‘We need more people fostering and adopting’

As we go into the month of October, countless agencies will use National Adoption Week to raise awareness of the children who need us to keep them safe.

This weekend I had a no screen day and spent 24 hours either reading, eating or sleeping. It’s a practice I return to often when I feel overwhelmed with content and information and after a few heavy weeks (including the announcement of three deaths), I really needed it.

Most – sane – people might have spent this time immersed in a book aimed to uplift or encourage. Isn’t there enough news around to get us feeling depressed and powerless without seeking it out during organised down time? Not me; I picked up the heavyweight title A Little Life by American novelist and editor Hanya Yanagihara.

As a woman who has spent most of her upbringing around women, I am becoming more interested in stories written by and about men

Heard of it? If not, this book, which was shortlisted for the Booker prize, ‘focuses on the lives of four friends: Jude St. Francis, a disabled genius with a mysterious past; Willem Ragnarsson, a kind, handsome man who aspires to be an actor; Malcolm Irvine, an architect working at a prestigious firm; and Jean-Baptiste "JB" Marion, a quick-witted painter who wants to make a name in the art world. The book follows their relationships changing under the influence of success, wealth, addiction, and pride.’ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Life]

As a woman who has spent most of her upbringing around women, I am increasingly interested in stories written by and about men. While I am familiar with female friendships and the often termed ‘sisterhood’ (which, incidentally, happens to be the same name of the TV show series I recorded with two women who fit that term – watch it here), I don’t have a reference point for the same with men.

And, despite loving books and reading, I’m not necessarily what you might call a literary buff so though it is almost a decade since the novel’s publication in 2015, I went in blind and was completely unaware of the intensity of this tale. I won’t spoil it in case you want to read it – and you really should – but A Little Life gives space to the story of a little boy who was so badly abused - sexually, physically and mentally; that he is bound by all the above long into adulthood. It’s honestly harrowing, and I cried reading it. (I’ve been doing a lot of crying lately, but more on that in a future essay.)

An orphaned child (aged about eight when it began) was severely abused by both the supposedly Catholic monks (I say supposed because their behaviour is not at all demonstrative of Christ) and the counsellors at the children’s home he was deposited at. And after the tears came the anger because those people were supposed to protect him after his biological parents did or could not. And it reminded me that years ago, God called me to have a home that would be a safe space for children.

(A friend’s child, not an orphan)

Even as I have gone back and forth over the years debating whether I wanted to have my own biological children; I never wavered over my desire to foster children who had no where else to go. And I know that over the years, God has been working in me to ensure my heart is both soft and strong enough to stand in the gap for children who need an adult to speak on their behalf and to keep them safe.  I have had to wrestle with the difficulties in my own upbringing to make sure I don’t bring into my future, learned patterns of behaviour that could be detrimental to children who may not have had any consistency in their lives.

How to truly love unconditionally? How to give freely when there is no guarantee of anything in return? How to share what I have without becoming territorial or precious about things that can be replaced? How to discern behaviour that presents as “naughty” but might be a front for some kind of trauma?

When my own daughter died shortly after birth, I began to sponsor a child in Nicaragua through the charity Compassion and felt then, pleased to be able to invest in the life of someone else’s daughter in some small way. I do the same now, to another child in Ghana and though I may never meet these girls who will become women, I believe it is important to be able to sow into their present and future.

This month the UK will raise awareness for fostering and adoption during National Adoption Week (Monday 21st to Sunday 27th October). In the magazine I edit, we have focused many of our Oct issue articles around the call of God on our lives to:

Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow. [Isaiah 1:17]

Something I heard recently is that young children are being told if they get lost or if they are afraid that they are being targeted by a nefarious-looking human being, they should find a mother with her own children and stay with them and that that mother will protect them and pretend he or she is her own child.

If you are a mother with children – please do that. I hate that we have to put up these levels of protection against our fellow human beings, but we are where we are and we need to do whatever it takes to keep our little people safe.

On the Woman Alive podcast episode on fostering and adoption I spoke with two women who respectively look after their non-biological children without any spousal support. With open-hearted honesty, these courageous women declare how the biblical mandate to care for orphans was stronger than their desire to wait for a husband. Thinking about fostering or adoption as a single person or otherwise? Listen out for the prayer and sound advice at the end.

Tola x

I’m  the editor and creative director at Premier Woman Alive and co-host of the YouTube show Sisterhood. In 2019, I delivered a TEDx Talk on Debunking the Myth of Success and my first book, 'Still Standing:100 Lessons From An 'Unsuccessful' Life' is out now.

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