July 18, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Dr. John DeGarmo has had over 60 foster children come through his home. Here he shares some of the joys and the heartaches of being a foster parent.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. And up next
we have doctor John DeGarmo, founder and director of the
Foster Care Institute. Doctor John has also written several books
on the subject of foster care. He and his wife
have had sixty plus children come through their home from
the ages of just twenty seven hours to eighteen years old.
(00:33):
Here's doctor John with his own story.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I met my wife from Australia.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
We've traveled the globe singing and dancing, performing across the
world in a supergroup called Up with People, and fell
in love during that year. In fact, during the year
she was dating a guy from Germany and I was
head of the heels of a girl from Sweden, and
we often joked that we both spoke the same languish English,
so we thought it'd be easier we got together. So
(00:59):
we did and got married, lived in Australia. Our first
child died of a condition called antisephily, some pronounce a annakephley.
It's a condition but the brain of the skull never
truly forms, and my wife was in labor for ninety
two hours. Ninety two hours the baby died upon oxygen.
I'll admit I went into a very very dark space.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
At that time.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
There was a time during my grieving process again I
really was denying my grief.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
My wife and I.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Were beginning the foster care process, and I had this
this nightmare. Well, you know, it really wasn't a nightmare.
I remember waking up screaming. My wife tells me, I
screamed for five minutes, but she's shaking me and shaking
me and shaking me, and she could not get me
to stop screaming. Finally, when I broke.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Out of it, she asked me, what was about that.
I have no recollection was about. I just fell that.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I was encompassed, if you will, in a cocoon of evil.
It's the only way I can explain it. I was
in a womb of just evil, and I was so scared.
I was so afraid. I was enveloped in fear, if
you will, of absolute fear. Maybe evil wasn't the right
word of fear. And the next four days I was
(02:24):
just afraid.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I was afraid to go to work. I was afraid
to go to the grocery store.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Everywhere I would turn, I was looking behind my shoulder, afraid.
So as at this point, my wife said, to be
you need to go talk to a minister. We have
been attending this church. But at that point I had
turned my back on my faith because again the death
of my.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
First child, and I really turned my back on a
lot of things, including my faith.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Because here we were, my wife and I had never
taken drugs or alcohol, never smoked, yet our first child
died and we knew people laid to people who had
taken drugs and alcohol and had to help each other.
And I just thought the irony was too great. There's
no such thing as a god. So I was just
filled with that negativity, that distrust, if you will. So
I went to the minister that we have been attending
(03:13):
a church. I was going just for my wife's sake,
her faith was very strong, and for my children's sake.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I felt they need to be in a church.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
But I was going to the emotions, and I talked
to this minister and he said, John, it seems as
if you were at a point in your life where
you're going to turn over and start helping children, and
it's as if the devil is trying to lure you
back in one more time, try to take you back
in one more time, and he's trying to prevent you
(03:45):
from doing this, And that led me to a lot
of reflection, that led me to a lot of time
and prayer, and now I couldn't do quaship parenting without
my faith. It wasn't until a few years later when
we moved back to the United States had three healthy children.
I was teaching in a rural high school setting in
(04:08):
the area that was filled with a lot of poverty
and a lot of apathy. And I had some kids
coming through my classroom, lots of kids actually, who were
suffering from issues of attendance, suffering from issues of academics,
suffering from issues of behavior. And I kept asking myself,
what is it, What is going on? Why so many
children suffering from this? And then I met many of
their birth parents, and I recognized aha starts in the home.
(04:32):
So I went home and I told my wife, Hey,
one of my students, she's a senior. She she's pregnant
with triplets, and she comes from a rough environment. I
could just imagine that the triplets would be raised in
a very, very harmful environment. So I said to my wife,
what if I bought these three babies home? And my
wife said, to me, as long as you change the diapers.
(04:53):
I tell you, I wish I had listened to her then,
because we went twenty years straight, twenty years straight with
having at least one baby in her house in diapers,
and my wife does hair, I do the diaper changing.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I should have got my doctorate in diaper changing.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
So that discussion led to foster parenting, and that led
to us being trained as foster parents. And since then,
I've written several books, I travel the world, and I've
really devoted my entire life to making the system better.
