Reply To: 2nd Foster Child is a Choson

Professional – I am more then willing to try to address you questions.

1. Not everyone is fit for fostering. We took some boys into our home almost immediatelly after we got married, but not as foster children. At a later stage we officially filed forms to become foster parents for exceptional chidren, and by hasgacha a social worker from the non-exceptional department saw our form and contacted us. At a later stage we were obligated to take a course which was done specifically for frum families, although some felt a little bit uncomfortable.

Our first child, whom we received at a young age is Chasidish, and we’re Litvish-Yeshivish. Looking back at this point it was far from trivial, especially since he learned in a Cheider, which doesn’t take funding from the Zionist-government, and frowns on speaking Hebrew at home. I speak a little Yiddish I picked up in Yeshiva, and my wife knows a little as well, but none of our children know. When he first came to us, he knew almost no Hebrew, no English, his father’s family is from the US. All of his Hebrew he pretty much picked up was at our home. I still recall a funny moment when he came home one day and said something of this sort, please don’t mind my broken yiddish:

“Der menahel hot gazugt az mir tor nisht redden in di shtib in ivrit, mit di shvesteren oychit”, to which I repled, “zog tzi di menahel az dein shvesteren kein nisht redden in Yiddish”

We had one couple in our Foster family preparation group, who ended up taking our second foster child, which ended up not working out, and therefore came to us. My impression of them were so excited and jubilant, but completely out of touch with reality, which was true about most of the participants, and to be honest, I think the most important factor when raising children who are not your own as your own, is “perserverance”. Since I had experience in Special Ed. this was much simpler for me, but it was still a nisayon.

As far as shiduchim. The first one is engaged to soemone from a very similar background who grew up in a foster home, whom my wife knows from get togethers, but we didn’t make the shiddich. The second has somewhat of a similarity as well, but since he has some Yichus, the situation was a little different. He is also related to my wife.

In general the shiddich process was more difficult, but far from being locked out.