FOSTERING; LOVE ON LEGS

 Lots of people ponder about becoming foster carers, and many, so I understand, end up browsing the Secret Foster Carer to get a bead on what it's like.

Fostering is hard work in many respects, but also one of the best things anyone can do in life.

It's up to you if that's a good deal.

It's definitely a good deal for the child/children you'll help along the way, and that's a big part of the good side of the deal.

Other people can be a bit strange when you tell them you foster. I suspect they're people who are wierdly embarrassed that they aren't doing anything to make the world a better place so they almost want to shut out the simple fact that they are suddenly in the company of someone who is a simple, down-to-earth foster carer.

We're not super heroes, not champions of the universe or gold medallists; but it's almost funny how many people cringe when you find yourself saying "I foster".

Not that it's something I say to people unless it becomes appropriate in the conversation.

Around Christmas I find myself at a small number of gatherings. For example, youngest foster child's school does the de rigour Nativity Play which they follow up with cheese and wine (bean size knobs of Tesco cheddar on toothpicks plus a watery white or an even more watery Spring Water).

I hung on for it, showing willing etc.

Got talking to a lady who wanted me to know her and her hubby were going to France for Christmas, so I acted interested like you do. She banged on how they'd had a nightmare getting a flight as their initial booking turned out to be over subscribed so they'd been jocked off and had to accept a passage to a different French airport or await a vacancy for a flight to their preferred destination. Which would be stressful.

You can picure her, right?

She told me about their life in France, the quality of the charcuterie, the little things she found irksome such as the long wait for your second course (because they cook it from scratch rather than microwave a batch from a month ago). She had a lot to say about foreign food.

I learned how her family were going to convene in France and how well her sons were doing, one was a sales rep for a firelighter company, the other had a job on a superyacht as a steward, currently off the coast of Dubai.

I even had to listen to how they wanted to extend their conservatory but the council were being difficult.

I also learned she had food fads, she told me about her reservations with pasta, raw meat and peanuts.

Someone brought a tray of cheese bits round and she waved them away.

So I found myself rescuing the conversation by saying "We're at home again this year."

She went "Oh yes…family?"

I replied; "Sort of. I foster."

To which she instantly replied;

"I still struggle with lasagne."

Yep.

"...I STILL STRUGGLE WITH LASAGNE."

Check it out in all it's glory. A left turn away from the beautiful matter in hand; fostering.

She couldn't begin to go there.

Almost like some people can't say the word "cancer" for fear it'll come and get them.

Tiresome.

There aren't many things a person can do by way of vocation that leads other people to want to change the subject.

For example I once bumped into a near neighbour in the supermarket till queue and asked her how she was doing, so she told me (at length) how she'd moved sideways from management consultancy into property development and virtual currency investment. She was nada, but straining at the leash of self importance.

You've got her, right?

Then she asked, in the token way people do;

'What are you up to these days/'

I replied;

'Still fostering."

To which she replied, instantly; 

'I have a sister who knows someone who works in the Care industry.'

She had two spare bedrooms now her sons were on their hind legs, but no sense of usefulness.

It's tragic how many kids need a safe home and a decent family environment that so many people are sticking their fingers in their ears and refusing to hear they could do something..

Can you help?