In fact, I'm driven each day to help children who
are suffering. I hear often, doctor John, I can't do
what you do. It would hurt too much to give
(05:32):
the kids back. And my response every time is, that's
exactly how it's supposed to be. It's exactly how it's
supposed to be. These kids, these kids that are placing
their homes as fast friends, they need, yes, they need
the consistency, and they need the structure and stability. But
what they need more than anything else is for someone
to love them with all their heart. Give them that
(05:53):
unconditional love. So at the end of the day, when
the child leaves for whatever reason it might be, whatever reason,
they may leave the home.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Our hearts break.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
But I think that's a good thing. I think it's
a gift because I might be the first person who's
ever loved this child in a healthy fashion. I could
be the first person who's ever cried for this child
tears of grief, and the child leaves, and that's the gift.
That's a gift of a broken heart, because the end
of the day, when the child leaves, they're taking with
(06:25):
them my love, and hopefully my love will help them
in some fashion. You know, A foster parents' hearts a
lot like a quilt with all these patches placed over it.
And I have grieved over sixty different times for children
who have come to love as my own. But I
want to have it any other way. So we had
(06:46):
these three boys come in to our house, a ten
year old boy, a nine year old boy, and a
seven year old boy. And they come to our house
with a lot of trauma, a lot of trauma. The
ten year old and a seven year old really gravitated
towards my wife and I and our family very very quickly.
They became very attached. The nine year old did not.
He had so many anger with.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Him as rightfully show.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And during the time he was with us, he never
had anything nice, anything positive to say to my wife,
where I had always some type of critical remark. He
was either withdrawn or he would lash out.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Again, all in anger. But he was hurting. He was really,
really hurting. And I recognize that.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
The day the three boys were to leave to be
reunified with some family members, biological family members, my wife
was at home taking care of some other kids. We
had at that time nine children in our house, and
I was packing them up into the car. I was
going to drive them off to their relatives. Of course,
there's a lot of crying, a lot of hugs, a
lot of tears, a lot of I love to use
(07:48):
with a ten year old and the seven year old
and the nine year old boy just stood off in
the corner the driveway, and I kept watching him, watching him.
After a while, the ten year old and seven year
old got into the car and my wife is against
saying goodbye, and I'm about drive off, and the nine
year old walks over to my wife very slowly, with
his head down, looking at the ground, and I thought, oh, no, oh, no,
(08:09):
what is he going to say? And my wife was
looking at him expectantly with a smile on her face,
and he looked up and he said four words to
my wife that just shattered us. He said, Mommy, I
love you, and he started crying. And I recognized at
that point that we had been planning a seed in
(08:33):
this child, a seed that was growing and blossoming into
something that we were not We could not see during
this time.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And that's what happens when you care for children's f
lost care in your home.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
You know, we might not see what is happening underneath,
but there's a lot of When you give these children's
stability and structure and unconditional love, that's where healing begins.
And that was a pivotal moment from my wife and
I and of course my wife just broke down.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
In tears and.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Just made us recognize, you know, this is worth it.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
And we're listening to doctor John de Germo, founder and
director of the Foster Care Institute, and my goodness, what
a story and what a heart a man like this has.
When we come back more of this remarkable life story,
this story filled with love and hope and self sacrifice
in service here on our American stories, and we returned
(09:41):
to our American stories, and we've been listening to doctor
John de Germo share his story of what it is
like to be a foster parent. They have six children,
three of which they've adopted out of the foster care system.
Back to doctor de Germa.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
We've had sixty plus kids come through a home. We've
had the blessing to adopt three children, and we've had
we've experienced four failed adoptions, which means for some reason
the adoption did not work out, or the adoption was sabotaged,
or whatever it might be. I never set out to
adopt the child from foster care. Was never our intentions
to do that. We just felt there's children are out
there who are in need and that we can help
(10:19):
these kids.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Now. They are first one that.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
We adopted, Kye to us when she was five days old.
