Being a child in foster care sure isn’t easy. Changing homes often, being separated from your siblings because nobody is willing to care for all of you, and feeling unwanted. It is probably the worst feeling in the world.
According to statistics, there are more than 440,000 youth in foster care nationwide. Sadly, once foster youth ages out of the system, it has been found that they often end up unemployed or even homeless.
Unlike what most people think when they hear “foster youth”, the median age of foster children is 6,5 years old. This means that we don’t really have to do with “troubled teenagers”, but with kids who have been separated from their parents and family and who desperately need emotional support.
The fact that these children grow up far from their biological parents and they are often not given the love they need and deserve, can be the root of many emotional and cognitive issues they may have in the future.
But, luckily, not all foster children grow up in hostile environments. Sometimes they are taken in by people who can feel their needs, and who are determined to give them all the love they deserve in order to grow up and be the best version of themselves.
Unfortunately, Robert Carter was one of those children who grew up in foster care, and this experience left a scar on his soul.
“My mom had nine kids, and I didn’t see my youngest [brother] again. He was two,” he told Fox19. “I didn’t see him again until he was 16”.
Because his childhood was traumatizing, Carter decided not to let other children suffer in foster care. So, at the age of 29, he took in three brothers and tried to be the best father to them.
Yet, something felt off. The boys also had two sisters who they were separated from, and they couldn’t stop thinking and talking about them all day long.
“When I had my boys before I got the girls, that’s all they talked about was their sisters,” Carter recalled.
The five siblings had been separated for six months, yet Carter did his best to make sure they would keep in touch. For this reason, they visited the girls often. Watching the kids’ reactions during those meetings, the man decided that he couldn’t let these children go through what he went through at a younger age, so he made up his mind and adopted all of them.
“We met up for visits, and all the kids were crying,” Carter said. “They didn’t want to leave each other, and at that moment, I knew, OK, I have to adopt all five.”
His decision surprised everyone, since, becoming a single father of five from one day to the next is not something many men would opt for. In fact, he might just be the only one to have done this.
“I’ve never had a single father adopt five children,” Stacey Barton, adoption case manager, said. “His childhood background has made him aware of the importance of keeping siblings together.”
After the adoption was made official on October 30th, the family went back home together. Carter has been trying to make the kids feel confident and loved again, and he often reminds them that he will never leave their side.
“Every night I talk to them and let them know, ‘I’m your dad forever. I know what it’s like and I’m always here for you.’ I’m here for them no matter what,” he says.
What a touching story! Hopefully, it will inspire more people to adopt and offer their unconditional love to traumatized children that need it more than anything.
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