Cheryl Barker: A single parents journey of fostering over 100 children

Hi, I'm Sheila Kay Chester, and I'm excited to welcome you to the Racing Grace podcast. As a mother of three, I do not know what I am doing. I know firsthand the joys and challenges that come with raising Children in today's world. But I don't know if I'm doing it the right way on this podcast. I sit down with parents and professionals of all walks of life to talk about everything from the latest parenting trends to navigating difficult situations with our kids. We'll cover it all from the highs to the lows and provide you with valuable insights and maybe even some advice that would work for you and your own family. So whether you're a new parent, a seasoned veteran or just someone interested in learning more. Join me on the Raising Grace podcast. Hey, all in this episode, we will hear from Cheryl Barker. Cheryl is a foster and adoptive parent who has dedicated her life to helping Children in need of stability and care from overcoming personal health challenges while taking care of her special needs Children to navigating the complexities of the foster care system. Cheryl has experienced it all along the way. She has learned valuable lessons about giving herself grace while supporting the emotional needs of the Children in her care. Join us as Cheryl shares her inspiring journey and provides insights into the realities of the foster care system. Oh, who is your family that you live with? Who are the people that you consider your family? Oh, ok. Uh I'm a single parent of three adopted kids, three long term kids and I took guardianship of three. And then I also have, uh, former foster kids that be back into my life and need a leg up. And so I'm trying to be there for them too. So right now it's just currently, Shane is 24. Soon to be 25. Tyler just turned 16 in November. He lives here and I have a 17 year old adopted son. He has been in treatment for three years and he graduated from high school January and he's going to start job Corp next month. That's great. Congratulations, mom. You did it. So you, the reason I wanted to interview you is because you have, I remember when you started to foster kids and that wasn't a thing that a lot of people did in our, in our small town so that you were the one that kind of taught me about adoption because I didn't know what that was before. Oh, yes. So how, when did you start adopting and why, or fostering? And why did you start doing that. Ok, I started, uh, well, I first started teaching down on the reservation and 19 89 1 of my students was being abused. So I had called social services and they came and interviewed her and after they were done interviewing the social worker came in and said, ok, we just need to fill out this paperwork and da da da and I'm like, what, what, what are you, what, wait, wait, what, what are you talking about? And she says, well, so, and so said she's gonna come live with you and I'm like, uh, that, that can't happen. Um, she can't come live with me. I, I'm making $800 a month wages and my propane bill is $400 wages. And I still have to call my parents to help me out in between because I'm living in this rickety old trailer house that sucks up the gas bills. And so anyway, she was very, very bummed. So then I got out of the reservation and moved to my hometown and I said, well, I've always wanted to be mother of lots of Children. And if I wasn't an, a parent by 30 I was going to foster. Well, then the end of July, I had one girl for approximately a week from out of town and then August 12th, 1993 I get a phone call. I take a brother and sister and I'm like, sure I can do this and I was working down at Nelson's as a summertime evening cook and the social worker showed up with these two kids and my mouth, I'm sure I kept stepping on it because my mouth just dropped open and I'm like, what did I do this time? So I'm like, ok, ok, so I got these two very, not real clean kids and they gave me these biggest hugs and these very thick, thick glasses. And the first thing Conrad said, are you going to be my new mom? I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa I said you're gonna stay with me for a while. Well, can I call you mom? I said, no, you can't call me mom. You can call me Cheryl. So the next week their attorney came and interviewed them and there she was getting ready to leave and she asked the kids, do you, do you have any questions? And Conrad beeped up and said, yes, can I call her mom now? And the social worker says, well, I don't see why not. I said, well, this is supposed to be a short term thing. And uh she said, well, I don't think it, it matters if, if you're comfortable with it. And I'm like, ok, so that was 30 years ago and he's still calling me mom. I remember Conrad. He was so he was one of your first placements. Yeah, Conrad and Autumn. Ok. I have Shannon for like five days, but that was just kind of a fun thing because our family was from Kansas and they got in some trouble at Custer State Park and she came with clothes and so a little bit of trauma, but it was very short term. 55 days, nothing prepared me for what I was getting into. But how, how can you prepare as a foster parent? You have to keep an open mind. I have a one of my counselors said, the biggest thing is Cheryl. If you can think of your heart like a vase and it gets shattered and somebody puts it back together with a glue that it's just all that much bigger so you can receive them again. And you just have to think of, I'm gonna cry. Sorry for today. I'm going to give them everything I possibly can to maybe make another brick in their foundation of life and then you wake up the next day and you're gifted another day. So you try to do everything you possibly can fit in that day that maybe will make their life a little bit better. And you just hope and pray. And a lot of times I, you