Ron Platt, NASDF Co-Founder
I was in my mid 30’s when I visited a friend in California. When he picked me up from the airport, I soon realized my life was about to change. Our weekend plans were sidetracked as he unexpectedly was getting full custody of his foster child that same day. He asked if I was willing to take that journey with him during my visit and I excitedly agreed. As I watched him interact with his son, I realized, this was my calling, to become a foster parent.
Upon my return to Miami, I was at an LGBTQ+ networking event when a woman by the name of Amy got up and announced that she was looking for LGBTQ+ single and coupled individuals to take in LGBTQ+ foster children. I thought, how serendipitous. Now I had my chance at potentially having a child in my life. I immediately signed up and 8-weekslater, Amy handed me my foster license and said, “There’s your kid, his name is Michael, you have 2 days to get to know him because he’s homeless.” Nothing like a little pressure. It was like speed dating on steroids. But Michael and made the effort to get to know each other and on the 2nd day, we decided to give it a shot.
I was so naïve to think that Michael would be like all other 13-year-olds. He was highly intelligent, very tall and incredibly street smart. My experience as a youth advisor in my 20’snever prepared me for the experiences and challenges I was about to undertake.
Michael was going to a school at the time for special needs children. He was put there because of disciplinary reasons and because they thought he had a reading disability. He was way ahead of the other kids in his class and he didn’t feel challenged. I wanted him tested to see if he could transfer to a regular high school and upon my insistence, they gave him the test and he qualified to transfer to a regular public school.
Because our school district was “F”-rated, I was able to place him in a “B”-rated middle school utilizing the state voucher program. It was 30 minutes from our house but it allowed for a lot of bonding time between us. He tolerated my 80’s and 90’s music and I learned to like hip hop and rap. Given I had a business coach at the time that was focused on my goal achievements, I wanted to instill goal setting with Michael. I remember asking him on one of our morning commutes, what his future looked like. What type of work did he see himself doing, what were his interests? He sat quietly and contemplated my words, then he said, “I don’t have any. Right now, I’m in survival mode and I’m trying to get through my life day by day.” That was so huge for me. Our foster system had literally sucked the life out of him and his future at that time looked bleak. So, I asked if he would be open to setting small goals every day, such as, I will get up, get dressed and try to be present in school today. Or, I will try and focus on something that I want to accomplish today, whatever that looks like and he agreed. Every day I would ask, what does the goal for today look like and as he became more comfortable with our relationship, his goals shifted from survival to creating a mindset to explore.
His comfort with me also became a time to challenge my commitment. Knowing he smoked weed, I asked him to table his smoking to weekends, when he didn’t have school and only in the backyard, never in the house. He agreed to that. Until I received a call from school that he wasn’t there. I left work, went home and found him with a friend of his, smoking weed inside our home. As I walked in, he joyfully greeted me with, “Hi dad! I’d like you to meet my friend.” I asked him to escort his friend out and when he did, I went to his room, grabbed his suitcase and began packing his clothes. He yelled at me, “what are you doing”? And as I threw his suitcase out the front door I said, “you just broke all the rules of the house by skipping school and smoking weed in the house, now you have to leave.” And as I watched him wheel his suitcase out the door, light his cigarette and stroll down the street, I closed the door and began to cry thinking I just screwed this kids’ life up. I immediately reached out to Amy, who was our support person, and told her the story. She said not to worry, I did the right thing and he would be back within two hours. Indeed, two hours later I heard him knocking on the door. As I opened it, he asked, “can I come in”. I sat him down and he said, “you promised you would never throw me out” and I said, “as long as you followed the rules, which you didn’t.” After a lengthy conversation, we decided to try it one more time and even though he continued to challenge me, he stayed until he was 18.
There were so many challenges and I won’t name them all but you can imagine. The one that changed everything for him was the day he got arrested. He had met up with his mother, who was a drug addict and his older sister who managed to avoid the foster care system. Apparently, without his sister knowing, his mom gave him a Xanax, which he took before him and his sister spent the day together. While they were waiting for the Metrorail train in Miami, his sister took out a $20 bill which Michael snatched out of her hand and threw onto the tracks. As she was yelling at him, he jumped onto the tracks to retrieve the money and that forced the entire system to shut down throughout the county. They arrested him and much later that evening I was called to the jail to pick him up. When he got into the car I started yelling at him at the top of my lungs, banging the steering wheel and telling him that he has an opportunity to restart his life with me, that he needs to make better choices, etc. I don’t recall the conversation but recently(he’s now well into his 30’s) he shared with me how impactful that was for him because I wasn’t a normal foster parent, I actually loved him enough to get that angry. I was loving him unconditionally and he had never seen that before. He realized I was all in and that changed how he and I interacted with each other. I was acting as a father who loved his son.
I would love to tell you it was all sunshine and roses after that but with any teenage kid, especially one with his background, we made it through. When he was 22 years old, we agreed that our relationship needed to be legally recognized through adoption. Thanks to our attorney, the courts recognized the adoption and he is now officially my son. When he received his new birth certificate, I wanted him to imprint his 11 inch feet onto the certificate like they do for newborn babies.
He’s now 38 years old and like many of us, he’s made some great choices and some not-so-great choices. One of the better choices he’s made was adopting a baby girl who is now my grandchild and she’s my everything and I’m her “gwampa”. I truly believe he and I were put on this journey together to teach us patience, unconditional love, understanding and compassion and as challenging as this journey has been and continues to be, I wouldn’t change a thing.
