Life As A Foster Parent Can Be An Adventure

April 20, 2007

Being a foster parent “is worth the investment of time,” said Tom Cain of Randolph. “You can change a child’s life. What’s more valuable than changing a life?”

Tom and his wife Jane have been foster parents for more than 18 years with Global Village Therapeutic Foster Care, a program of New Directions Youth and Family Services in Randolph. They’ve had about 17 foster children– it’s hard to keep track after so many years!

Tom and Jane Cain prepare for a family trip with their adopted son, Tyler. May is Foster Parent Month, and the Cains encourage people to find out for themselves how rewarding it can be to change a child’s life as a foster parent.

 

“Our life has been such an adventure, with good times and bad times,” Jane said. “But the good in all these kids far outweighs the bad, and the lessons we have all learned together are priceless.”

One lesson is that sometimes someone has to “eat her own dried-up cheese,” a phrase the family now jokingly uses to mean someone who has to learn things the hard way. One foster daughter fought Jane’s rules, including Jane’s insistence that the cheese be wrapped before replacing it in the refrigerator. It wasn’t until the girl left the Cain’s house that she learned how valuable Jane’s rules really were. “I had to go out and eat my own dried-up cheese,” the girl explained, and the phrase has stuck.

One of the happiest times for the Cains was being able to reunite one of their foster sons with his biological mother. His father had taken him during a custody dispute and for four years the mother had been looking for him. Justin is now 22 and will graduate with a master’s degree in accounting this year. The Cains keep in very close contact and are proud of him. The Cains adopted one boy, Tony, now 22, when he was 15. Other youths were able to transition into independent living as college students or young adults, and some were able to go back to their biological families. Jane said people often ask how they can care for children, then give them up. “Most of them are part of our lives forever,” she said. “Many of these young people have no other resources. They still need a mom and dad and someplace to eat Thanksgiving dinner!”

Tom has helped them pick out cars and apartments, and even co-signed a loan for one. “Some you don’t have to legally adopt, they adopt you,” Jane explained. “It’s a heart thing.” Most of the Cains’ foster children were teens or pre-teens. Then one day, at the start of the bow-hunting season, Jane got a call from the Global Village social worker about a three-month-old baby from Children’s Hospital who needed a therapeutic placement.

Tyler was born premature and had many health and developmental issues. He required monthly hospital and doctor visits and at one point took six medications 13 times a day. When the Cains got Tyler, the goal was to return him to his biological family. Jane and Tom worked with the family, but the family members weren’t capable of following Tyler’s complicated medical regime. Two years later, Tyler’s older brother joined him in foster care and the boys were freed for adoption. It is always a priority to place siblings together in an adoptive home, and New Directions and the county searched for a family for the brothers, then 2 and 5.

It became evident that because of Tyler’s special needs, the boys were too much for any one family. Also, by this time, Tyler had bonded with the Cains and felt they were his parents. Fortunately, the Cains had close friends seeking to adopt a little boy. In a highly unusual move, the county agreed to separate the boys. Both boys now have loving nurturing “forever” families, and because the families are close, the boys see each other frequently. “They love each other very much,” Jane said. Tyler, now 8, continues to be a handful, but he is Tom’s “best
helper.”“He can light up a room with his joyful, outgoing personality,” Tom said. “He has brought us a lot of joy. We laugh every day with him.”

The Cains have two biological sons, now 25 and 27, who have lived this adventure right alongside their parents. “It has definitely been a challenge for them at times,” Jane said, “but they will tell you it has given them a perspective of life some people only read about.”The Cains attribute much of their success as foster and adoptive parents to the support and training they have received at New Directions. “They are our extended family,” Jane said. “They go through all the ups and downs right along beside us.”“We could never do this without the support our agency provides us,” Tom added.

May is National Foster Parent Month, and the Cains encourage people to consider becoming foster parents. “The need is far greater than the resources, unfortunately,” Jane said. “There is nothing more rewarding or important than to open your heart and home to a child in need,” Tom said. “The kids will teach you so much.”