Jillana Goble set out to write about her family’s experiences with foster care and adoption. What resulted was a guidebook.
“Signing up for foster care is an invitation to raise your hand and invite heartbreak and suffering into your life.”
Hardly the sentiment you might expect from a child advocate who’s taken in numerous foster children during the past 14 years and adopted two of them.
In her new book, “No Sugar-Coating, The Coffee Talk You Need About Foster Parenting,” first-time author Jillana Goble offers prospective parents the bitter and the sweet about life as a foster parent and the wild ride they should expect.
“I hope I share clearly that I’m trying to be a neutral guide,” said Goble from her Portland home, as her youngest child played in the background. “I’m not standing there with invisible pom poms saying you should do foster care, it’s for everyone; nor am I standing there sad and somber saying it’s all doom and gloom.
“It’s just I believe there is a gap between expectation and lived reality. The more people that can go into the foster care journey with eyes wide open, as to the day-in and day-out realities, the better they will be prepared to buckle up for what this journey holds – and not be surprised.”
Lifetime connections
Goble and her husband, Luke, have had plenty of surprises over the years. They were in their mid-20s when they welcomed their first foster children into their home. They had just returned to New York after working at an orphanage in Guatemala and were determined to reach out and help the most vulnerable here in the United States.
Two boys, ages 9 and 6, from a family of 15 siblings were the first to walk through their door.
“Most foster parents don’t feel like heroes. We’re opening our doors to children in need, and just doing what needs to be done,” Goble said. “When the community is constantly trying to crown us harrowing rescuers, it actually creates a disconnect of, ‘Wow, that’s not how I feel. I feel ordinary.’”
The Gobles’ 9-year-old foster son wasn’t with them long, but the 6-year-old, who Goble refers to as “The Son of my Heart,” lived with them for a year before transitioning to a pre-adoptive home. Just when things were looking a little more permanent for this youngest of 15 children, the adoption fell through, he was placed in a group home (instead of being allowed back with the Gobles) and he disappeared to his next placement without being able to say goodbye.
The couple spent more than a decade wondering what happened to him.
“About three years ago, I got this sense, ‘Where is he? He’s 19 now,’” Goble said. “So, I started searching.’”
Due to his unusual name, it didn’t take long for Goble to find him on social media. She sent him a somewhat awkward direct message to reintroduce herself. She received this message back the next day:
“OMG!!!!! I’ve been searching for you. You’re still my MOM!”
He had been thinking about the Gobles for 11 years.
“As a foster parent, you think maybe what was offered to this child was something bigger than simply being under my roof for a season,” Goble said. “But you’re often left with a question mark.
“Having this young man express that this one year, which was just a small blip on the screen of his life, was the time in his life he remembered as the most stable and calm was really impactful. I wasn’t expecting that.”
He came to the Gobles as a first-grader and still remembers their family trips to Disneyland and San Francisco. But what Goble found the most surprising was her foster son’s vivid memories about the little things during that relatively short period of time.
“He remembered the Spider-Man poster in his room, his bed spread and eating grilled cheese sandwiches around the kitchen table,” Goble said. “Things most people wouldn’t remember with crystal-clear clarity from what seemed like a lifetime ago.”
Goble said that now, at the age of 22, her so-called “Son of My Heart” considers them his only family, along with his girlfriend and their two children.
Like the lives of many foster children, his life has taken many turns, including stints in juvenile and adult detention facilities. On Mother’s Day, the Gobles flew to New York to greet him as he was released from jail.
“My husband and I really had to look at this young man’s life circumstances and say, ‘What would we do if this were any of the children under our roof right now? How would we respond to the situation?’”
Putting it down on paper
Goble never intended to write a guidebook for foster parents, but as she began to type a manuscript last spring about her family’s experiences with the foster care system and adoption, she kept coming across snippets of information she thought would be helpful for prospective foster parents.
“Things I wish someone had told me back in 2003, and what I would tell someone if I were sitting down with them for coffee to answer their questions about fostering,” Goble said.
“Questions about how this is going to affect my family, my partner. … Can I do foster care while working? … All of these questions can take people away from truly considering fostering because the fear looms so large.”
Goble admitted a certain level of fear can be a good thing.
“I feel a protective caution when I see people super enthusiastic about foster care, and really gung-ho, before having lived the experience.”
Goble recommended walking alongside someone who has fostered a child to see what it entails. Also, if your partner isn’t completely on board with the idea, put off a decision.
“Fostering is hard enough with all its ups and downs, and if they’re not ready to be a foster parent, it’s really not fair to your partner – or the foster child,” she said.
Goble also recommended checking in with other children in the family to find out how they are feeling about fostering.
“I don’t want to ram my kids past the intersection of goodwill into resentment,” she said. “And yet, I want to stretch my kids to look at what they have, and realize what they’ve been handed is not just a given for every child.”
In addition to their 22-year-old “Son of My Heart,” the Gobles are parents to two biological daughters, ages 15 and 12, and two sons, ages 11 and 8, who are adopted from different families.