Five days old, she could fit in my hands. She
was so small, weighed a little over five pounds, and
that was never my intention to adopt her. But when
her parental rights were terminated by her by the bigeal parents,
the bosical parents' rights were terminate him known as TPR.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Then there's a.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Search for biological family members in the area, maybe the state,
maybe even the whole country who might adopt the child.
If no one is found, then the foster parents often
have the first.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Right to adopt the child.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Again, I didn't want to adopt the child.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Now.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
The reason why I didn't want to adopt itild was
I felt that if I adopted her, I would be
taking her away from somebody who could not have children.
I was blessed with three healthy children. I had lost
a child. I recognized the miracle at his birth, and
I felt that if I adopted this child, who was
very much a member of my family and I loved
(11:19):
her dearly, But I felt if I adopted her, I'd
be taking away from somebody who could not have children. Now,
my friends, my family members, as I work with, and
those were to church with, they kept telling me, John,
you need to adopt her, you need to adopt her.
And I knew that in my head. My heart just
couldn't accept that. Again, felt guilty now. Fortunately we were
able to adopt her twenty two months later, and what
(11:41):
a blessing it's been the second one that we adopted
Kynos when she was eighteen months old. Eighteen months old,
her mother dropped her off at a grocery store to
a stranger. And she is third generation fosterre, which means
her family, her parents and her grandparents were also in
the fosters. And she knew one word. One word is
(12:03):
all she knew, and that was shut up, shut up,
shut up, shut up. It's the only word that she
would say. She would hit everything in sight, my wife,
my son, myself, the cats, everything. Now, she's the most
obnoxiously sweet princess you've ever met. She is the sweetest,
caring at child. That shows me a lot about environment.
(12:24):
What kind of environment is she coming from? The only
word is shut up, a word that we don't allow
the house. Now, again, I didn't want to adopt her
because at this point I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, has
five kids, and I don't want to be the Brady bunch.
Let me tell you, when you got eleven kids in
the house at the same time, you are so far
beyond the Brady Bunch level. And my wife and I
don't have an alice, and we would love to have
(12:46):
an Alice sometimes. So again, didn't want to adopt her.
I can test too many kids. The case working she
came in July. The following April, the case for cocaine
to us and said doctor John. Doctor Kelly Morey said,
doctor Nutrician, the mom's gonna have a baby.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
More I said, hooray.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
I said no, no, I'm.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Thinking, oh my gosh, to me, another child will adopt.
I can't. How am I gonna pay for this? And
my wife said, can we drop both?
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I said, and the case worker said yes, and I
said I no, no, no, and they're talking back and forth.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I finally I said, I'm still in the room. I
said no, and my wife said, just ignore him. He'll
change his mind.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
A few months later, this child came to us twenty
seven hours old. I'm twenty seven hours old and uh, beautiful,
beautiful baby, and I just immediately fell in love with her,
as I did her sister. And a year later we
were blessed to adopt both of them. And you know what,
I would.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Do it again and again and again.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Adoption has made my life so much fuller in so
many different ways. One of the hardest parts of being
a Fosher parent for me is knowing these children are
going to go back to an environment that is not safe.
The end goal of Fausa care is reunification, which means
being reunified with their birth of parents or biological family members. Sadly,
(14:07):
twenty to thirty percent of the children who do reunify
come back into foscare or re enter back into foscare
far more traumatized. And there have been those times where
I've known, without a shadow of doubt, they're going back
to an environment that is not safe.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But the court saw differently.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
And that's frightening for me because I lay it awake
at night thinking how are these children doing. I lay
away at night praying for these children or even whoras
I have nightmares about these children that they're not safe.
But I've had to I have had to find peace
the fact that I've done the best I can. I've
(14:46):
given this child the love, the time being that were
with me, that I've been able to provide them that
unconditional love that they so desperately need.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Every child deserves to be loved. Yeah, but it's hard.
It's hard.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Now we have had times if kids have come back
into care and they've come back into our home further traumatized.
