Myth: Children do not want parents who are culturally or racially different.
Fact: A child/teen wants a parent, a person they can lean on and who will be there, no matter what. As long as their race and ethnicity is respected and honored, most children don’t care who their parents are.

Myth: All teens in foster care are there because they are juvenile delinquents.
Fact: Most teens in foster care are there for the same reason younger children are in foster care: because someone abused or neglected them.

Myth: By the time a child is a teen, their personality is set and you cannot have any influence on them.
Fact: Recent research into the brain shows that a person’s brain does not stop growing and changing until a person is in their 20s. In fact, more credence is now being given to environmental factors. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/work/adolescent.html

Myth: Teens in foster care do not want parents.
Fact: No teenager thinks they need a parent, but they all want one. Most of us had to suffer through our parents stupidity during our adolescence – Mark Twain said, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” Deep down, all teens want is someone to accept them no matter what – even teens in foster care.

Myth: Kids who leave foster care with no family are fine.
Fact: Youth who leave foster care without a permanent connection to a family (either through legal or moral adoption) are more likely to become homeless, be on public assistance, be incarcerated or die than youth with a family. In fact, in New York City, the organization You Gotta Believe!, The Older Child Adoption and Permanency Movement, Inc., which helps to find and support permanent parents for youth in foster care, categorizes itself as a “homelessness prevention program.”

Myth: The foster care system has enough parents.
Fact: According to adoptuskids.org, there are approximately 115,000 children in care who are waiting for parents.

Myth: The foster care system is too broken to fix it.
Fact: Hard working people try every day to improve the system. The more that dedicated parents push people to try harder, the better the system becomes.

Myth: It is too expensive to adopt a teen from foster care.
Fact: For the most part, adoptions may be subsidized (that is, you might receive a monthly stipend until the child turns at least 18).  Teens in foster care for one year after they turn 16 are eligible for college financial aid without taking a parent’s income into account.  Youth receive Medicaid while still in care or for the duration of the adoption subsidy.

Myth: Foster parents are only in it for the money.
Fact: Maybe some are. But most of us are not; we are there for the love of a child – because the system does not pay enough for all that a parent can and must do to raise a healthy and productive person.

Myth: It is not possible to love a teen through the foster system like you would your own child.
Fact: Yes it is. All you have to do is be willing to open your heart.

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Joanie Siegel is 49 years old. She in the process of fostering-to-adopt her now 20 yr., with whom she matched four years ago.  Her daughter jokes that some people have midlife crises and get Ferraris, Joanie got a teenager.  Joanie is a Children’s Mental Health and Health Advocate in NYC.