know, being from the adoption world, the question that a lot of adoptive families have and a lot of families have is how do you take these kids in, fall in love with them and give them back to their family? And I have some ideas on how you can do that, but I've never done it before. So you tell me, how do you do that? The man upstairs, when I get the phone calls, I would always pray and I've turned down some because I just felt like it was not a good match even though I hadn't met the kid. So when, when God would say, yeah, this is one that I'm like, I know he has a plan and I don't know what the plan is, but we're gonna go for it and it, it you can't really plan for the separation. It, it shatters your heart and it breaks it. But I go back to that mental image my counselor gave me as your heart's just a little bit bigger so you could do it again. So and there's, there's lots and lots and lots of blessings and in fostering these kids, it's not a a give give give. It's definitely give take, they give back to you. What are some of the lessons that you have learned from Children in traumatic situations which is all Children that come to you have are coming from traumatic situations, right? My first lesson I used to joke with, with Conrad. I used to pray for patience and God delivered me Conrad. Oh yeah, I've prayed for patience before Cheryl. Not recommended. No, no, no. And Conrad and I can still laugh about it today. This child helped me learn patience. This child was so laid back. I swear to God. He walked horizontally. Sometimes I'm like, Conrad, you gotta move. The buzzards are circling overhead, let them know you're still alive. And he would say mom, you prayed for patience and you got me and he has a sense of humor. Yes, he does. He does. So, uh patience and the other thing I learned from kids is you have to love unconditionally and sometimes the housework isn't that important. You know. So you have a, a pile of dirty laundry that is waiting there screaming at you to get done. But the child needs you to just sit in their lap and rock them and cry with them. You have to take those moments and love unconditionally and let the housework sit. Yeah. No matter what, even though it goes against everything in your living being. Right. And you've gotta create memories, positive memories, positive memories for them to go home with. Yes. Right. And um some of our craziest memories, I'd say, hey, who's up for making a crazy memory? You know, and they'd get all excited and it'd be below zero and we're, we're dressed in multiple layers and we're sitting out watching a, a solar eclipse or something. And that 30 below zero, you know, so make positive memories, make sure, make sure you're there for them if you can be um emotionally, not just physically. Right. Right. I've had kids. Well, one just lived with me for the last year. He, he went into treatment, but I hadn't had him since he was four years old, but I kind of kept in touch with the adopted family and kind of kept in touch with him. And he got a hold of me a couple of years ago and said I'm not doing well. I, I wanna change. Can, can I come? And I'm like, there's some rules and he agreed to the rules and I said, well, let's do it, you know. So they, they still remember that security even though it's 20 years later. Wow, that's really huge. That a child, I mean, those childhood memories, it's what I've found. I look back at my childhood and it is as a mother, I know my kids are gonna have this nostalgia like I have growing up. But as a mother, I'm like, this is just regular life. This isn't. But when you're a child, the way you see things is in a dreamlike state and if it's negative, it is much bigger than what, worse than what it is. And if it's positive, it's much better than what it is. It's just this dreamlike state of childhood that you look back on and to have that space of positiveness where you are, what you're giving them those really crazy fun memories. That's something that is gonna turn into this hopefully big bubble of positiveness that'll explode all those negatives away. I hope so. I hope I had uh three out of the family of four have come back after they were adults and have stayed with me for a period of time trying to do a leg up in a system. So that's, that made me feel good that they felt comfortable enough to, to seek me out again. What do you think prepared you most to be a foster mom? My parents growing up, we always always had extras at the house. Christmas, regular Sunday dinners. I remember one Christmas. Um my, my dad told my mom he brought some company home for Christmas dinner and come to find out he was a hobo that had hopped on the train and it was too cold and the trains had shut down due to Christmas and then he was cold. And so he was at our house, you know, and then they used to have um town families for the bus kids that the buses. So we always had the bus kids, extras at our house. And um my cousins spent a lot of time at our house growing up. We just always had extras. Well, you came from a family of six kids, right? Yes. And you are the only girl. So that might have, that might have prepared you a little bit having. Yes. And my cousins, my actually it was my mom's cousins, spent a lot of time with us growing up and we always used to kind of think of him as another brother. So, so you have a career in education. Yes. And what, what part of education do you work in? So, I'm a, I have a K through 12 special ed degree and then a K through eight general ed degree and then a master's in special populations and also a preschool endorsement. But right now I'm working as a literacy math specialist. I work with 47 literacy students a day and 27 math students a day. And I work in small groups on very specific holes in their literacy or their math. And we work on that for four weeks, assess and either move on or readjust. What are, what