Happy to open their hearts and home
November 20, 2006
Trish Crawford
LIFE WRITER
John and Liane Niles are extraordinary foster parents.
Not only have they been parents to an astounding 1,000 children over the past two decades, but some of the children have been plucked from a crime scene, have broken bones and fractured skulls, are undergoing withdrawal from drugs or have been born on the street. Sometimes the children stay for years, other times just overnight.
As long-term foster parents, they take Toronto's littlest, sickest newborns into the warmth and laughter of their bustling Scarborough home in what has become a remarkable life mission. They have specialized in providing care to medically fragile newborns, many of whom are suffering the effects of maternal drug and alcohol abuse.
These children don't go home from the hospital with their parents; they are put into foster care and arrive at the Niles family's doorstep in the first stage of their journey toward becoming well and finding homes with adoptive parents.
John Niles, a United Church minister who also has a doctoral degree in psychology, says, "They have challenges." Luckily, a roster of nurses, doctors and physiotherapists is available to help Niles and his wife make sure those bad luck babies "meet their milestones."
These children stay up to two and a half years before going to their new homes. In the meantime, they've called Liane and John "mommy" and "daddy" and lived among the Nileses' children as siblings.
The parting can be difficult and one little girl of Jamaican heritage, Tabitha, simply never left. Liane says she just knew from the minute she laid her eyes on the baby that they would adopt her, bringing the number of Niles kids to five. At 11 years of age, Tabitha is the youngest.
"When a child comes to us at birth, they are our child. When we give them away, it is like giving away our own child," says John. "In some cases, it kills us."
As hard as it is to see her foster children leave, Liane says the lovely part is the day the adoptive parents come calling.
"We have been blessed to see the joy these kids bring to people," says Liane. "When a child is being adopted, the family meets them for the first time in our home. They walk in just shaking and crying that their dreams are met. They are overwhelmed."
She recently dressed a 15-month-old girl in a pretty dress and had her waiting at the front door for her new mother. When the woman entered, the little girl gave her a wave.
"The adoptive mother just went to her knees."
Adds John, "Often the parents want to hug the child but don't want to frighten them."
Liane, 43, who met her husband when they were both studying social work in Thunder Bay, also helps train prospective adoptive parents. She decided to become a foster parent when her two eldest children, now 20 and 19, were young and she wanted to continue with social work but also stay at home as a full-time mother.
They were in the Ottawa area at the time as John, 44, had just been given his first parish and knew that he would be in one place for at least three years. Until then, John had worked primarily with troubled teens and prisoners.
As wonderful as this is, it is not the only aspect of the Nileses' fostering. They also provide emergency care for the first 24 hours or so after a child has been seized from a home in the middle of the night or on weekends and the child welfare workers haven't lined up a longer foster placement yet.
This makes life unpredictable. Two years ago, as they celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary in a nearby restaurant, an emergency call came.
"We had our caesar salads and a side order of baby," laughs John about having to return home with the rest of their dinner in a doggie bag.
Many times, the children have been taken from crime scenes with blood still on their T-shirts. They have only the clothes on their backs and it can be as little as just a diaper.
Over their 18 years as foster parents, the Nileses have noticed a number of developing trends. First, more of the emergency children are being brought from crime scenes, says Liane. "They have witnessed a lot more violence".
Children tell her, "Daddy hurt mommy so bad she's bleeding."
They have received children with broken bones and cracked skulls as well as those born under bridges and in toilets.
Escalating mental health issues are adding to their challenge.
"Girls are getting pregnant younger and younger and keeping their babies. They have no support system and they have not one but two and three little kids and they can't cope. They have no parents to help them. They want the babies to love them but babies don't give love, they suck it up," says Liane.
Not only has their been an increase in drug use among high-risk mothers, but they are mixing a number of drugs and also using alcohol. The babies' withdrawals go on for months sometimes and one little boy dropped from 6 to 4 pounds at the Niles home because he vomited so much. It was a struggle to get him on an even keel.
With all of this you'd think they might get angry at those parents, but Liane says, "I have no animosity toward these people."
She says the root causes of parental neglect or abuse are poverty, social isolation, mental illness and horrible childhoods. Sometimes, the parents get the help they need and are able to provide happy homes after all, she points out.
The Nileses have been lauded for their caring work including being awarded the Governor General's Meritorious Service Medal and the Heart and Spirit Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Empire Club of Canada, of which John is currently the president.
John has written two books published by White Knight Books. How I Became Father to 1,000 Children details the fostering experience and The Art of Sacred Parenting advises how to nurture and inspire children in a world of violence and inhumanity.
Being a foster parent has been a way for the Nileses to show their children every day how "to be humane in an inhumane world," says John.
"We are giving them the opportunity to be humane. We are modelling it, teaching it and encouraging it.
"Our purpose is to make a difference in the world."
The Niles kids are growing up with a constant round of babies in highchairs and police arriving at the door at inopportune times, such as birthday parties.
Alyssa, 19 and training to be a nurse, says she was never jealous of the foster kids.
"I wanted to adopt them all," she says.
Email: life@thestar.ca
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