Personal Narrative: Foster Home

Some may think that their name is just something that their parents gave them. To me, a name means family. It means belonging to something bigger than you. It means having people in your lives who care about you and who want the best for you. It means love. Some people are left with names that mean nothing to them since they remind them of those who had abandoned them and left them on their own. I’ve only ever wanted a single thing so badly in my life, and that was a different last name.
You always hear about horror stories of younglings bouncing from foster home to foster home and never finding their “forever family”. That was never my case. From the moment I was placed into foster care, I was wanted. Maybe the reasoning behind that was the …show more content…
Guardianship is not the same as being adopted. My foster parents were never able to fully adopt me because my birth mother refused to give up her rights. Due to her actions, I was considered to be a ward of the state. When I tell people that I spent 16 years of my life as a ward of the state, they think I have been in prison since I was a little toddler. I cannot even fathom what they could possibly be thinking that a little five year old did to wind up in prison. I can usually tell by their facial expressions, and many times they are not welcoming expressions, that they think I am a convict. It is only after their initial thoughts that I am able to explain to them I am in fact not a criminal and am called a ward of the state because I became the financial responsibility of them. It is only because my birth mother refused to have responsibility over me, but never fully relinquished her rights as my mother, that I was labeled as such. After mentioning what a ward of the state is, I am usually questioned about what it means. Well, it generally means that my foster parents were my guardians, but I could not take their names. A name. Such a silly thing to want, but it was all that I wanted. I wanted to be one of them, not one of my …show more content…
It was a wonderful day. I got to miss the first half of my school day and go to a courthouse instead, where I stood next to my foster parents in front of a judge. After my foster parents signed a few things stating that they were adopting me as a legal adult, the judge looked at me and asked “Would you like Bruce and Theresa to be your legal Mother and Father?” Of course, there was no doubt about it. These amazing people took me in, stayed with me, and did not abandon me when others had. The judge smiled then pointed to a dotted line, and said, “sign your name here, please,” and I