MIL reaction to our proposal to begin fostering children. AIBU to find this upsetting?

[Happypomegranate]

We FaceTimed our in-laws on Xmas day and mentioned our intention to apply to become foster carers. This is something we have both wanted to do for years, but have been previously unable due to work commitments and living in a small flat. We’ve been very fortunate and we now live in a big house and we are financially secure enough that I don’t have to work. I still do a little bit of part time care work but can give this up to focus on fostering. MIL initially said she thought our DD was too young which is a fair point to make. We have a toddler and will not be having anymore biological children. I said we would discuss with the LA but we could wait until DD was in school if necessary but that we just wanted to get the ball rolling as we know how long these things can take. But it later became apparent that she was very against the idea of us fostering at any point in the future and I don’t believe my DD’s age has anything to do with it. She used language such as ‘it will be someone you don’t know’, ‘there could be problems’, and ‘troubled children’. We have done our research and we are aware that the children may have additional needs, mental health and/or behavioural problems, but every child in need of a foster placement is different and I feel it’s not right to stereotype. As for children that may come with challenges, I feel it would be our job as the foster parents to try and work through the challenges with the children. I don’t understand why she doesn’t want us to support vulnerable children, it’s just bizarre to me. It hurts because I had an extremely abusive childhood, struggled with mental health in my early adulthood and I’ve worked really hard to get to a place where I am happy, stable and resilient. I feel I could have a lot to give as a foster carer. My DH is lovely and a great dad, and I believe he’d be a fantastic foster carer but he had a drastically different upbringing from me. Think well to-do, independent school, etc. We are an unlikely but very happy pair. I thought she would be supportive but she’s actively against it and I’m not sure why it bothers me so much because it’s ultimately my and my husbands decision to apply, not hers. AIBU to be upset?

Then you're not actually a nice person at all.

My point exactly.

Plenty of nice people around who don't believe in god.
I would hope my christian friends would try to be nice without invisible law enforcement, as do their non religious friends.

The fact that you seem to think being christian is some kind of requirement for being a good person is evidence you are not suitable to foster children who will have a range of beliefs and cultures. It's quite bigoted.

I grew up in a community where the church had a lot of influence.

some people to genuinely believe that people who follow religion are in some way better. Of course they aren’t - some of the best and some of the worst people I know are religious.

min my community child abuse was swept under the carpet for a long time because the perpetrator was a Christian with a calling to teach. Even when it was eventually reported to the police the church prayed for this man. Not for his victims who were branded misguided.

while I appreciate some fabulous, generous, kind people are Christians - being a Christian. Does not make you a good person. It doesn’t work that way.

I'm fundamentally a flawed person, definitely not better than anyone else. But our faith is what pointed us towards fostering, where we achieved some good things, that's all.

I'd say the lack of foster carers is an even bigger reason to think very hard before going into it. When we started to look into it about 20 years ago now I had the idea of looking after lovely little children whose parents were maybe sick in hospital. I had no idea about the attachment issues or abuse. The long (over six months) process to become a foster carer opened our eyes to what it really was going to be like, and it was drummed into us that the children who were going to be placed with us were very unlikely to be grateful or happy to be placed with us. They invariably want to be with their birth parents.

We had a long term placement who settled well but was very vulnerable and easily led. Social services placed two other children with us and one of them targeted the existing child who had to barricade themselves in their room at night to avoid the 'unwelcome advances' of one of the new children. Social services were told, said they would find a new placement for the siblings, but due to lack of carers it took 6 weeks for them to find anyone who would take them. For those 6 weeks we had to patrol the hallway at night to keep the other child safe.

You're right, safeguarding and the church is an appalling black hole. That could be because it's an organisation that deals with vulnerable people, especially children (always vulnerable) so predators are drawn to it. They've had free rein. And the church hasn't always acted to protect the vulnerable, quite the opposite. It's quite rightly turned many people away from the church. The church deserves that criticism. Many churches are now completely up to speed on safeguarding but it will still be vulnerable to abuse because anyone can misrepresent themselves.

There's nothing to stop a Christian from exercising rigorous safeguarding while also exercising their faith.

My kids don't do sleepovers with anyone but my brothers children because I only trust my brothers. I don't believe I can know the truth about any other men and I've thought carefully about them too. If I was a Christian, I might exercise my faith but it wouldn't stop me being fully aware that there is evil in the world in the most unlikely places. If anyone thinks that's paranoid, I can only say that I've known two people convicted of child abuse/sexual assault who were looked upon as shining lights in the community while I was a child, both supposedly Christian leaders. Abuse ruins lives. Sleepovers are a small sacrifice and it's easier to have a blanket rule.

Fostering is like a long sleepover. I wouldn't personally trust God to keep a ring of angels around my child's bed, not because I have a problem with God but because of what I know about the world.

I would take issue with that. You don't need parenting experience to foster. You need experience with children, good training and commitment. Fostering is completely unlike having your own children.

I do not believe JS was motivated by his faith for one second.

If you watch the documentaries on him it's very clear he thought his charity work would ofset the evil and allow him a ticket into heaven.

He was given a free pass, partly based on his so called religion.

