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Pat,
My response was actually more about the SW pushing her to do foster care. I do understand your point of view because I have adopted many children who were returned to foster care after being adopted by an unprepared parent. (I've also taken in 8 kids who were between 4 and 17 at the time they were placed.)
I have also seen foster parents interfere with reunification efforts because while agreeing to foster, they really wanted adoption.
To me, foster parenting and adopting are two different things. I also believe parents need better education about what special needs parenting is. I donot believe foster parenting should be used as a form of "adoption practice" for a couple of reasons. First, dealing with birth families and reunification requires a different set of expectations. The plan is to see if the child and their family can heal enough to be together. I wanted to be a mom too much when I started out, so I would not have been a good foster parent then. Also, adoption requires that forever commitment to stick it out no matter what(this does not mean a dangerous child stays in the home, you can parent them while their elsewhere). There have been days I'm not sure I'd have stuck it out if I'd had an out and my kids needed a mom that was stuck(I'm very thankful that I was).
Anyway, just my opinion also. Every person has to decide what's right for their family. I just felt like the poster may have been feeling pressured and it sounded like fostering wasn't really her interest. I know it wasn't mine.
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