are some special, what are special populations that you have worked with so I can work with artistic, special needs, gifted, those type of people that are outside the, the norm. OK, type thing, just how to help them better fit into society. And I feel my foster care helped me with that a lot. So, did you move further into special ed after foster care or did you do those coincide at all? I took lots and lots of classes when I got, was a foster parent. I got shine. I don't know if you know, shine. I remember shine. Yeah. You had him as a baby. Yes. And I still have him. Yeah. Yeah. 17, I got him at 17 days old and, uh, then he came back to me and I got long term guardianship of him and then when he turned 18, somebody says, well, why aren't you adopting Shine? I said, well, Shine always knows that we're together. They said, well, have you asked him? I'm like, no. So I said, Shine, do you want to be adopted? And immediately he said yes. And usually it takes him forever to say one way or another. I said, well, we'll get it done. We'll adopt when I adopt the other two, we'll just do all three. So that's how that came to being. But, um, because of his disability, his disability or his different ability is like what I like to call it, I took lots and lots of classes on fa s and how do the brain develops and what we can do to help. And then it got to be, I took so many of those classes that I couldn't get credit for it anymore without my master's. So I just went ahead and got my master's. I, I was teaching in the regular classroom but they would always put the special needs kids in my classroom. So that helped pre prepare for my master's degree. Also. How many kids have you fostered? I've had 100 and 11 kids in 25 years. And what is the most you've had at one time? Oh, I had eight. Oh, my gosh, at one time. Or, and that was only for two weeks and then the most I had after that was six. And I had that for about six months and then shine was mixed in there. But he was not considered a foster child at that time. But I had five kids under the age of four and Conrad and Ok. Yeah. And was in my class. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, do you take in predominantly boys or girls or just whatever comes when I took the foster parenting classes, they asked me what was my ideal age? What was my ideal sex of the child? And I said, well, how would I know that? And they said, well, think about it, think about it and pray about it and see what comes up. And I'm like, I'm going to take the child no matter what age that's in need. I said, you don't really get to pick what you're having when you're pregnant. I, I just felt really wrong that I could say, ok, I will do foster care. That's the age limit only and only if it's girls. I just felt I would know and there's three times in my 25 years that I went against what, what God was telling me. And, um, which is pretty good. I don't know how many placements but three different times I'm like, well, I'm gonna do it anyway and they turned out disastrous and I ended up calling social services and I said I tried, I, I did the best I can, but this is not working. So your lesson was listen, listen and accept that, that you have limitations and maybe I have limitations. Yes. Who are your biggest supporters alongside this? Because as a single parent bringing in foster kid after foster kid and traumatic story, after traumatic story, you can't do this alone. You had to have support. No, you have to. So my family was a huge support and the community of Mont was a huge, huge support because these kids would come with no clothes, no shoes, no coats. I mean, it was just like overwhelming at times. It's like how and, and you know, Edgemont, there's not a place to shop in Edgemont, South Dakota. But, uh, I remember one time I got a group of six. Oh, I was supposed to get a family group of six and it was February below zero. Some of them had one sock, some of them had no socks, some had one shoe and three of them were in diapers. And I'm like, I, I, I can't do this because I had my kids at home still. I can't do this. They said, can you take the oldest four? I said, let me call Darryl dot And see. So I called Darryl after hours. I said, Darryl, I got this, this bunch of kids. We have no formula, no diapers, no bottles. I said I could give up the other two but these two before I send them to Custer really need some provisions. Is there any way he said, yep. And he went down to the grocery store. I got diapers for the three and formula for the two littler ones and they went on, you know, and, uh, it didn't take long for the word to get around. And the next morning I had bags of clothes sitting in my front porch so I could get the kids dressed and bathed and everything. That it was a, it was just a miracle. You took four kids in. Yeah. Who did you call? Did you have your mom come over and help you with this? Do you or do you know? Because, because it was already, she was already in bed. I called Darryl because it was late. I woke him up and he went down and got that. And Darryl, I think Darryl told Michelle or something. I don't know how it all happened, but I mean Michelle could get things done. Yes. Yes. And I, I took uh Conrad and t-shirts and we tied, tie them for nightgowns and things and bed him down. And I remember that the five year old come up to me and says, auntie, auntie, can we take a shower? And I said, well, of course, you can take a shower. Auntie. Auntie, can we take a shower with the bubbles? I said, you mean a bath? No, the bubbles. Oh, the hair. Yeah. And I said, yes. Auntie. Auntie, can we get rid of these two? And he pulled one out and it was head lice. Oh my God. Yeah, we can get, we can get rid of the tomorrow. I didn't have any, you know, I didn't wanna call Darryl Du again and say, hey, call you in the morning, let's get a shower in, let's get you in the