualified to foster or
adopt as a single man. What it does mean is that you'll need to go in with your
eyes wide open, ready to advocate for yourself, and to build the support network you
need to thrive so that you and your children can thrive. So the first step in
doing this as a single man is to educate yourself. Not surprisingly, we say that as
pretty much the first step for all of the issues that we face here at creating a
family. So learn about the system, learn about the kids that are available in the
system, learn about the process, learn about your role and what you perceive to be
your strengths and your weaknesses. A lot of this education process is self awareness
and self examination. And we'll share some links in the show notes to help you and
other prospective single dads get started on this process of self -education.
The more you know about things like child development, trauma -informed parenting,
prenatal substance exposure and its impacts, how you were raised and how that impacts
how you might parent, those are the things that you need to be educating yourself
about. The more educated you are about those things, the better you'll feel to
handle the choices that you have to make down the road as you consider future
placements or consider future adoption programs, things like that. It also means that
you'll be better at meeting the needs of the child that you bring into your home
as those needs arise, because you've developed this attitude of educating myself and
continuing to educate myself. Another issue that I think is important to consider is
your support system. So parenting solo or parenting in a couple, it doesn't matter.
You should never be alone in that process. One of the most important things you can
do for yourself and for your future children is surround yourself with safe,
reliable, trustworthy people who will show up for you and for your children when you
need them. So you're going to think of this kind of in two buckets. If this helps
this analogy, the first bucket is emotional support or the people, friends,
family, professionals that you can talk to when things are tough and you need some
place to kind of safely parse through the emotions that you might be feeling or
that you suspect your child might be feeling. And then the second bucket is
practical support. These are the people that can watch the kids give you a break
take the kids to the movie so you can stay home and clean if you need to you
know share pickup duty at school carpooling to sports activities helping with meals
somebody to come and do your laundry once a week those are the the two buckets so
emotional support and practical support and before you accept placement of a child
Start now to look around your circles and see, do you have close friends and
family? Do you have mentors or parent groups? Do you have therapists or counselors
on hand? Do you have fellow foster or adoptive or kinship parents that can speak to
your experience? Do you have other single men in your life who are raising children?
Can you count on them? Can you identify who you would go to when you have an
emotional bucket need or a practical bucket need. Those are gonna be your go -to
people when your two hands are not enough to juggle at all. And trust me when I
say your two hands will not be enough to juggle at all. Don't forget the
professionals in your lives, your licensing worker or your therapist or your
pediatrician, potential pediatrician, your adoption case worker, guidance counselors at
the school where your child will be going, those people should all be part of kind
of your extended team. They can be sources of insight and encouragement. They can
give you leads for resources in your community or practical support in your
community. You know, they can suggest things like, hey, I know a high school student
who's, you know, really looking to earn some extra money and would be great at, you
know, hanging out with your kids for an hour while you get laundry caught up. That
kind of thing. So these are all the people that you should have in your support
network. Another question you asked us is about whether or not single men should
only foster or adopt boys. And some agencies, I'm gonna be honest, will try and
lead you in that direction. And it's helpful to remember that this is not a rule
or a limitation that you have to follow. You can express to them if you want to
be considered for placement of either gender. You should consider your motives,
consider your intentions, consider your resources, and then decide what you can handle
and what maybe the kids in your home can handle if you already have children in
your home. If you are open to raising a girl as a single man, you should consider
a few things that will prepare you first. Demonstrate to your adoption or foster
professionals that you are willing to learn and be present, respectful and supportive.
You don't have to have all the answers about things like body changes and puberty
and social pressures that girls face differently than boys face. You do need to
demonstrate that you can show up, you can listen and you can make space for those
safe conversations. It will also, secondly, be helpful to surround yourself with
trusted women as you're raising this girl. This could be your mother, your sister,
teachers, coaches, close friends, anyone who is willing to be safe and reliable and
partner with you to support this girl and answer questions that she may not want to
or be able to bring to you first. Just as a side note, I'm a parent of many.
I have a partner. And both of us have said to our children many times over the
years, if you can't bring it to mom or to dad or to mom and dad, we want you to
have other safe adults who you can bring your questions or concerns or stresses or
whatever to. And so We've intentionally, over the years, surrounded our kids with
adults that we trust, aunts, uncles, youth leaders at our church, coaches in our
kids' sports, and we just chose early on to not be offended if our kids didn't
come to us first about this stuff. And that's a really important key to being
willing and open to raising a child of a different gender as a single man. Another
thing that would be a key piece of preparation for you is to consider the
transracial and transcultural issues. If you are interested in raising a child of a
different race or a different culture, do the same thing that you did with
considering raising a girl. Surround yourself by people of that culture, of that
race, and give that child safe spaces to explore their racial identity,
their cultural identity, and that gives you the comfort of knowing that that child
is safe in that person's care and that person's wisdom and guidance, but it also
gives that child a racial mirror to kind of bounce ideas off of and see what it's
like to live as, for example, a black woman in America, even though she's maybe
being raised in a home by a white man. So that's just an example. And when you
adopt across races or cultures or foster across races or cultures, you just need to
go into it knowing that you have to learn and keep learning about this child's
culture and history and lived experience. So it I mean, in addition to surrounding
them with safe adults, it might also mean choosing a different school. It could mean
intentionally choosing to join community events that you weren't even aware of before.
It might also mean building new relationships in new spaces to surround this child
with people who look like them and come from similar contexts that they come from.
And you didn't ask me this question, but the same principle would go for raising a
child who is exploring their gender identity or asking other big questions about any
aspect of their identity. Your job in all of this, whether you're choosing to raise
a girl as a single man, you're choosing to adopt or foster across cultures, or
you're choosing to raise a child who's struggling with gender identity. Any of these
issues, your job is to be a safe place for this child. You don't need to fix it.
You don't need to change it. You don't need to figure it all out You just need to
stay open learn and keep learning and surround your family with safe reliable good
humans Andrew being a single man does not disqualify you from fostering or adopting
It just means that you're going to be taking a different path maybe with some
additional layers of education or preparation than a couple might face. And it's
crucial to remember through all of this that if you do pursue fostering or adopting
as a single man, the professionals that you work with will want to see that you
are succeeding with all of these preparations that you've done so that the kids in
your care can also thrive and succeed because that's really what adopting and
fostering children is all about, setting them up to succeed and thrive as they grow
towards adulthood. So, Andrew, again, thank you for your question. I think you were
absolutely right that it doesn't always get enough attention and I'm glad that we
could kind of shine a spotlight on it a little bit. If today's episode was helpful
to you or to any other listener, you might enjoy our online community.
You can go to Facebook .com /groups /creatingafamily and join a group where people are
sharing their lived experiences, asking each other questions, learning from each other,
supporting each other, encouraging each other. These members in this community are so
helpful and so supportive and so encouraging. It's where I go to hang out when I've
got questions about parenting or when I'm just looking to learn more from other
people, they all share their experiences willingly and kindly and we're learning from
each other every day, which I love. And so if you could find us there,
we would love to welcome you. And finally, if you could leave us a rating or
review wherever you're listening to this episode, you will be helping us get more of
these kinds of resources into more listening ears. We depend on your ratings and
reviews and use them to guide all of our future planning and improvements and to
consider what new resources we can offer. And so thank you for listening,
thank you for leaving a rating and review, and we are looking forward to talking to
you again next week.