But it's hard. It's hard knowing that sometimes are going
back to an environment that that's going to be dangerous
for them. Or harmful for them, and all we can
do is just be content with the fact that we've
(15:19):
given them all that we can and to pray for them.
What it's important to recognize is that for some of
the birth parents or for the kids we've cared for,
my wife and I and foster parents in general might
be seen as the bad guy because those birth parents
might not want to recognize the choices they've made in
their life. They might not want to acknowledge the fact
that they've made poor choices. Maybe they are still suffering
(15:42):
from their own pain. Maybe they're still suffering from their
own anxiety and trauma, trauma and anxiety that they don't
know how to process it because they've never got the
help they needed, so they don't reach out to us.
Rereach out to as many as we can, but sometimes
they just won't acknowledge it and they.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Shut us thought of their lives.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
But I understand why. Again, they might be dealing with
their own problems. As I mentioned earlier, two of the
three we've adopted our third generation's fostercare, which means our
parents and grandparents were also in care and they never
got the help they needed, and they were children and
that trauma passes down to the next generation. In the
next generation and the next generation. So many kids in
(16:24):
foster care have never had a holiday celebrated. They've never
had a birthday celebrated. I recall we had a child
who was ten years old and we had to teach
him how to sing Happy Birthday.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It's just staggering.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
The fourteen year old boy who came to our house
rough as nails. In fact, he came to us. He
was part of a sibling group of five. There was
a fourteen year old and eleven year old, a ten
year old, a nine year old, and a seven year old,
and they came from a house that the Sheriff's Department
calls the House of pieces. You could not see the
floor in the house. It was covered in human and
(16:59):
dog bc. There was no electricity, no running water, no plumbing,
no heat, no air, no food, no father. In the picture,
the mother is running a meth lab where her two
teenage boyfriends and the fourteen year old was just filled
with a lot of anger. He also feel in a
lot of guilt, filled with a lot of guilt because
he felt it was his fault that his siblings were
(17:20):
being placed in foughtscare because it was responsibility. It was
his responsibility to care for a siblings, to make sure
they were fed, make sure the bills were paid in
the house, make sure the kids got to school and
learning was taking place. So when he and his siblingsok
place in Foscar, he considered it his fault.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
He had a lot of guilt.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
In fact, when they came to our house, their clothes
were staple together and we had to burn those clothing
because the clothes were contaminated with meth and human and
dog feces. Well, it was during that time at Christmas again,
lots of anger, lots of walls of resentment towards us,
and we gave him. He opened up a present from us,
(17:58):
my wife and I and I was a black leather
jacket and he said to us with just the gruffest voice,
he said, can I keep this? And when I said,
of course, absolutely, and he burst out into tears. It
was this first real gift, first real gift that anybody
that I've given him. When we have Christmas and Birthdays,
(18:18):
we make a huge for these kids because for some
of them, again they've never had that time, so we
really try to make it a very very special day
for them. You know, I often tell people that I
can't change the world, and you can't change the world,
but this is how we can change the world together.
(18:40):
Years from now, when that child leaves our home for
whatever reason it might be years from now, they might
not remember my name, and years from now they might
not remember my face. But years from now, they'll remember
one thing, and that is this, for a time in
their life, and maybe the only time in their life,
somebody loved them. And that's how we change their lives.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
You know.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
So whether you're a foster parent or whether you've decided
you can't be a foster parent, but you can help
children need.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
In your area.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Because there's kids in every single community in our nation
who are suffering from abuse, children in every single community
or nation who are suffering from human trafficking, victims of
human trafficking. So if you decide that you can't be
a foster parent, but you can help these children, and
you can do that in some way. When we help
these children, their world is changed. You can't change the world,
(19:32):
but for these children, their world is changed, and that
makes all the difference.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
And very special Thanks to doctor John Degermo, founder and
director of the Foster Care Institute. And he doesn't just
talk the talk, he walks the walk. My goodness, the
number of children that have passed through his home, and
it is so true that when you can just love
one of these kids, you may not be changing the world,
(20:03):
but you're changing a world. Doctor John de Guermeaud's story
so many kids in this world unwanted and unloved, and
his rebuttal to that problem here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. And up next
we have doctor John DeGarmo, founder and director of the
Foster Care Institute. Doctor John has also written several books
on the subject of foster care. He and his wife
have had sixty plus children come through their home from
the ages of just twenty seven hours to eighteen years old.