bed. So a lot of times when, uh, social services comes into a family, there's, there's obviously there's no notice they have to come, they get the kids in whatever they're wearing and they put them in the car. So that's why they're coming with no clothes, no shoes, no socks. It's not necessarily that they didn't have those at their home, but they weren't clothed at the time. Most of the time they weren't clothed some of the time they didn't have it. Sometimes it was just a traumatic situation and you gotta get him out as soon as possible. Once I moved up to Rapid, they had these little care kits that they would try to throw in together trial size shampoo lotion, um, socks underwear and maybe sometimes a pair of pajamas or a t-shirt that you could use for pajamas. And that was helpful, you know, and then once I got trapped, they would give you a clothing voucher. But the thing is like I got Tyler when he was three and I had to strip him out in the, on the deck because he is full of head lice and bed bugs. And I didn't want that in my house and he came with no clothes but two diapers. And it's like, and it was 10 o'clock at night. So they said, well, as soon as it, this is on a Friday night, we'll get you a clothing voucher soon as Ds S opens up on Monday morning. Ok. But it's Friday night. Is he just gonna be naked all weekend? Is that what we're going with? Yeah. And two diapers is not going to last that long, you know, uh seek in Edgemont. I had started making boxes of clothes, gender in different sizes. But when I left Edgemont, I didn't have a place to live up here and I just got rid of all that because I wasn't gonna do this anymore. How'd that go for you? Not very well. See I said I would never teach in my hometown and I never teach on the reservation. And the first job I got was on the reservation and God said, and who's driving this car? And I'm like, ok. Ok. And my second job was teaching in my hometown for 16 years. So, uh I've learned that sometimes I gotta take the back seat and not be a backseat driver. Isn't that what we all have to learn? I mean, that's the primary lesson in parenting. Yes. And what works for one kid might not work for the next and what works this week might not work next week for that kid, you just gotta be fluid all the time. What is that? Is there something that you're consistent with, with your kids? Like, what are your house rules that you always have for your kids that come in? They have to make their bed every morning and help pick up and they have to shower, brush their teeth. And when they, they're little, like if they were four, they had to do four, pay it forwards in a week and then when they turn five, just so they could start thinking outside themselves. So, and, and try to make a conscious effort if that makes sense. So it might be holding the door open for the lady that would be pay it forward. Or maybe they would break somebody's lawn as they got older or walk a dog or just different ways, they could help people to help them think of others besides themselves because sometimes the trauma is so great, they can't see the good that's out there. Does that make sense? What I'm trying to say? So, help spread the good and it's gonna come back to you too. And, and so they can be the enforcer of good. Yes. Yes. So they could be the reason someone's having a good day. Yeah. And that also makes you feel better, right. So you can be in control of, in some ways of how you feel by doing good things to others, for others. And then why the making of the bed. It's, my mom raised us that way and just said, it's your first accomplishment of the day. If you hit at least accomplished that, it sets, sets the tone for the day. I accept. I still am probably not gonna do that. But I, I like your reasoning. I know, uh, we, we tried to get by without it growing up and of course, we always had chores to do before we went to school. And one particular morning my mom wasn't taking us to school. We got to take ourselves. So we kind of slacked on the chores, you know, thinking, ah, we got a good, well, about 10, 10 30 in the a, in the morning, the principal came on the intercom and said, would the barker Children please report to the office? Oh, no. So we went to the office wondering what the heck's going on and my mom had one word March. Oh, no. Out, out of, she took you out of school and we went home and we did our chores and we came back and you know what? It never happened again. This explains the barker kids a little bit more and I did it to Conrad and They still laugh about it. I had to take one up to rapid early morning for an appointment and they were supposed to get themselves to school and make sure they did their chores and I got home and nothing was done, I took them out of school and they went and did their chores and I brought them back and have them explain it to your peers. He never wanna do that again. I feel like we should have had this conversation a long time ago because this would have been really helpful for me. But I guess for moving forward I now will utilize the Cheryl Barker way of doing things. Yeah. I don't know if it's the right thing, but it worked, it worked. What resources do you have in South Dakota as a foster parent that you use, that have been helpful for you. Not a lot of resources you really, really have to, you have to research a lot and you have to dig and when I first got shine, um, I didn't realize they sent him home from the N U expecting him to die over the weekend. Who did they send him home with, with you? They sent him home with you? Did they tell him they thought he was? Did they tell you that? No, I didn't find out till I Monday morning. I showed up for his doctor's appointment and the doctor said, oh, I'm surprised you're here and I'm like, I'm a foster parent and I keep all of my appointments and I'm very religious about that. I don't just not