So I really like the idea of fostering children. Would anyone here consider it? Do you think it'll confuse your children, or have any other negative effect? It's a huge undertaking. Would you only take in healthy children (physically or emotionally)?

Is there also an age when a couple can have children/teens in the house without it being awkward? I have a friend (20 y/o) who is looking for a place to live and is really close to someone who is about 30 years old, but their rav said not to do it.

Do you think it's different if we're talking toddlers/little children? Can I foster if I'm in my early twenties, and husband is nearly thirty? Or is age completely irrelevant? How is it different than adoption, other than 2-5 year difference, if we're talking little kids?

There is only one answer to all your question. Depends.

I've fostered for a while and it's a huge undertaking. You get a brand new person into your family..but with alot of baggage and complications.
-I wouldn't recommend if for people in the early years of marriage. You need a strong foundation, a strong marriage because it definitely takes a toll.
-If you have children in the house, make sure you put them first. It's nice to do chessed and everything, but if your children are being compromised then you don't score any brownie points. Discuss it with your kids, make sure they agree with having a new person sharing their parents. Make sure you have the room for a new person. Stay tuned in to your children to see if they are suffering or feel left out.
-Age is definitely relevant. Younger children require more physical attention. Older children require more emotional attention. In addition, you'll be involved with the child's therapist, school and family.

I can go on..but I'm sure the OP was hypothetical.

It isn't hypothetical. I'm not considering it for right now, but maybe in the near future if things work out.

i look up to people who foster kids. i wouldn't be able to do it.

That line above really stuck out at me. A child who needs a foster home, by definition, will be a child who has been "hurt" in some way. And they are going to need physical and emotional healing from that experience. If things were all fine and dandy, we wouldn't be separating the children from their parents!

I think OHEL runs foster parenting training classes, an acquentence of mine was attending them a few years back.

I'm not going to start a rant about ohel, but having known a few ohel foster parents, I think they're so desperate for homes that they'll place kids in homes that are not suitable.

I personally don't think it would be right for us, but I think it could be a beautiful experience and a huge chesed. I think Gretchen made some wonderful points (as did Nechama about the kids having been hurt).

I'd imagine a foster family would need to be VERY stable. So, if there's a high likelyhood of a dramatic change (new baby, new career, etc.), it might be too much.

I agree with this. In one case I know of OHEL placed two very needy children in a home where the father was known to be terminally ill (and died a few months later). WHY would they put foster children into a home like that?

Belle; it can work, but it is very very hard, and it can be heartbreaking too. It is always always better if you have little or no contact with the real mother, but if you must allow her to visit it is best if she visits not too often and does not take him back to her home, particularly if it is a dysfunctional one. Let me explain...

We fostered a little boy for almost ten years, from age 2 and a half, to age 12 yrs old. He was the same age as my middle son, and we went on to have 3 more children while he lived with us.

The main spanner in the works, and the reason it all came to grief in the end, was his mother. She just wouldn't leave him alone to settle down. As she wasn't frum at all (he hadn't even had a bris when he came to us), and she lived on the other end of London in a very goyishe area, her coming to visit every Sunday and taking him back home with her hugely disrupted his life and he became very confused and disturbed. He turned out to be moderately special ed as well, something we couldn't have foreseen.

Once when his mother didn't come for six weeks (personal reasons) he absolutely blossomed, so I could tell how much better it would have been if she had only stepped back and let us get on with the job.

In the end, despite promises to the contrary, she took him back. She said it was because she wanted someone to care for her in her old age. (She gave birth to him at age 45 and he was then 11). She launched a year's double edged campaign of anti-our-family propaganda, and promising him the earth if he came back. After a year of this he became totally impossible to handle so we told her she had won, she could take him back, but if she thought she had him for the easy time of his life she was kidding herself because he was one very disturbed adolescent.

Three months after she took him back the social worker asked us if we'd reconsider having him again and we said no. Our family was in recovery and particularly our son of the same age was blossoming at school and socially. Despite this decision being the right one for everyone, our family was completely destroyed by the throwaway way he left us without a backward glance or a goodbye after almost ten years. It was heartbreaking.

We didn't hear from him again for 19 yrs. Until last May in fact. During that time many of my kids had, unbeknown to me, tried to trace him unsuccessfully. No one had any idea what had become of him.

Then last May, he turned up on my doorstep. I was away at the time, on that trip to NY some of you might recall; we had a meet in Flatbush. He turned up on my doorstep with a non Jewish wife. My family welcomed him with open arms and the excitement and euphoria were enormous. He was overwhelmed. He had recently realised his mother had lied to him about us and wondered if we were indeed the terrible people she had painted us to be. His wife had been instrumental in persuading him to seek out the truth and his mother's wish to have him care for her in her old age had ended in ruins as she had destroyed his love for her.

After that initial reunion, and one more when I drove to see him as I had missed the big reunion, everyone had closure and answers, and he hasn't sought us out again. But at least know we know how to get in touch.

I'd rather adopt a child than foster. I don't think I'd want the downsides of fostering. How can someone grow attached to someone they know they will lose? (That's a rhetorical question, I know it's possible, of course. We all do it.)

Be prepared for heartbreak if you do it.

Fostering? I never would [want to].

It may be heartbreak in cases where a connection is established and then broken, but it can also be incredibly rewarding and an incredible act of chessed. I think it's potentially selfish not to consider the act of chessed simply because there's a possibility that you may be hurt.


[A few weeks ago I was at someone's home Friday night and one of the families had a foster child, and you could not tell, down to the father kissing her on the forehead after his gave her a berachah as he did his young children...the halachic propriety notwithstanding, this foster child is giving the parents an enormous opportunity to do chessed countless times per day].

Oh I agree and despite all the heartbreak, I don't regret fostering him, especially as he came back which shows where his heart really was in the end. It was also a tremendous chinuch to my children. We never differentiated in the slightest between our own kids and him in any way they were treated. It's just such a shame it turned out the way it did.

You say it's potentially selfish not to consider this act of chessed. And yet how many do it? When we called about the fostering, we were one of only two callers. Not saying we were anything special, by no means. We probably acted on gut instinct, didn't think all the permutations through, and just said "let's do it."

I agree with that.

Thanks for the input, everyone. There were some really good points here.