The Gobles allowed Street Roots to email questions to the children (via their mother) about what it is like to be part of a foster family. “It’s an adventure,” wrote 15-year-old Sophia. “All of the kids are super different. Some of them are happy to be here, and some of them are real ticked off.”
Eleni, 12, wrote, “I think being a foster and adoptive sister has changed me for the better and has helped me become more empathetic and more aware of others.”
Sophia explained: “It’s kind of like when you’re running a race and you’re so excited to get to the finish line, and then you stop when you’re 1 mile away, and you realize it will never end. Sometimes it will be easy, but you know it’s an ongoing thing for life. Only people who are capable of change and being OK with getting hurt can do this.”
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Reaching out to birth parents
The Gobles’ 11-year-old son knows his birth mother well. That’s because the Gobles have made it a point to welcome her and her other children into their extended family.
Goble first met their son’s birth mom, Jennifer, in court while they were serving as their son’s foster parents. He was Jennifer’s third child, and the mother was struggling with substance abuse issues.
Not long after adopting their son at the age of 3, the Gobles agreed to foster Jennifer’s newborn fourth child as she sought treatment. The family even attended Jennifer’s rehabilitation graduation to show their support for her recovery. When she returned to use of substances five years later, the Gobles, once again, temporarily took in her fourth child.
“Foster parents and biological parents being collaborative can be head-turning,” Goble said. “But to adopt the third child and then foster and return, and foster and return the fourth child is even more unusual.”
Goble said it’s important to remember that everyone is human, and we all have things we carry on this journey. Jennifer, herself, is a child of the foster care system. She and Goble now speak to groups about their experiences with foster care, including talks to newly trained case workers at the Department of Human Services in Salem.
“She has been a transformative presence in my life,” Goble said about Jennifer. “It has not been a one-way arrow.
“We are not co-parenting. I want to be clear on that. He is our son, but we’ve found a respectful rhythm that works to have her and her other children be a part of our life.”
When Goble read her 11-year-old son our question about what it was like to have his biological relatives be part of his adoptive family, his mother said he shrugged his shoulders and said “fine,” then asked to go back outside to play with his friends.
Goble said he has never known what it’s like not to know his biological mother or siblings.
Reality of unseen challenges
The couple’s youngest son came to them as a 2-day-old foster infant. They were asked to watch over him for the weekend; they ended up adopting him just before his second birthday. The Gobles didn’t know at the time that he had been exposed to alcohol in utero and would be diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
“I don’t want to say this to be scary or intimidating in any way. I just don’t want to sugar-coat it and say that the perfect concoction of love and nurturing is going to be enough to overcome x, y and z,” Goble said. “Sometimes, we just don’t know what those things will be, going forward.”
Goble said they feel honored to have the privilege of parenting their son, but she acknowledged special needs take a lot of time and effort from everyone in the family. With the exception of occasional respite care, they’re now declining foster care placements at their home as they focus on helping their youngest thrive.
“Well-intentioned people will say, I just could not do what you do,” Goble said. “Well, some of us would say, I don’t know if I can do it either, but here I am putting one foot in front of the other because we said yes. We don’t always know who we’re saying yes to, but we can’t imagine our lives without him.”
Goble shared a recent Instagram message that her daughter Sophia wrote to her little brother on his 8th birthday. Here is an excerpt:
“You were supposed to stay ‘for the weekend’ but I’m glad it turned into forever. I was seven years old when I met you so of course I loved you right away. Our family had no idea ‘what we were getting into’ and I put that into quotations because it’s not something that we regret. It’s something I am really grateful for. Not everyone has a live-in practice kid to test your patience, but I do.
“Thank you for making me laugh, cry and everything in between. I love you.”
Goble said foster care is a constant invitation to walk a precarious tight rope between reality and hope. Secondary trauma is often experienced by case workers, foster parents and siblings who hear or see some of what these children have endured.
Twelve-year-old Eleni wrote: “Being in our family is a roller-coaster ride with many ups and downs that can sometimes be thrilling and sometimes make you sick.”
“As we fold a child into our family,” Goble said, “the experiences that they’ve gone through that broke their hearts, will also break ours.”
She shares in her book some of the heart-breaking questions preschool- and elementary-age foster children have asked her, or foster parents she knows:
Do people here get locked in closets?
Will this nightlight protect me from the bad man?
Did I lose my food?
Are you going to hit me?
“Kids just need a real parent,” Goble said. “Nobody stands up to the myth of what a perfect parent is, so kids just need someone who will be there for them and strive to be steadfast in the rocky roller coaster of their life.”
Foster parents have to be strong, “eyes-wide-open tension-holders” who can navigate relationships among foster children, caseworkers, doctors, lawyers, birth families, their own families and anyone else who plays a role in this wild ride, she said.
As young Eleni put it bluntly, “It can be interesting; that’s for sure.”
For more information on Goble’s book, “No Sugar-Coating, The Coffee Talk You Need About Foster Parenting,” visit jillana-goble.com.
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