Murdered in your sleep?!?!?! That is one I never heard before
. Half the people say we're crazy, the other half say we're saints. I don't think we're either.
Some people don't really like children, foster or not, and are of the mindset that they should be seen and not heard (most of my family!).
When we were going through our training originally, I remember the instructor saying to try it with one child. If it doesn't work out for you, then you don't have to do it again, but that you DID help that one child and you should feel good about yourself for that.
I was all gung ho
on being a foster parent, then after we got our first placement I had a major, middle-of-the-night anxiety attack
! Of course it passed, we wound up fostering 10 kids, adopting 3, and now are getting back into it again.
What was very helpful for us is that our church has/had 8-10 families that fostered/adopted and they proved to be a huge support system. It was actually a couple from our church who encouraged us to try fostering, and held our hands when we were scared
, and gave us lots of sound advice. I would encourage you to find a local family that you can develop that relationship with. Only other foster parents can laugh with you at the crazy things you go through as a fp, or commiserate at a child's trauma.
I totally say go for it
and see if it works for your family.