Parenting is hard work. Parenting children from hard places is even more difficult. These children present with a myriad of symptoms (social, emotional, spiritual physical, mental and relational) stemming from the trauma they witnessed and/or directly experienced. Due to these symptoms, it may feel hard to love, let alone get attached to these children. Where foster care is involved, getting attached may feel even more risky, as the children may be “taken” from the foster family and reunited with their biological family. Loving children from hard places requires a spirit of radical generosity.
Many individuals become foster and adoptive parents because they want to help. Many of those same individuals want to help because they, too, have experienced hard places. A 2020 study showed that foster parents have higher adverse childhood experience scores (ACEs) than do members of the general population (20%, as compared to 12% in the general population) (Adkins et al.; Childhood Domestic Violence Association, 2022). This is not to say that foster and adoptive parents have ill motives, but rather to say that their past experiences may make the present experience of parenting even harder.
Many caregivers of children from hard places experience blocked care. Blocked care is reflected in parents of children with blocked trust, that is “a lingering fear response—an involuntary, anxiety-based apprehension around the concept of accepting and receiving care and affection” (Prange-Morgan, 2022). Parents, in turn, can grow tired of trying to love the child. Their own nervous systems are suppressed, because it is hard to get rejected time and time again (Corkum & Qualls, n.d.). Blocked care can make it even more difficult to love children from hard places.
All these factors opposing foster and adoptive parents do not condemn these caregivers to lives of disconnection to their children, however. Through the practice of radical generosity, parents can care for “the least of these” (New International Version, 2011, Matthew 25:40). The term radical generosity has existed for quite some time, but was popularized in the 2021 marriage book, The 80/80 Marriage (Klemp & Klemp). In this book, authors Nate and Kaley Klemp (2022) describe radical generosity as giving more than what is deserved, as noticing what a person is doing well, and thanking them for it, even despite obvious lacks and deficits. Ultimately, the term comes from the Christian concept of Jesus as Savior, a man who showed great love by laying down his life for his friends (John 15:13). It is exemplified by the poor widow who gave “’all she had to live on’” and the Macedonian churches who gave in times of “extreme poverty” and “very severe trial” (New International Version, 2011, Luke 21:4). This is often what loving a child from a hard place feels like: laying down one’s life, and giving absolutely all that one has, to the extent of extreme poverty of soul, spirit, body, and sometimes even bank accounts. This is radical generosity.
How do caregivers and parents find this place of radical generosity? They find it by resourcing inner joy, by investing in the process of loving their children over trying to produce good behavior (Bell, 2024). These parents make “bold and deliberate sacrifice” because they believe it is the right thing to do. This type of radical generosity may seem “naïve or impractical,” but it is not (Emelu, 2024). It is determined, purposeful because it comes from the heart, and because it intended to be radical, as only gracious love can be. Caregivers and parents who are Christians see this as a reflection of God, as an act of faith in God to “replenish them when and where [they] need it” (Henry, 2023). Radical generosity is giving freely, unfettered by expectations, so that the joy comes from the giving alone, regardless of reciprocity (Poulsen, 2023). This is the kind of love desperately needed by children from hard places.
Does radical generosity mean complete disregard for self? No. This is why the Klemps (2021) write about an 80/80 model. There is a need for self-care, even in the midst of caring for others. Radical generosity often also means radical boundary setting, as is needed to be the best version of self for friends, family, and community (Salvant, 2024). Sometimes, radical generosity even involves saying no to adoption and foster care, for a season or forever, because the person needs a fill of radical generosity from others first, before being able to give to others.
Are all called to foster and adopt? No, but for those who are, the summons to practice radical generosity is great. A spirit of radical generosity is how caregivers sustain this hard work of parenting, hard work which often, from an outward perspective, seems to be making no difference. Does radical generosity in parenting children from hard places make a difference, however? Yes, for those who practice it, if nothing else, for they are being conformed to the image of Jesus, the selfless servant from whom they can draw immeasurable joy. Practicing radical generosity changes the giver, and maybe, just maybe, sets the stage for change in generations to come.
EN 
ES