Religion quite frankly doesn't make you a good person. And anyone using it as a way to express homophobic, misogynistic views is obviously not fit to guide children's mortalities and I'd be worried about how they treated children of differing opinions in their care. Sadly, there's a very thick vein of bigotry and bullishness running through the church to as with the posters who turn a blind eye because they think God will do their safeguarding. It's thick and careless. I'm not saying all Christians are thick and careless, but trusting God to do your parental role is thick and reckless.

He doesn't need to believe in God to be nice. He is clearly nice! But it's clear from the statistics that faith (not fear, nasty jump from you there) does motivate a great proportion of people to go the extra mile and actually bring a child into their home. That could be because many Christians are encouraged to consider how they can make a difference in the world regardless of what it might cost them (aka Christ). I agree with you that they don't have the right to make that decision on behalf of their children. And of course many Christians listen and don't act at all. Many people do the same thing without that motivation and good for them. Chances are they will also be doing in the context of a value system which is based on deeply held beliefs about the world and themselves. We're all a product of our cultures.

He would be one of many who used the church to prey on vulnerable people. He was clearly a manipulative liar and I personally think it would be naive to believe anything he says in his documentaries. People like that are practised in covering up their true thoughts and feelings. I doubt he thought there was a heaven or cared. I doubt he had the capacity to understand other people as truly human or the concept of a world outside his own gratification.

I also agree that anyone who thinks homosexuality is wrong shouldn't be a foster carer and I would worry for their biological children. Many Christians would share that view. Not to derail the thread but a foster carer shouldn't be anything other than accepting of trans issues also - not pushing one way or the other.

Like 'true trans' I'm not sure you can identify 'true Christians'. You can't see into their heads or hearts.
Just because Saville was a bad person doesn't mean he didn't believe or think of himself as a Christian. The two are not mutually exclusive.

And predators wouldn't be able to exploit the church if idiots leaving safeguarding to God didn't make it so easy for them.

I agree actually, he might have had some warped idea of spirituality that made him entitled to perform heinous crimes. That would be a product of whatever hideous thing was going on with him - it's not how someone without psychopathic traits interprets Christianity. But I doubt deep down he had the capacity to weigh it up or care. People like that don't.

My worry is the church can do all the safeguarding they ought to do and still be vulnerable to someone coming in and saying all the right things, having no prior record and ending up with access to children. Just like any activity involving children really.

I don’t think therapy is relevant as long as the would be foster carer passes their medical. Well done to you, OP, for getting on with the therapy btw, it’s not an easy thing to do and I do not think it would interfere too much with your application assuming your mental health is good. I would love to foster but I have a criminal record unfortunately. I read you can still foster with a record but it would involve loads of questions and I don’t want to relive what happened.

"My worry is the church can do all the safeguarding they ought to do and still be vulnerable to someone coming in and saying all the right things, having no prior record and ending up with access to children. Just like any activity involving children really."

Yes. Just like foster care. You can have someone coming in saying all the right things.. the things they know you want to hear. I pointed that out and you took great exception. What changed?

A wide-ranging thread indeed, probably not what the OP expected. Although I may have contributed to the diversion into religious debate, I had not expected to be mentioned in the same breath as Jimmy Savile or to be 'hectored' for batshittery, dishonesty, idiocy, thickness and irresponsibility. Still, I suppose that shows the strength of feeling aroused by religion and I apologise if anything I have said has caused offence.

I'll keep on encouraging people like the OP who are interested in fostering to investigate it further and to apply if they think they can do it, as it is obviously good and necessary, though not to be undertaken lightly. Motivations may vary but in the end these children need looking after and foster carers do a great job. Some of the most impressive people I've met are fostering families, some Christian, some not- they are so resilient and it takes rock-solid family relationships as a foundation to offer a home to often troubled children.

I can't actually see what you mean, could you clarify? I'm sure it makes sense to you but I don't see the parallel - can't remember what you said and can't see you saying words to that effect. I'm all about safeguarding.

Oh just got it. No, I don't think they said anything false. That's where we differ. You can see from their track record as well, that they checked out. They were not misrepresenting themselves. They were stating the same thing from a different perspective, in good faith. Very, very different. A prospective Christian school teacher would know better than to say "I felt a calling from the Lord" if asked what drew them to the job, even if it was the case. They would say what was also true - they found working with children fulfilling, wanted to make a positive difference etc. We'll just have to agree to differ.

I really respect what you've done for children. Glad you're here.

Thanks, appreciated. You've been very balanced throughout.

"I had not expected to be mentioned in the same breath as Jimmy Savile or to be 'hectored' for batshittery, dishonesty, idiocy, thickness and irresponsibility."

I repeated what you'd openly said on the AMA thread you linked. Dishonesty was something you discussed and admitted on there. I accused you of none of the others...but as for @Reindeersnooker being "balanced throughout", erm, no. Just no.

One man's bias is another man's good taste...I think we're all guilty of it, your good self included.

Worth bearing in mind that we're the people who got out there and actually did it - there are children who had a place to sleep and I know look back on positive memories. We've got personal experience. I don't expect to be above criticism or lauded but there is something that grates about the self righteous tone from someone with no personal experience of it towards others who have. No good deed goes unpunished.

@Petros9

Everyone has some trauma. There is not a person in this world who has got as far as adulthood who hasn't experienced trauma.

For some the trauma is objectively horrific and life altering. For some it may be minor and relatively survivable.

You didn’t do it for free, you got paid, you don’t have to martyr yourself.