show that's a pet peeve of mine. He says, no, I, I never expected him to be here still. Why would they discharge him if they thought he was gonna die? And he said, why I expected him to expire over the weekend? And my brain is still trying to take this all in. And I also, I could think of, I looked at the doctor and I said expire, expire like a can of peaches. I mean, I, I just could not wrap my head around this £4.04 pound eight ounce baby that they sent home with me 90 miles from the nearest resources and they expected him to expire. And I just looked at him and I said, I'm, I'm sorry. I said I have to get it. I have to have you off my team. Yeah. He says, well, good luck with that. He says, if you can find somebody and he said, see here and he did that to shine's chin. He's not going to amount to much. Is that because he was native American or because he was born with FA S because he was native American. He was life fighted into rapid city. His blood alcohol content was so extremely high. They gave him blood transfusions to try to, oh my God. He had extremely, he had no suction. He didn't have enough. Yeah. And he, his roof of his mouth was so high and I went through every nipple bottle combination possible and I took him to a wick appointment and I'm starting to cry and I'm like, I can't find a bottle that he can eat. And, uh, she says you need a speech therapist. And I looked at her and I said, he's four weeks old. I don't need a speech. She said, no, no, you need a speech therapist. They can help you. And I said, you're kidding. And she happened to be filling in for the county nurse. She was a retired nurse. I can't think of her name now. She set me up an appointment in Rapid City and I went to Rapid City regional rehab and we spent four hours there and we went through nipple bottle combinations possible. And they showed me how to support his chin. And we went with the one with the bottle because I could kind of squirt a little bit into it. And they gave me a prescription for predigested high calorie formula, which was enormous price and have your special ordered. But wick covered it and from the, from the speech therapy, I'm like I need this and I need that. And finally somebody gave me so I'm set trying to set these up and I'm trying to find a doctor that would authorize it. And somebody gave me the number to Beth how out of Custer. And I explained what I was trying to do and she was a birth to three coordinator and I told her everything. She said, that's my job, Cheryl. And I said what she said, this is my job. I said, I fired the doctor. So now I, I can't find a doctor that's willing to work with me, but he's not going to end up being nothing. He's not on my watch and she hooked me up and we got a cardiologist and a pediatric cardiologist, a pediatric gastro intestinal person. I mean, she helped me tremendously get all these supports in place and they didn't think he would ever walk or talk. He's played basketball, he's run soccer, um, played the violin for two years. Graduated from high school in three years. You know, he's, he's, he's my miracle baby. He's had 11 surgeries. Oh, my gosh, we went, he had to have a lot of jaw and facial surgeries. In fact, six of those were all to reconstruct his, his jaw in his mouth and, uh, his sinuses pretty significant surgeries. We went to Chicago through Shriners. So, uh, yeah, we're where God guides, he will provide what is, what is shine doing today. He, he works for a tire company. He's at home living with me. He lived out, he lived for a while and got into a toxic, um, relationship and he, he, he and his roommate had a toxic relationship and then, uh, he got emotionally really in a bad situation and I said, I think you need to come home. It's, it doesn't mean you're a failure or anything. But this relationship, your roommate and his girlfriend are, you're, you're supporting them and that can't keep happening and he has done great a year ago today. He gave his life to Jesus. That's incredible. That was like, you're like, I ma heart explosion, heart explosion. Yes. That's incredible. Have you ever had uh relationships with biological families with some of these kids? Yes. So shines. So she actually got put back with his parents when he was 18 months old. They moved to Edgemont to be closer to me because Shane and I had such an incredible bond and my parents actually helped them purchase a house, but they weren't able to keep up with the payments and they both started drinking again and things went south. So there's only six months and Shine's life that we weren't together and he went through hell those six months. But it was a very unique relationship. They would call, Rhonda would call and say, hey, when are you celebrating? When's your family celebrating Christmas? So we can plan our Christmas around because we want shine to be part of that. And they would even come down for some of our holidays, you know. And then they're like, we would really like trying to get baptized Easter Sunday. And he was like, I think he's three or four years old. And they said, would you consider coming down to? I said, sure. And, uh, they asked mom and dad and we all went down there. It's like down there in the middle of nowhere, you know. And, uh, participated in Easter Sunday baptism and Easter egg hunts and they take Easter egg hunts seriously seriously. All ages. Oh, Jeez. Yeah. So, uh, so I, I have become France. Um, Shine's mom and dad. We, we openly talked about it how they didn't like me in the beginning and I didn't like them in the beginning and we put it aside, um, because not liking Rhonda and Jean, because of what they did to shine is not gonna change his situation. Right? And Rhonda feeling bad about it and beating herself up for drinking while pregnant wasn't going to change the situation. And uh we did what was best for the kids. And she told my dad one time