Walking around the Colorado Foster Parent Conference last week I noticed everyone was old.

Or at least over forty - mostly.

There were several people in their fifties with small toddlers. There were several people even older with teenagers. Several people who looked to be in their seventies – apparently still being foster parents.

That’s the thing with fostering, I think you get better with age. You’ve got more life experience to handle all the stuff being a foster parent will bring you, like poop in the heater vents and your lawnmower on the roof.

Maybe someday I’ll blog about those stories.

I met one man who I had met previously when I went through training. He specialized in taking in extremely autistic teenage boys – and routinely locks himself in his bathroom for his own safety. He’s been known to call 911 as his boys are destroying his home.

I don’t know about you but I’d need a lot of life experience behind me before I’d think that was fun.

He’s been doing this work now for over twenty years and must be in his mid sixties.

When I met up with him he looked full of life and his eye lit up when he talked about his boys.

None of them will ever be able to live alone or independently.

Thank God for people like him. We need more of his constitution.

Foster care and adopting gets in your blood. You want to do what is best for the kids and you try to love them with everything.

If you are lucky, they may even love you back.

Age helps the process.

All older parents thinking of adopting should look at foster care to see if it is for them.

I’ve written a lot on my other blog that being a foster parent is better in some states than in others. If you have ever thought about being a foster parent maybe you are lucky and got a good state?

I know I did.

A lot of the parents who started twenty or thirty years ago still foster, and that makes the average age of these parents pretty dang old.

And it makes me proud to be one of them.