Ella Mentry
In this book I write about the life that I experience, through the eyes of foster children, while they lived in my home with my family and me. I want to let the world know that it is important for us to help raise, not only our children, but children whose parent or parents are unable to do so. Yes, 'it takes a village to raise a child'! These foster children enter the foster care system, some as young as newborn, and sometimes they linger or get lost in the system. They either float from home-to-home, are adopted by an adoptive foster parent(s) or the foster parent who is caring for them. Very few children return to their families, for many different reasons. I want to enlighten people, by helping them understand that these precious foster children deserve a home, they deserve to feel wanted, loved and told that they are special. As a former foster parent, I learned that there was a misconception about foster children. Some people thought that all foster children were born drug-addicted and/or were sickly. Not so! Foster children are up-to-date with their immunizations, they go for physicals each time that are placed in a foster home and upon leaving the foster home. I also want to share some of my experiences which I had with foster children...some of the things they did and some of the things they have said. We must remember that children are quite resilient, therefore, even foster children thrive in uncomfortable circumstances. Please read what I have written because I would like for everyone to try and understand what it must be like to be a child, be removed from your home and placed inside of a home with total strangers. Please take a minute and try to imagine yourself in their shoes...how scary it must feel like to them. How, even babies who are used to their mother’s scent, end up in a stranger’s arms. This stranger has a totally different scent that the baby’s mother, so imagine how irritable this baby can become because he or she no longer smell
