You have a big house, consider foster care

I live in an old American town that has been featured in The Great Gatsby, Ordinary People, Oceans 12, etc. Our community theater was recently awarded a $2 million renovation from the John and Nancy Hughes (Home Alone, 16 Candles, The Breakfast Club, etc.) foundation.

Armour, McCormick, Andrew Bird, Scottie Pippen, Jean Harlow, Richard Widmark, Jim Lovell, Edith Rockefeller, Lovie Smith.

People in Lake Forest are amazing as fuck.

Imagine my surprise when went to register my foster child for kindergarten. “We’ve never done this before.” “I’m not sure we can do this.” “The last time we did this was 3 years ago.”

(uncomfortable flash to society pages featuring hundreds of people doing amazing thing$)

The “3 years ago” was for another foster child my wife and I supported, who ultimately found another adoptive family outside the district.

I am completely shocked that we are the only Foster Parent family in my school district, and have been for at least 3 years.

Instead of merely bitching about this fact. I’m reaching out to chairs of local charities to increase awareness of the importance of foster care. My tenets are:

Foster kids are usually cute as hell.

Your own kids might be more fucked up than most foster kids. Especially in terms of gratitude. Foster kids teach you a lot about things you never would think of, like the overwhelming importance of:

I have clothes.

I have food.

I have a place to sleep at night.

You would do it for a needy dog. Do it for a kid. A person. An amazing little person with the potential of a whole world ahead of them.

There is nothing to fear from foster kids. Trust me, my friends and coworkers are like IMPOSSIBLE to deal with, but foster kids are relatively easy. Also they are funny as hell. Plus you get less than $400 per month to pay for the thousands you will spend on them. Because you want to.

I could go on, but the bottom line is MIX IT UP. Get a foster kid. It might just be the best thing you did for your family. And you.