We often map out our lives with absolute certainty and are clear about what we should be doing and about to do. We would sketch neat boundaries around what we think we can handle, only for life to laugh and hand us a completely different script that we are not ready for, at least not yet. Consider Bonnie and her husband, who find themselves in a difficult scenario. Long before they tied the knot, they knew foster care and adoption were etched into their hearts, as they were working in youth ministry, they felt a specific calling toward teenagers. They wanted to have kids on the older end of the spectrum who so frequently slip through the cracks and desperately need stable, adult role models.
Bonnie’s husband was openly terrified of helpless newborns, and their initial life plan was straightforward, where they would rent a larger space, maintain dual incomes, get licensed, and open their doors exclusively to teenagers aged 13 and up. They checked the boxes, completed their training, survived the initial hurdles of the COVID-19 pandemic application delays, and welcomed their first teenager in August 2020. True to their values, they championed a pro-reunification stance, supporting birth families with grace and empathy.
Then, after one of their teenagers asked to be adopted into their family, a social worker called with a startling twist when they asked, would they take in a nine-day-old baby? A newborn??? As it turned out, this infant was the biological younger brother of the teenager they had just legally adopted. Child welfare systems naturally strive to keep sibling groups together, which threw Bonnie and her husband into an unexpected ethical and emotional dilemma.
After wrestling with the decision, praying, and looking at their newly adopted son’s smiling face, they said yes. They had no baby supplies or prior experience with infants. To successfully welcome and care for this unexpected newborn, Bonnie and her husband utilized several key strategies. They swaddled him every night until he was old enough to turn over, surrounded him with his entire biological family (including his siblings) on his first day home, and practiced lots of skin-to-skin contact, also known as kangaroo care, to promote secure attachment.
They also committed to never letting him cry it out and to rocking him to sleep or lying next to his crib, and they created a physical life book using Shutterfly to preserve his history in the NICU, with his first foster family, and with his adoptive family. Furthermore, they set up their home with sensory- and enrichment-friendly resources. This includes a spinning chair, a Jungle Jumparoo, sensory tubes, and toys, while proactively getting him into speech therapy and occupational therapy to support his developmental milestones.
Bonnie’s story beautifully illustrates why reading Get Too Attached by Alicia McCormick, PhD is so vital for anyone stepping into foster care. Like Bonnie, you can enter the system with rigid boundaries, only to discover that children’s needs will stretch your capacity in ways you never imagined. Bonnie’s transition from teenager caregiving to navigating the nuanced, somatic trauma of a substance-exposed infant highlights the flexibility every foster parent needs. Her journey reminds us that foster care is about remaining radically open to what a child needs most, even when it completely flips your world upside down.
Read the book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/021kJ9Y3
