Knowing When To Say NO

There are many different types of parents out there, but they all have one word in common. No. Parents of every kind have to say "No" a lot. No, you can't have cookies for breakfast. No, you can't go outside without a coat when it's 10 degrees. No, you can’t talk to your sister that way. No, no, no, no, no.

We parents get kind of used to it, don't we? Kind of numb to the idea of it. Numb to the effect of it. We say "No" with both nonchalance and impunity, believing we know what we're doing. When you’re a foster parent, however, the word No can sometimes mean much more than No.

I said "No" the other day, but it wasn't like any No I'd ever said before. It was a No that cut me up and opened my eyes to what a burden the word No can be.

A social worker from the Department of Public Health and Human Services called about a possible foster placement. Our previous placement, which had been our first, had been gone for almost two months, and we'd been wondering when we would get a call like this. We'd been expecting it. Anticipating it, even.

But I said No.

The placement was for three children. Young children. Siblings DPHHS was trying to keep together, if possible. Children who had already been removed from one unsafe home and turned out from another because the foster family couldn't make it work. (And go ahead and try taking in three traumatized little ones out of the blue one day before you dare judge a family who gave it their best shot but couldn't make it work.)

We knew going in that there would be moments like this. We knew it would be our responsibility to decide which placements we would or would not take. But nothing could have prepared me for the crushing weight of that small two-letter word.

No.

I knew what my No would mean to those kids. It would mean they would remain in limbo. It would mean a loss of whatever love and stability they might have found in our home. It would mean they were that much more likely to lose each other, because with every “No,” DPHHS would become more and more desperate and begin to consider other options, such as splitting them up. I didn’t want that for them. As the social worker described their situation, I knew the last thing I wanted was to say No.

Panic and guilt grew in my guts as I spoke at length with the woman on the phone, grasping at straws of possibility. We discussed every angle of the situation, searching for solutions. Searching for hope. No one likes to talk about the part of foster care where you must face a decision like this. Where you feel like you hold a child’s (or three’s) future in your hands. But in the end, for reasons that aren’t anybody’s business, the social worker and I both agreed it wouldn't be a good fit. And so my answer was No.

I hung up the phone, feeling like a failure. Like three innocent, little children had stood on my doorstep looking up at me with pleading eyes and I had shut the door in their face. Why had no one ever told me what this would feel like? How had I been so oblivious to the warning contained in the words of a fellow foster parent who had said “You can’t take them all”?

We’d been a licensed home for barely a year and already I wondered if it had all been a big mistake.

Then I thought of the words a wise friend once spoke to me. She told me that every time you say “Yes” to one thing, you're saying “No” to something else. I thought about that phone call from DPHHS and wondered if the opposite was also true. If saying No to those kids meant saying Yes to something else.

And I realized it did.

I said Yes to my family and what's best for them. Yes to the bigger picture of what's best for those three kids in the long run. Yes to the feeling in my gut that it was the right thing to do. Yes to believing that God has a plan and knows what He's doing. Yes to keeping our home available for another placement somewhere down the line that would be a good fit.

Yes to trusting. Yes to hoping.

I said Yes.

But I sure hated to say No.