(00:33):
Here's doctor John with his own story.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I met my wife from Australia.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
We've traveled the globe singing and dancing, performing across the
world in a supergroup called Up with People, and fell
in love during that year. In fact, during the year
she was dating a guy from Germany and I was
head of the heels of a girl from Sweden, and
we often joked that we both spoke the same languish English,
so we thought it'd be easier we got together. So
(00:59):
we did and got married, lived in Australia. Our first
child died of a condition called antisephily, some pronounce a annakephley.
It's a condition but the brain of the skull never
truly forms, and my wife was in labor for ninety
two hours. Ninety two hours the baby died upon oxygen.
I'll admit I went into a very very dark space.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
At that time.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
There was a time during my grieving process again I
really was denying my grief.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
My wife and I.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Were beginning the foster care process, and I had this
this nightmare. Well, you know, it really wasn't a nightmare.
I remember waking up screaming. My wife tells me, I
screamed for five minutes, but she's shaking me and shaking
me and shaking me, and she could not get me
to stop screaming. Finally, when I broke.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Out of it, she asked me, what was about that.
I have no recollection was about. I just fell that.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I was encompassed, if you will, in a cocoon of evil.
It's the only way I can explain it. I was
in a womb of just evil, and I was so scared.
I was so afraid. I was enveloped in fear, if
you will, of absolute fear. Maybe evil wasn't the right
word of fear. And the next four days I was
(02:24):
just afraid.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I was afraid to go to work. I was afraid
to go to the grocery store.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Everywhere I would turn, I was looking behind my shoulder, afraid.
So as at this point, my wife said, to be
you need to go talk to a minister. We have
been attending this church. But at that point I had
turned my back on my faith because again the death
of my.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
First child, and I really turned my back on a
lot of things, including my faith.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Because here we were, my wife and I had never
taken drugs or alcohol, never smoked, yet our first child
died and we knew people laid to people who had
taken drugs and alcohol and had to help each other.
And I just thought the irony was too great. There's
no such thing as a god. So I was just
filled with that negativity, that distrust, if you will. So
I went to the minister that we have been attending
(03:13):
a church. I was going just for my wife's sake,
her faith was very strong, and for my children's sake.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I felt they need to be in a church.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
But I was going to the emotions, and I talked
to this minister and he said, John, it seems as
if you were at a point in your life where
you're going to turn over and start helping children, and
it's as if the devil is trying to lure you
back in one more time, try to take you back
in one more time, and he's trying to prevent you
(03:45):
from doing this, And that led me to a lot
of reflection, that led me to a lot of time
and prayer, and now I couldn't do quaship parenting without
my faith. It wasn't until a few years later when
we moved back to the United States had three healthy children.
I was teaching in a rural high school setting in
(04:08):
the area that was filled with a lot of poverty
and a lot of apathy. And I had some kids
coming through my classroom, lots of kids actually, who were
suffering from issues of attendance, suffering from issues of academics,
suffering from issues of behavior. And I kept asking myself,
what is it, What is going on? Why so many
children suffering from this? And then I met many of
their birth parents, and I recognized aha starts in the home.
(04:32):
So I went home and I told my wife, Hey,
one of my students, she's a senior. She she's pregnant
with triplets, and she comes from a rough environment. I
could just imagine that the triplets would be raised in
a very, very harmful environment. So I said to my wife,
what if I bought these three babies home? And my
wife said, to me, as long as you change the diapers.
(04:53):
I tell you, I wish I had listened to her then,
because we went twenty years straight, twenty years straight with
having at least one baby in her house in diapers,
and my wife does hair, I do the diaper changing.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I should have got my doctorate in diaper changing.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
So that discussion led to foster parenting, and that led
to us being trained as foster parents. And since then,
I've written several books, I travel the world, and I've
really devoted my entire life to making the system better.
