Fostering the Next Generation (Pittman family)

By Carrina Stanton

For The Chronicle

Foster Parent Month: Local Family Grows Through Foster Care, Adoption

On Tuesday night, the Pittmans’ dinner table was set for 10.

This wasn’t a special occasion. In fact, this is business as usual for the family that includes 15 siblings and an ever-changing lineup of foster children.

“It gets pretty busy around here,” said mother Bonnie with a warm smile.

Bonnie and her husband, William, of Centralia, are one of about 6,000 homes in Washington that provide foster care to the 10,000 children statewide who are in foster care at a given time. The Pittmans have been opening their home to children in need for about 26 years now. They said the effort comes from what they describe as a calling to help children.

“There are so many things you can devote your time to but they won’t last but kids are a blessing you can pour your life into,” William said. “You figure if you do a good job somebody else will see that blessing someday.”

The Pittmans met while training as members of the Army’s Security Agency, which was an integral part of military intelligence during the Cold War. They dated in West Germany, where their jobs were to listen to the Soviets for the Army, and then came back to the U.S. in 1974 and were married in William’s hometown in Alabama. They spent more than five years at Auburn University in Alabama, where William studied political science. William’s studies in Eastern European and Soviet studies would have moved the family to the Washington, D.C., area. But he decided not to use his degree. Instead, the couple and their then three children moved to Bonnie’s hometown of Centralia.

“We knew we wanted to have a family and raise them in a rural environment and not an urban environment so we just went for it,” William said.

After working for Browning’s Office Supply for a few years, William was hired by the former owner of the Farmers Insurance agency in Winlock. William has now owned the Pittman Insurance agency in Winlock for 20 years. This is the Farmers Insurance agency’s 50th year in Winlock.

Foster parenting came about simply through an acquaintance of William’s, who was a supervisor at the Department of Social and Health Service’s child protective services division. He commented to the couple they would be great foster parents. The couple said they would be interested and almost immediately CPS had a teenage girl with a newborn baby on the doorstep of their tiny apartment.

“We didn’t have any training or background checks. We didn’t even really know what we were doing,” Bonnie recalled. “It was very different back then.”

The Pittmans estimate they have had at least 35 foster children stay with them over the years, with ages ranging from infant to almost 18. The youngest was a trio of babies the family once hosted, the youngest of which was 2 months old. At the time, the Pittmans had a 2-month-old of their own.

“We’d get up in the middle of the night and hand a teenager a bottle and say ‘go feed them,’” Bonnie recalled.

In all, the Pittmans had 10 biological children and adopted five, including three sisters who came to them through foster care. The most children the Pittmans ever had in their home at one time was 13. And at one point, the house had eight children under the age of 6.

“It’s never quiet,” Bonnie said of their typical home life. “You’re always thankful for nighttime when they all go to bed.”

Their most recent adoptions were Joseph and Natalie, now 3, from Guatemala. The couple went through months of heartbreak and paperwork after arriving in Guatemala in 2007, only to be denied the proper paperwork to bring their children home. What was supposed to be a couple days in Guatemala turned into a month. After a month of working with the American Embassy and getting nowhere, the Pittmans found a Guatemalan couple through missionary friends who were willing to care for their children while the Pittmans went back to the states to wait out the paperwork. About six months later, they got the call to come back to bring the children home with them.

“I walked outside (the embassy), gave the baby to our missionary friends who were standing there and got down on my knees and said ‘Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus,’” Bonnie recalled. “We were just so grateful to be over it.”

Over 26 years of foster parenting, the Pittmans said they have seen some dramatic changes in the CPS system. They said the biggest change has been the addition of even more support systems for the foster children, including the Guardian Ad Litem.

Even caseworker support has improved, the Pittmans said. When they first started it was not uncommon to go long periods of time without contact from CPS. The Pittmans recall one caseworker in their early days who didn’t visit once for 18 months. Today, they said they feel both the caseworkers and guardian ad litems seem to show a very personal interest in the children with whom the Pittmans have worked.

“These caseworkers today really make an effort to sit down with them and talk to them every month,” Pittman said.

The family currently has one foster child living with them who is getting ready to turn 18. They said another change for the better has been for these older foster children, who get to take an active role in coming up with a plan for what they will do once out of the foster system.

“It’s really an adjustment when a foster kid becomes 18,” Bonnie said. “It used to be like ‘OK you’re on your own’ but now it’s ‘OK, what’s the plan?’”

One thing that has not changed about foster parenting is the dire situations from which many of the children come. The Pittmans said foster children can arrive with prior warning at a convenient time or with none in the middle of the night. Most come with only a small bag of clothing and all are very scared. The Pittmans said the immense size of their family has been a blessing for these children, who seem to quickly latch on to another child their age and start to feel more at home.

“Our children have made a huge investment in foster children, too, in having to share their home and sometimes their bedrooms and they just kind of roll with it,” William said. “We kind of interact with the kids and show them around and then usually the other kids just take over.”

The Pittmans said they don’t know what the future will bring for them and foster parenting. At times, it takes its toll on them, Bonnie said. The heartbreaking stories, extreme behavioral problems and attitudes of the teenagers make the job tough. Over the years, she said she has resolved that she’s done with foster parenting, only to find herself accepting just one more child. While she said they don’t feel they’ve been perfect parents at all times, they do feel like they have done the best thing they could do, and that is to love each and every child who comes through their home.

“We’d love to say they all turned out great and they all have lives and jobs and families,” Bonnie said. “But their lives are ongoing stories and we’re happy to visit with them and hope for the best.”

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Support Local Foster Parents

The Lewis County Foster Parent Association is a non-profit supporting foster parents and the children in their homes. They assist through a clothing bank; certified foster parent training; camp/mission trip scholarships for foster kids; and several family fun events throughout the year. Call Marci Meiss at 880-5330 to learn more about making a donation.

Become a Foster Parent

For more information on the requirements to become a foster parent as well as the need that exists, check out the Department of Social and Health Services’ resources at www.dshs.wa.gov/ca/fosterparents/be_FosterIntro.asp or call 1-888-KIDS-414.

Celebrate Being a Foster Parent

All foster parents in Washington state are invited to a Foster Care Month Celebration from 1-3 p.m. May 13 at the Olympia Capitol Campus Legislative Building’s Columbia Room.

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Carrina Stanton is a freelance writer who lives in Centralia. She can be reached at carrinastanton@yahoo.com.

Caption

Some members of the Pittman family pause for a portrait last week at their Centralia home. The family has taken in foster children for the last 26 years. From left to right: Joseph, 3, father William, BetsyAnn, 23, Obadiah, 15, Tavia, 18, Natalie, 3, mother Bonnie and Dixie, 12.