Being the Foster Brother

After looking around the internet and googling stuff like ‘being a foster sibling’ or ‘effects on bio kids when fostering’, I discovered that there are not many descriptions of what it is like when your parents decide that becoming a foster parent will be good for the family. Don’t get me wrong, being a foster brother has a lot of perks, but there’s also a lot of stuff that people seem to forget about. When I say people, I mean my parents, my friends, and the actual foster kid.
When a new kid comes into your house, it is very weird at first. Basically a stranger is coming to live with you and you are supposed to treat them like your own brother or sister.
Lots of times the kids are fine with us but act bad to our parents, especially when they’re teenagers. So we are supposed to be friends with them while they are badmouthing our parents and Children’s Aid. They don’t seem to want to get that we are helping them and we are not the reason why they are not with their own families. They act like we are treated better by our own parents when really it seems to us that they are treated better because they never get in the same trouble we would if we acted the way they did. They usually love to tell us the stories of all the bad stuff that’s happened to them too, which can be freaky and we have to pretend it’s not a big deal when inside we can’t believe how bad it is the stuff they are telling us.
Foster kids are usually fine at first, but then after about a month interesting things start to happen that can be annoying. Things like our stuff can go missing and turn up in their room. Things like all the good food getting eaten and the wrappers are in their room or all over the house. Things like them trying to take our friends away or telling stories about our family at school (if they go to our school). Things like them arguing and swearing at our parents and stressing out our parents which makes them cranky to us sometimes. One kid called my mom a bitch and told her to fuck off. I don’t even know what would happen to me if I ever did that. I don’t want to know. Another kid punched a hole in our living room wall. Our parents tell us this is because they may have never had these kinds of things and don’t know how to go about getting them the right way. We learn that apparently every behaviour has a reason, but it’s still annoying when it’s happening.
Some of the perks are you get to go shopping for clothes with them and see how glad they are to get cool stuff that I never even really thought about. But even that is weird. They are sort of glad but they also have this thing where if they don't get everything they want or if they can's have the most expensive name brand they get mad. It's like they're glad to get stuff, but mad that they can't have everything. They love our food and getting signed up for sports and stuff with us. It can be cool because teachers and other parents think you are a good person for doing it and sometimes it seems they treat us nicer. You learn a lot about the ways other people live and feel lucky to have the life you have. When they go away for visits or camp, it’s really nice when we are all together with our own family, so we appreciate our own family time. You get to see them change. There’s something that changes in them and it’s hard to describe. It’s like they become nicer when they get used to how stuff is at our house.
People think it’s really hard on us when they leave, but it’s not really. Maybe kids are different than adults, but when they leave we say goodbye and keep in touch on Facebook and stuff. Then before long we get another call and our parents ask us if we are ready for another kid. We find out their age, their family story a bit, and they ask us to think about it. Even though it feels like it is already decided, it’s interesting to think about them and to meet them and start over again. We always know if things don’t work out, our parents will always do what’s best for everyone. If the kid or us are just not happy and it’s not working, they’ll change stuff so none of us are unhappy at home. Maybe that’s part of why it’s not so bad.