In fact, I'm driven each day to help children who
are suffering. I hear often, doctor John, I can't do
what you do. It would hurt too much to give
(05:32):
the kids back. And my response every time is, that's
exactly how it's supposed to be. It's exactly how it's
supposed to be. These kids, these kids that are placing
their homes as fast friends, they need, yes, they need
the consistency, and they need the structure and stability. But
what they need more than anything else is for someone
to love them with all their heart. Give them that
(05:53):
unconditional love. So at the end of the day, when
the child leaves for whatever reason it might be, whatever reason,
they may leave the home.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Our hearts break.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
But I think that's a good thing. I think it's
a gift because I might be the first person who's
ever loved this child in a healthy fashion. I could
be the first person who's ever cried for this child
tears of grief, and the child leaves, and that's the gift.
That's a gift of a broken heart, because the end
of the day, when the child leaves, they're taking with
(06:25):
them my love, and hopefully my love will help them
in some fashion. You know, A foster parents' hearts a
lot like a quilt with all these patches placed over it.
And I have grieved over sixty different times for children
who have come to love as my own. But I
want to have it any other way. So we had
(06:46):
these three boys come in to our house, a ten
year old boy, a nine year old boy, and a
seven year old boy. And they come to our house
with a lot of trauma, a lot of trauma. The
ten year old and a seven year old really gravitated
towards my wife and I and our family very very quickly.
They became very attached. The nine year old did not.
He had so many anger with.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Him as rightfully show.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And during the time he was with us, he never
had anything nice, anything positive to say to my wife,
where I had always some type of critical remark. He
was either withdrawn or he would lash out.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Again, all in anger. But he was hurting. He was really,
really hurting. And I recognize that.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
The day the three boys were to leave to be
reunified with some family members, biological family members, my wife
was at home taking care of some other kids. We
had at that time nine children in our house, and
I was packing them up into the car. I was
going to drive them off to their relatives. Of course,
there's a lot of crying, a lot of hugs, a
lot of tears, a lot of I love to use
(07:48):
with a ten year old and the seven year old
and the nine year old boy just stood off in
the corner the driveway, and I kept watching him, watching him.
After a while, the ten year old and seven year
old got into the car and my wife is against
saying goodbye, and I'm about drive off, and the nine
year old walks over to my wife very slowly, with
his head down, looking at the ground, and I thought, oh, no, oh, no,
(08:09):
what is he going to say? And my wife was
looking at him expectantly with a smile on her face,
and he looked up and he said four words to
my wife that just shattered us. He said, Mommy, I
love you, and he started crying. And I recognized at
that point that we had been planning a seed in
(08:33):
this child, a seed that was growing and blossoming into
something that we were not We could not see during
this time.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And that's what happens when you care for children's f
lost care in your home.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
You know, we might not see what is happening underneath,
but there's a lot of When you give these children's
stability and structure and unconditional love, that's where healing begins.
And that was a pivotal moment from my wife and
I and of course my wife just broke down.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
In tears and.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Just made us recognize, you know, this is worth it.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
And we're listening to doctor John de Germo, founder and
director of the Foster Care Institute, and my goodness, what
a story and what a heart a man like this has.
When we come back more of this remarkable life story,
this story filled with love and hope and self sacrifice
in service here on our American stories, and we returned
(09:41):
to our American stories, and we've been listening to doctor
John de Germo share his story of what it is
like to be a foster parent. They have six children,
three of which they've adopted out of the foster care system.
Back to doctor de Germa.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
We've had sixty plus kids come through a home. We've
had the blessing to adopt three children, and we've had
we've experienced four failed adoptions, which means for some reason
the adoption did not work out, or the adoption was sabotaged,
or whatever it might be. I never set out to
adopt the child from foster care. Was never our intentions
to do that. We just felt there's children are out
there who are in need and that we can help
(10:19):
these kids.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Now. They are first one that.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
We adopted, Kye to us when she was five days old.