because she, she had a rough childhood too tossed around and being, being raised by a step grandmother and husband, you know, and she said, uh I, I didn't know how to be a mom and tell I could watch Cheryl with Shine and they taught me how to be a mom. So I thought that was a huge, huge compliment and honor. And I've tried, I've had a lot of, I did a lot of visits myself. DS s had allowed me to do visits. Sometimes it's very hard, very hard. Uh sometimes the parents are too toxic and it's not in the child's best interest. But how do you fight that? Because so much, so often that's a court order, you have to take that child to that family, regardless of the toxicity. How do you fight that? You try to prepare the child for it as much as possible. And, you know, with Tyler and Zach, I'd say the visits one hour, you know, I'm gonna drop you off and I'm gonna be right here the same place waiting for you when it's over and just know I love you. And sometimes I would do the kissing hand, you know, the, the, I'm, I'm right there, you know, and, and sometimes they were doing visits behind a two way mirror trying to help the parents learned how to be parents. And Tyler didn't have a large vocabulary, but he figured out that was a two way mirror and he would just fight with the parents and not cooperate with them at all. And he'd come up to the two way mirror and mama, mama, mama mama and it would just break my heart, you know, because you'd have to force them, you know, and Conrad and autumn that, you know, my first real long term foster care and they would force visits and they would have defecate on themselves and pee on themselves just before the visit or after the visit because it was so traumatic for them and had I known I would have fought more for them, but I was a brand new foster parent and the social worker is like, it's court ordered blah, blah, blah, we could have called the judge and said you are traumatizing these kids. But I didn't know at the time you didn't know what your, your rights as a foster parent are. You think you think your job is to be the temporary care caretaker? But it's ultimately, you're a guardian a light up, right? You are the person that is, is representing this child and it wasn't until I met a guardian. Lim Court ordered that I realized I had a lot more rights than I thought, you know, the social worker at the time jokingly and said we'll put up a donation can for new seat covers for Cheryl's car because I drove them to hot springs once a week because, and her, your kids are being so traumatized. And so she, she joked to get seat covers for you rather than stop traumatizing. That's horrific and to be a a to be a social worker who is so used to that, that you can just joke about it. Yeah. And, and, and things like that happened more times than you would like. Yeah. You know, and I, I know, uh one of my favorite stories about Conrad. So I, I dropped him off for counseling and I had a meeting up in rapid after counseling and 15 minutes into counseling. It's a brand new counselor and the counselors on the phone saying you gotta get here, you got, you, you gotta come back, you gotta come back and it sounded like he was crying. So I'm like, oh my God, oh my God. What happened? What, what, what's, what's going on, what is going on and the counselors like he just shared, he's, I, I, I, I, I just need to step away. I'm like, we still have 45 minutes of counseling. What do you mean? You need to step away? This kid just opened up a huge wound and he is sobbing hysterically. I gotta get for the, the counselor was sobbing or the child was sobbing both both and the and the counselor was apologizing and said, I'm not. Mm Was it ready for what Conrad divulged? And uh I can't divulge on it right now just unless I have permission from, from Conrad. So, so we are driving to Rapid City and Conrad is still just upset as heck and thundering and lightening around and he's like mom, I just wanna be adopted or I just want to be baptized and then a great big crack of thunder and I'm like, ok, but his parents were, were not let him get adopted because you can't do anything like that unless they're fully adopted. You can't even cut their hair unless they're per foster. Yeah, without permission. So I get rapid, I get on the phone, I'm calling the social worker and I'm like this happened at counseling, the counselor lost, it had to coun cancel them counseling appointment because this is so traumatic. Conrad's been crying and hitting my dashboard because he wants to be baptized and the parents say no, blah, blah, blah. And I, he said, put him on the phone. So I put Conrad on the phone and he's still crying. He's back into that because he's been crying for over an hour and a half now. And he says, I just want to be baptized. He said, well, buddy, can you calm down for your mom? Let her go to our meeting and her appointment and we'll see what can happen. Ok. Well, like a couple days later, he said, hey, he can get baptized. I'm like, are you serious? How did you do this? He says, no, he, he can, he can be baptized. He is 13 years old. He has the right to be baptized if that's what he needs to, you know, and it was right before Easter Sunday, I call up. I said, hey, he's, we're gonna, we're gonna do it as part of Easter Sunday mass. We, we'll make this happen and I'm still in awe because we had been fighting this back and forth, back and forth. And once Conrad decided what he wanted, there was no, this is what he wanted. This is the path he was going to take. So make a shorter story. He got baptized on Easter Sunday. And I think he literally walked on water that day. Everybody in the congregation thought he was walking on water too. So then comes Tuesday after Easter and the social worker called because we had Easter Monday off. Social worker calls me, hey, Cheryl. I have some bad news and I'm like, oh, no, what