![]() ![]() Turns out the girl has since relapsed into addiction, but they tell Pete and Ellie how important it is to keep loving foster kids even when they make poor choices. As one of the foster care facilitators tells them, “Until the kids are adopted, the primary goal of the system is family preservation.”Īt a low point, Pete and Ellie visit a foster couple who adopted a troubled teen and who spoke to their class about how well the teen did in their care. As the film moves forward, Pete and Ellie come to grips with the fact that all of the love, care and effort that they’ve invested could end with the children being reunited with their birth mother. Lizzy not only has huge trust issues, but she longs to be reunited with her birth mother, who’s just gotten out of prison and has been sober long enough for that to be a legal possibility. Those character qualities lead to plenty of conflicts as Pete and Ellie keep on loving her despite some awful things she says and does. And Lizzy? Well, the life she’s endured has shaped her into a young woman who’s whip-smart, manipulative, deceptive and brazen-a headstrong, worldly-wise 15-year-old who acts like she’s going on 30. There are tantrums about food, spilt milk, injuries, broken dishes. It’s idyllic at first, tucking the kids in, saying goodnight, waiting for the kids to call them “Mom” and “Dad.” At their support group, a more experienced voice says, “It’s a honeymoon period.” Pete balks: “It doesn’t feel like a honeymoon period.”īut like all honeymoons, it doesn’t last. Though they didn’t plan on fostering three children, they take a deep breath and say yes. ![]() Once they commit to become foster parents, Pete and Ellie do so with gusto. But when Kim jokes about them being childless, it uncovers a deep, unfulfilled desire in Ellie to be a mom. Pete and Ellie have carved out a terrific life together. Then things get real as Pete and Ellie learn first-hand that fostering three children with a rough past isn’t like remodeling an old house at all. Right up to the moment it all falls apart. They’re naturals, they brag to the other participants in the foster parent support group they’re in.Īnd they are. Soon Pete and Ellie decide to take the plunge, inviting all three siblings into their home and committing to being the best foster parents they can be.Įverything goes great at first. And she’s got two younger siblings, Juan and Lita, whom she’s practically raised herself since they were all removed from their drug-addicted mother several years before. They watch people playing video games on YouTube.” Pete suggests they talk to some teens, whom everyone else is avoiding.Įllie’s not interested: “They use drugs. Teens in foster care are especially at risk: More than half of the adolescents who “age out” of the system end up “homeless, addicted, incarcerated or dead within two years,” says one of the leaders.Īt the end of the course, Pete, Ellie and the other participants meet children who are awaiting families. Many come from homes ravaged by parental drug use and violence, neglect and abandonment, physical and sexual abuse. ![]() Pete and Ellie learn some sobering facts: More than half a million kids in the foster care system are awaiting forever families. Others in the class include an infertile Christian couple (“The Lord guided us here to adopt a baby boy or girl,” the wife says), two men in a same-sex relationship (who’ll take a “child of any gender”) and an athletic single woman who wants a big African-American boy with NFL potential (she’s a fan of the The Blind Side). Pete and Ellie plunge into in an eight-week foster care certification course, taught by two conscientious experts named Karen and Sharon. I mean, how much different could raising foster kids be than, say, remodeling an old house, right? Both involve taking something broken and fixing it, right? And just like that, Pete’s all-in, 100%. How could they not consider this path toward parenthood. Then he sneaks a look at a foster care website Ellie’s been perusing. But … what about adoption? What about foster care? Yes, it’s too late to have kids of their own. They live uncomplicated lives-in contrast to Russ and Ellie’s sister, Kim, whose existence is defined by snot-smeared, kid-shaped chaos.īut Russ’ observation especially touches a nerve with Ellie. After all, the fortysomething couple enjoys flipping houses. That assessment catches Pete and Ellie off guard. “You guys are obviously never having kids.” “What are they going to do with five bedrooms?” Russ asks his wife, Kim. ![]()
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