Five days old, she could fit in my hands. She
was so small, weighed a little over five pounds, and
that was never my intention to adopt her. But when
her parental rights were terminated by her by the bigeal parents,
the bosical parents' rights were terminate him known as TPR.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Then there's a.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Search for biological family members in the area, maybe the state,
maybe even the whole country who might adopt the child.
If no one is found, then the foster parents often
have the first.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Right to adopt the child.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Again, I didn't want to adopt the child.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Now.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
The reason why I didn't want to adopt itild was
I felt that if I adopted her, I would be
taking her away from somebody who could not have children.
I was blessed with three healthy children. I had lost
a child. I recognized the miracle at his birth, and
I felt that if I adopted this child, who was
very much a member of my family and I loved
(11:19):
her dearly, But I felt if I adopted her, I'd
be taking away from somebody who could not have children. Now,
my friends, my family members, as I work with, and
those were to church with, they kept telling me, John,
you need to adopt her, you need to adopt her.
And I knew that in my head. My heart just
couldn't accept that. Again, felt guilty now. Fortunately we were
able to adopt her twenty two months later, and what
(11:41):
a blessing it's been the second one that we adopted
Kynos when she was eighteen months old. Eighteen months old,
her mother dropped her off at a grocery store to
a stranger. And she is third generation fosterre, which means
her family, her parents and her grandparents were also in
the fosters. And she knew one word. One word is
(12:03):
all she knew, and that was shut up, shut up,
shut up, shut up. It's the only word that she
would say. She would hit everything in sight, my wife,
my son, myself, the cats, everything. Now, she's the most
obnoxiously sweet princess you've ever met. She is the sweetest,
caring at child. That shows me a lot about environment.
(12:24):
What kind of environment is she coming from? The only
word is shut up, a word that we don't allow
the house. Now, again, I didn't want to adopt her
because at this point I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, has
five kids, and I don't want to be the Brady bunch.
Let me tell you, when you got eleven kids in
the house at the same time, you are so far
beyond the Brady Bunch level. And my wife and I
don't have an alice, and we would love to have
(12:46):
an Alice sometimes. So again, didn't want to adopt her.
I can test too many kids. The case working she
came in July. The following April, the case for cocaine
to us and said doctor John. Doctor Kelly Morey said,
doctor Nutrician, the mom's gonna have a baby.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
More I said, hooray.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
I said no, no, I'm.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Thinking, oh my gosh, to me, another child will adopt.
I can't. How am I gonna pay for this? And
my wife said, can we drop both?
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I said, and the case worker said yes, and I
said I no, no, no, and they're talking back and forth.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I finally I said, I'm still in the room. I
said no, and my wife said, just ignore him. He'll
change his mind.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
A few months later, this child came to us twenty
seven hours old. I'm twenty seven hours old and uh, beautiful,
beautiful baby, and I just immediately fell in love with her,
as I did her sister. And a year later we
were blessed to adopt both of them. And you know what,
I would.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Do it again and again and again.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Adoption has made my life so much fuller in so
many different ways. One of the hardest parts of being
a Fosher parent for me is knowing these children are
going to go back to an environment that is not safe.
The end goal of Fausa care is reunification, which means
being reunified with their birth of parents or biological family members. Sadly,
(14:07):
twenty to thirty percent of the children who do reunify
come back into foscare or re enter back into foscare
far more traumatized. And there have been those times where
I've known, without a shadow of doubt, they're going back
to an environment that is not safe.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But the court saw differently.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
And that's frightening for me because I lay it awake
at night thinking how are these children doing. I lay
away at night praying for these children or even whoras
I have nightmares about these children that they're not safe.
But I've had to I have had to find peace
the fact that I've done the best I can. I've
(14:46):
given this child the love, the time being that were
with me, that I've been able to provide them that
unconditional love that they so desperately need.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Every child deserves to be loved. Yeah, but it's hard.
It's hard.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Now we have had times if kids have come back
into care and they've come back into our home further traumatized.
But it's hard. It's hard knowing that sometimes are going
back to an environment that that's going to be dangerous
for them. Or harmful for them, and all we can
do is just be content with the fact that we've
(15:19):
given them all that we can and to pray for them.
