Marie and Edward Worthington are typical empty-nesters. They hold down normal jobs during the day and come home to a peaceful house at night... that is, until they decide they miss the kids and become foster parents for the state. After a grueling six-month process, they finally have their residential license and receive their first foster care placement, a sibling group of three. As Marie drives to the youth shelter to pick up the Kingsley children, she is optimistic. These children have led such disadvantaged and neglected lives, and she is sure they will appreciate being in a good environment. This is the story of her coming of age. The ride home from the shelter is a power struggle. The evening meal is an appalling display of table manners and behaviors. In fact, the entire first day is an eye-opening experience for both foster parents and children giving us just a glimpse of how different the cultures of two families can be and the difficulties associated with displacing children against their will. Brittany, the oldest of the children, is a manipulator and a drama queen. Caleb, the middle child, is slow and therefore tortured by his siblings. Hunter, the youngest, has anger and behavior issues caused by something traumatic which happened in his past. The children are a time bomb waiting to happen and the Worthingtons are the unprepared recipients of their passive-aggressive behavior. In the midst of the chaos created by warring siblings and an emotionally-charged birth family, the Worthingtons must also deal with manipulative social workers. Marie and Edward discover that they are alternately praised as model foster parents one day and threatened with being investigated the next. And while all this is going on, they must juggle to keep up with the endless appointments the system levies on the children. Edward and Marie do their best to be good role models and take care of the children while holding down jobs and keeping up with their own kids. They must deal with children who have never been made to go to school, birth parents who don't want Caleb to have a needed operation, suspensions, police incidents, and questionable teen behavior. To top it off, Brittany seems to take great satisfaction in phoning relatives and stirring up the belief that she and her brothers are being horribly mistreated. Eventually, the Worthington's are investigated by the state. When Hunter is expelled from school, he is removed from the Worthington's care. They are then exposed to the amazingly high turnover of children who come through their home in his place. Through it all, they are constantly frustrated by the callousness of the system, the unprofessional behavior of some of the social workers, and the frequent disregard of the children's best interests. The story follows the Kingsley children from the time they are placed in the Worthingtons' care until they are returned to their parents by the court. It is a journey where both the characters and the reader emerge more knowledgeable about the realities of the bureaucratic foster care system and how it functions in our society.
Facing an empty nest, DJ Selvidge talked her husband into becoming a foster parent for the State of Kansas. Through the years, they have taken 40 different children into their home. The realities of foster care were nothing like she expected and her naiveté slowly disappeared within a system that shocked and educated her. It is her hope that this book will change how her readers see and understand the foster care system. DJ lives in Wichita, KS with her husband and youngest daughter (a former foster child).
