{"id":171403,"date":"2017-09-02T10:49:48","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T14:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=171403"},"modified":"2017-09-05T09:58:53","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T13:58:53","slug":"single-tatted-male-foster-dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/single-tatted-male-foster-dad\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m a single, tatted, 30-year-old male – and a foster dad"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

(Save the Storks<\/a>) \u201cDon\u2019t you think it\u2019s better if married couples foster and not single people?\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Probably the most common question I get when people find out I\u2019m in the process of getting licensed as a foster parent. I\u2019m very well aware of the stereotypes and I hit a lot of them. I\u2019m a man, I\u2019m 30, I have a full sleeve of tattoos and I have been known to dress to the beat of my own drum. I\u2019m not exactly the poster child for babysitters\u2026<\/p>\n

And I agree, it\u2019s better for married couples to foster than for single people. Kids need two parents. But there\u2019s a flaw in this approach. There are roughly 50 million married Christians in America. There are 428,000 kids in the foster system. That means if only .00856% of Christian couples decided to foster we\u2019d no longer have a system.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fostering because not even .00856% of Christians are willing to foster.<\/p>\n

That sentence sucks to say and could be the one sentence that prevents the entire world from sharing this article. But there is clearly a gap in the system and I\u2019ve been called to fill it, even if I am a single, tatted, 30-year-old. God can use anyone, can\u2019t he?<\/p>\n

\"Lairs

Lairs Johnston with his foster daughter<\/p><\/div>\n

So because there\u2019s still hundreds of thousands of kids in the system I\u2019m going to try and help in whatever way I can. I\u2019m very human. I definitely always thought about it like, \u201cOne day, when I\u2019m married, I\u2019ll foster.\u201d I wasn\u2019t even thinking about having kids in my home until I said, \u201cI do.\u201d I even had a friend say that\u2019s the way God designed it.<\/p>\n

Then I woke up.<\/p>\n

It must have been two years ago. I woke up and realized a discrepancy in my logic. God didn\u2019t biblically call me to get married, but He did biblically call me to care for the orphans and the widows. Period.<\/p>\n

This is when my view started to shift. God gave me an order. Not because He\u2019s a dictator but because He\u2019s a loving father who knows I\u2019ll find my purpose in life through kids, not money or promotions.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t say, \u201cHey, care about kids, but only if it\u2019s convenient and makes sense to culture.\u201d He straight up said care for the orphans. Following God is an adventure and by definition my adventure has lived miles off of the well-beaten path and I wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not fostering because I\u2019m going to make a perfect foster parent. I\u2019m not fostering because I\u2019m a \u201cgood Christian\u201d or anything like that. I\u2019m going to fail, I\u2019m going to make mistakes, and yes, a married couple would be better, but one thing I\u2019ll never do is fail to try.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Note: This article was first published at Save the Storks<\/a> on June 9, 2017, and is reprinted here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Save the Storks) \u201cDon\u2019t you think it\u2019s better if married couples foster and not single people?\u201d\u00a0Probably the most common question I get when people find out I\u2019m in the process of getting licensed as a foster parent. I\u2019m very well aware of the stereotypes and I hit a lot of them. I\u2019m a man, I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":171404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077,9459],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nI\u2019m a single, tatted, 30-year-old male - and a foster dad<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"But there is clearly a gap in the foster parent system & I\u2019ve been called to fill it, even if I am a single, tatted, 30-year-old. 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