What it's important to recognize is that for some of
the birth parents or for the kids we've cared for,
my wife and I and foster parents in general might
be seen as the bad guy because those birth parents
might not want to recognize the choices they've made in
their life. They might not want to acknowledge the fact
that they've made poor choices. Maybe they are still suffering
(15:42):
from their own pain. Maybe they're still suffering from their
own anxiety and trauma, trauma and anxiety that they don't
know how to process it because they've never got the
help they needed, so they don't reach out to us.
Rereach out to as many as we can, but sometimes
they just won't acknowledge it and they.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Shut us thought of their lives.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
But I understand why. Again, they might be dealing with
their own problems. As I mentioned earlier, two of the
three we've adopted our third generation's fostercare, which means our
parents and grandparents were also in care and they never
got the help they needed, and they were children and
that trauma passes down to the next generation. In the
next generation and the next generation. So many kids in
(16:24):
foster care have never had a holiday celebrated. They've never
had a birthday celebrated. I recall we had a child
who was ten years old and we had to teach
him how to sing Happy Birthday.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It's just staggering.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
The fourteen year old boy who came to our house
rough as nails. In fact, he came to us. He
was part of a sibling group of five. There was
a fourteen year old and eleven year old, a ten
year old, a nine year old, and a seven year old,
and they came from a house that the Sheriff's Department
calls the House of pieces. You could not see the
floor in the house. It was covered in human and
(16:59):
dog bc. There was no electricity, no running water, no plumbing,
no heat, no air, no food, no father. In the picture,
the mother is running a meth lab where her two
teenage boyfriends and the fourteen year old was just filled
with a lot of anger. He also feel in a
lot of guilt, filled with a lot of guilt because
he felt it was his fault that his siblings were
(17:20):
being placed in foughtscare because it was responsibility. It was
his responsibility to care for a siblings, to make sure
they were fed, make sure the bills were paid in
the house, make sure the kids got to school and
learning was taking place. So when he and his siblingsok
place in Foscar, he considered it his fault.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
He had a lot of guilt.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
In fact, when they came to our house, their clothes
were staple together and we had to burn those clothing
because the clothes were contaminated with meth and human and
dog feces. Well, it was during that time at Christmas again,
lots of anger, lots of walls of resentment towards us,
and we gave him. He opened up a present from us,
(17:58):
my wife and I and I was a black leather
jacket and he said to us with just the gruffest voice,
he said, can I keep this? And when I said,
of course, absolutely, and he burst out into tears. It
was this first real gift, first real gift that anybody
that I've given him. When we have Christmas and Birthdays,
(18:18):
we make a huge for these kids because for some
of them, again they've never had that time, so we
really try to make it a very very special day
for them. You know, I often tell people that I
can't change the world, and you can't change the world,
but this is how we can change the world together.
(18:40):
Years from now, when that child leaves our home for
whatever reason it might be years from now, they might
not remember my name, and years from now they might
not remember my face. But years from now, they'll remember
one thing, and that is this, for a time in
their life, and maybe the only time in their life,
somebody loved them. And that's how we change their lives.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
You know.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
So whether you're a foster parent or whether you've decided
you can't be a foster parent, but you can help
children need.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
In your area.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Because there's kids in every single community in our nation
who are suffering from abuse, children in every single community
or nation who are suffering from human trafficking, victims of
human trafficking. So if you decide that you can't be
a foster parent, but you can help these children, and
you can do that in some way. When we help
these children, their world is changed. You can't change the world,
(19:32):
but for these children, their world is changed, and that
makes all the difference.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
And very special Thanks to doctor John Degermo, founder and
director of the Foster Care Institute. And he doesn't just
talk the talk, he walks the walk. My goodness, the
number of children that have passed through his home, and
it is so true that when you can just love
one of these kids, you may not be changing the world,
(20:03):
but you're changing a world. Doctor John de Guermeaud's story
so many kids in this world unwanted and unloved, and
his rebuttal to that problem here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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