happened? He's, I resigned. I'm gonna take a, a job up in Rapid City. I'm gonna work for another part of the agency. He says I can't do this. And I said, you're kidding. After all this work, I finally get a social worker that's advocating for me and then it finally hit me. I'm like, did you really have permission to get him baptized? And he said, what are they gonna do? Dry him off and say, I unbaptized thee. I said, did you know you were resigning when he told me I could baptize him? Yep. And you neglected to tell me and until today. Yep. And he says, what are they gonna do? And, and that turning moment that little fine for, for Conrad made a huge impact in his life. It gave him control of his life saying this is the direction I wanna go and I choose this. Yes. And, and the social worker bless his heart said he needed that healing to know that he was no longer part of this toxicity that he had a way to get out. So we laugh about it today and Conrad would say, yes, they can't drive me off for that one either. Mom can't. They, that's a good house joke now to have. Yes, it is. Were you able to go to all these appointments and keep a job. It's tough. And Edgemont we would leave. Um, sometimes I would, I would try to make him early, early, early in the morning. We would leave the house at six o'clock. And if I could show up for the Orthodox appointments, like at 7 30 I could be back at Edgemont by 99 30 only miss a short portion of work many nights we would leave. So the school was out and come up to Rapid for, for counseling. I would like to say now that I live in Rapid City, it's much easier. But my schedule is still just crazy, crazy, crazy. Um I've had other foster parents not sign their, their kids up for anything and, and just not extra counseling and things. But my philosophy is what if this one thing can make a difference in their life? What if this horse therapy turns the switch and turns their life around? Or what if this brain core therapy makes a difference? You can't just sit back and not, not do. It's all part of that building the bricks, building the bricks. So I'm that crazy foster parent that five days a week. I have some kind of appointment with the kettles. Now that he's 16, he can get on the bus and go to some of his appointments and I just have to pick him up and how do you, how do you pay for all this out of your pocket. A lot of the stuff is out of your own pocket because the state does not cover it. And you're a single mom working as in education. Yes. So, all your money is going into kids. Yeah. I don't have much of a retirement but you can't take it with you. Right. Right. Well, hopefully some of those successful brothers will help you out at the end of the day. I, I know, uh, Ken, um, when I got Conrad and Adam, they had nothing and their shoes were too big. He sent me $200 and he says, I want you to go get them shoes that fit. And they had what was called the big shoes shuffle. So they couldn't, their knee, their knees were permanently bent and their ankles were per because they would shuffle with in their shoes to keep them on. So we're going through a F OS and occupational therapy and physical therapy. And so he told me to go get shoes and I took them to Sears to go get shoes. And he says, and the other thing is Cheryl, I want them to, I want you to buy them a toy, let them pick it out, you know, and it took forever because they had never gotten brand new shoes. So then it's like, ok, we got brand new shoes, underwear socks, and now you guys gotta get the toys, you know, you can spend toys. They took forever to find the perfect toy. And Conrad came up with a semi truck car, call hauler because it had two cars in there. He says, mom, mom, if I get this, I get four toys and got a doll that had a change of clothes and I think a pacifier and a rattle or something. And she was thinking if I buy this one thing, I get four things and it was such a novelty to them. So then we get home and they didn't have any clue on how to play the, their imagination. You know, I said, Conrad play with your truck and he just laid on the floor and it went back and forth and back and forth. And I says, honey, you know how to play with the truck, you know, build the roads and they didn't have any, any imagination to do that because of, I guess, from all the trauma, you know. So I was down on the floor and we were building roads and bridges and go on all over thing and the doll became a truck driver, you know. So they, so they would learn how to, to play and not, you know, and they kept asking me, does this have to go to the, so a secondhand store tomorrow? Their shoes and I'm like, no, these are your shoes, these are for you to keep, you know, these are your toys. Yeah. You know. So, uh, some things that you just take for granted. You, you don't realize it's amazing what a child learns in the first five years of their life, what they're supposed to be learning, they're supposed to be learning play, they're supposed to be learning speech. And when you, when there's trauma involved, if there's any flight, fight or flight, those neurons stop because those are not important. Survival is important and learning is not important, right? And that emotional loss of those first five years that you can if there's any literally not, not no touching, like no positive touch, that could mess a kid up for life. Like, yeah, it was I remember going through these adoption classes and just learning all of the things that could go wrong. And I'm like, wow, this is a really positive adoption class. Thank you for teaching me, you know, and then people are like, well, I'll get an infant, I'll just, you know, I'll get a baby, it'll be easy. And then you learn about all the things that could go wrong in pregnancy. Any like the stress upon the mother is the one of the worst things that that could cause lifelong trauma. If a mother is stressed during pregnancies, I if the mother is in a traumatic situation during pregnancy and now if the mother is in a traumatic situation during pregnancy, there's probably drugs and alcohol involved to to cope with that. So then add that to the list of trauma that that kid is gonna start their first day of life with. I know it. And, and prime example, she was in denial of, of this pregnancy, her pregnancy. And how old was she when that happened? 