So I guess they do still need us

The trip was long. More than three total hours in planes; five hours waiting in airports; another three hours driving in cars; only two hours in the hotel spent awake; and one hour, forty-five minutes in the training.

I realized a couple hours before we were supposed to leave for the airport that Andrew is seventeen and therefore now needs a government-issued ID in order to fly. Driving to the driver's licensce bureau on the way to the airport (which of course is not on the way to the airport) was not on the list of things that I had planned. Still we got it all done.

I had a good conversation with the social worker. We talked about what range of kids we were interested in taking. We talked about our commitment to gay kids, and were willing to consider others because, "They have had some really great kids come into the program recently." We talked about how things were a little better than they were six years ago, and that it might be a while before there is another gay kid who is not being accepted by his/her family. I thought about that idea for a while. What if we aren't needed? Well, of course, foster parents will be needed, but what if there is no longer a need for people who are dedicated to gay kids? Maybe the world is becoming more accepting and kids can come out wherever they are and no one will care.

The training session was pretty good. This time there were more experienced foster parents who had been fostering for decades and whose birth kids were teenagers or adults with kids of their own. A couple of them had been fostering children themselves.

Andrew is the only kid who was on the panel all three times. The social worker had used her contacts to come up with a local pair teens living with their grandmother who has been fostering, I think, since before they lived there. At one point the grandmother volunteered that the teens did really well with all sorts of kids, "Except for the really promiscuous or gay ones."

I turned to the teens and said, "Why is it hard for you to live with gay kids?"

The 18-year-old boy, whom up to this point I really liked, said, "Because I wouldn't share a room with him!"

It hurt my heart. It also made clear that it is still a good idea for us to wait for the next gay kid who needs us.