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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Ashamed_Degree_741 on 2023-09-25 12:11:03.
My wife’s sister and her husband have been discussing the possibility of becoming foster parents. They have three of their own kids already and SILs husband is far more eager than my SIL is. SIL is perfectly aware of the fact my parents fostered when my sister and I were young, that our relationship with our parents is incredibly bad today and she wanted her and her husband to sit with me and discuss things from the POV of the kid who was already there. She has some worries about her own kids and how they could still give them a good life while helping other kids.
SILs husband told me before the talk that I could sugar coat some stuff and not go into too many details. Most of my SILs questions were around how our parents juggled two kids of their own with any number of foster kids present. She wanted to know about the emotional impact. Everything.
BG: I was 7 and my sister was 5 when our parents sat us down and said they were going to be helping other kids and giving them a home. They said some would be temporary but some might be permanent. It took 18 months for them to get their first foster child. We had to be interviewed and a bunch of stuff happened before. Quickly my parents went from the two of us and adding another child to having 6 kids in the home. My parents struggled to juggle everything and the ball was dropped on us.
My sister suffered a lot more than me for it. At 19 she was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia and that was after years of the school noticing but our parents not doing anything. She got caught in the middle of the teachers giving her notes to give our parents and growing frustrated when our parents wouldn’t respond or agree to meetings. While our parents would say they would go, would forget, mom would ask to be reminded but then become annoyed at being “pestered” about it. My sister gave up after more than a year of feeling like she was in trouble everywhere. She also never finished high school because her grades were so bad.
I have asthma and sometimes my needs with that weren’t met the best. My sister tried to help by taking care of some of the dust for me. But it was hard sometimes when some of the foster kids had a lot of dust on their things they would bring to our house and I was exposed to them. Our parents would always say the house was clean or would say a little dust wouldn’t be too bad. But my asthma is more dust sensitive.
The relationship with my parents was almost entirely broken down by the time we hit our teens. It never recovered.
My SIL and her husband heard a lot of those details and more in some of my answers. I explained some can make it work. But if you can’t and your bio kids are the ones the ball is dropped on, the damage can’t always be reversed. My SILs husband accused me of trying to turn them off fostering and said I was preying on SILs fears. He said I had no reason to give out so much information.
AITA?