13, 13, she came to you pregnant pregnant, 13, denial, denial, denial. And wow, we learned a lot, we learned a whole lot, you know, and we, we adopted that, that baby out and I still keep in touch with that grown girl now and her parents. But even though had the best prenatal care after the fact, I mean, she was for almost four months pregnant when I got her, that little girl still had attachment disorder. Yeah, because of in neal trauma, you know, and they went to a family that had a farm that never, ever, ever had horses and loved, loved horses and she would spend hours brushing my dad's Belgium and then she wouldn't cry. So we, we had her comb and brush the Belgium and ever since that little girl could talk, she wanted a horse. So, you know, how much connection goes on in pregnancy and that genetic makeup. Yeah. Yeah. You definitely taught me a lot about childhood. I remember when came to school, our class was talked to about her situation. I don't remember if it was you that talked to us or if it was a principal or I don't remember who talked to us, but they said this is the situation you don't ask her about it. You don't bring it up, you include her in everything and any questions that was a life lesson that you brought to our school. Yes. You know. And uh to this day she said that was the best thing that ever happened to her. And I had to give a talk to Bethany Christian services and where I was talking about what she wanted me to include. And she said it was the best thing that ever happened to her. And I'm like, what is the best thing? What was the best thing getting pregnant? And I said, how could you say that? How could you? She says because it got me out of that life. But finally somebody noticed, oh, wait, a 13 year old should not be pregnant. Oh my God. I'm like, wow. Wow. You know, you know, so what we viewed as horrendous and horrible, she viewed it as life a great blessing. Life saving. Yep. That's unbelievable. Cheryl. You, you asked me why I wanted to interview you? I don't know if have you noticed any themes in here that might, might be helpful for other families? But I'm gonna ask you one more question. What is it? How can you give yourself more grace as a, as a mom? Wow. I'm going to be turning 60 years old this summer and I just have been working on that the last 3 to 5 years because I never gave myself grace. And I almost died. In 2017, I was given less than 10% chance of living surviving. I turned in septic and I remember kind of waking up in the IC U. I had adopted the three boys March 17th, 2017. And this was August. And I remember seeing God, I, I don't think I could make it and I remember getting given permission. I could just lay back and know it was over. But then my eyes came open. It's like, what about my boys? What about my boy? I don't have, I don't have a will. I don't have anybody to take these boys on and who's going to take on three special need boys. So I remember saying, God, I, I don't have anything set up for them, so I need to stay. So I stayed and I got out of the hospital on August 13th and celebrated my mom's 80th birthday and I went back in the hospital, August 15th and she went into hospice, August 15th and we were going through some of the similar things. They were trying to get fluid off her lungs and trying to get fluid off my lungs. And my birthday was August 17th and everybody thought she would pass away August 17th and she passed away the next day and I got out of the hospital the day before her funeral and I was learning all of that it's like Cheryl, you gotta give yourself grace. So through lots of counseling and setting time aside to myself and lots of healing. I, I've learned, you gotta give yourself grace or you can't give grace to others. I think that the thing is if you don't really take care of yourself and love yourself as much as you love your kids, how can you really show them what love is? If you can't even love the person that you're asking them, you know, I can give you everything, but I'm not willing to give myself everything. Yes. Yep. That was a huge, huge lesson. And you can't, you, you can't be around people that always empty your teapot and never fill it back up. That was a huge lesson. There's not. So I'm very uh I do a lot more even though I'm busy and sometimes I want to do nothing. I, I make connections with friends that fill my teapot and I'm there for them equally. I, I, I've always tried to go on one on one dates with my kids just to give them that individual time because sometimes life gets hectic. But you have to same for this hour. I'm gonna give you everything I got. I'm gonna be here for you and show them grace so they can give grace to others. I want to give a huge thank you to our guest, Cheryl Barker for sharing her heart and her incredible journey with us. Through her experiences, we have learned the true meaning of grace and the importance of self healing. Remember a little bit of grace goes a long way, not just for ourselves but for others. Thank you so much for joining me on the Raising Grace podcast. Remember you are not alone in this parenting journey and we are all in this together doing the best we can with the information we have. If you want to stay up to date on the latest episodes and news for this podcast, head over to my website at Sheila K Chester dot com. Thank you again for listening. And until next time, let's be sure to give each other a little more grace.