When people hear that you foster, they usually ask one question right away.
“How old?”
When you say “teenagers,” the tone changes. People get quiet. They look surprised. Sometimes they try to be polite, but you can tell what they are thinking.
That is hard. That is risky. That is too much.
I understand why people feel that way. Teens in foster care often carry a lot. They have lived through things most adults would struggle to survive. By the time they reach adolescence, many have already experienced repeated loss and instability. Some have been moved so many times that they stop unpacking. They stop trusting. They stop believing anything is permanent.
But that is exactly why we chose teens.
Not because it is easy. It is not.
Not because we thought we would be the exception. We are not.
We chose teens because they are the group most likely to be overlooked, and they are also the group most likely to run out of time.
A lot of people do not realize how quickly the clock starts ticking in foster care. A teen can enter the system at 14 or 15 and be expected to function like an adult at 18, with a history of trauma and instability, and with limited support that actually follows them. It is not realistic. It is not fair. And it is not how most families raise their own children.
Most teens do not “age out” of parenting at 18. They “age out” of a system.
So we made a decision as a family. We were going to step into the space where people are most likely to step away.
We learned early that fostering teens is not about perfection. It is about consistency. It is about showing up the same way over and over again. Teens do not need you to be flawless. They need you to be steady.
Consistency sounds simple until you live it.
It looks like routines. School. Expectations. Chores. Follow-through.
It looks like boundaries that do not change depending on your mood.
It looks like consequences that are fair, predictable, and not personal.
It looks like having hard conversations without shutting the teen down.
It looks like being calm when you are tired.
And it looks like understanding that behavior is often communication.
A teen who argues might be scared.
A teen who lies might be protecting themselves.
A teen who pushes you away might be waiting to see if you leave like everyone else.
That is the part people miss. Some of what looks like “attitude” is actually a test. Not because teens want to cause problems, but because unstable systems teach youth to prepare for loss. If adults always leave, then the safest thing is to stop trusting adults.
Fostering teens means you hold the line and you keep the relationship.
It also means you tell the truth about what love can and cannot do.
Love matters, but love by itself is not a plan. Love without structure is unstable. Love without accountability can accidentally reinforce harmful patterns. Love without support can burn out even the most committed caregivers.
That is why I do not romanticize this work.
I am proud of it. I believe in it. But I do not pretend it is easy.
There is another reason we chose teens. I have spent my career in environments where you do not solve problems by hoping. You solve problems by being honest about the gaps, building a plan, and putting guardrails in place so the plan holds under stress.
Foster care needs more of that thinking.
Not more paperwork. Not more slogans. Not more programs that do not touch real life. Foster care needs support systems rooted in lived experience. It needs models that are designed for what actually happens in homes, not what looks good on a slide.
We chose teens because they deserve someone willing to say yes when most people say no.
And if you are reading this and you have ever wondered why teens act the way they act, I want to say this plainly.
Most of them are reacting to a world that has not been safe.
What they need is not pity. What they need is stability.
That is what we are committed to building, one teen at a time, and one system change at a time.
