This article is published in partnership with the Fostering AfterCare Podcast.
Listen to the writer dive deeper in this Fostering AfterCare podcast episode:
There are certain “what if” questions that follow you like shadows.
What if I had grown up in a stable home?
What if I had parents to catch me when I fell?
What if I did not have to survive before I could dream?
For those of us who have aged out of foster care, these questions are not idle musings. They resurface in adulthood as reminders of the foundation we never had. They are not about perfection but about imagining the support that could have made early adulthood less of a minefield.
Psychologists call this disenfranchised grief — loss society does not recognize, such as when the person or relationship you lost was never whole or safe to begin with. I thought I was done grieving my parents, but when I became a mother, the pain returned. It showed up at birthdays, holidays, and milestones where empty seats revealed what was missing.
Even so, I do not sit around wishing for what I never had. I ponder it from time to time, and I still hope that my parents might one day change or have a revelation of some sort. Yet, I also see how God sends people to stand in the gaps — an aunt who shows up, a sibling who offers comfort, a friend who becomes like family. These relationships do not erase the pain, but they prove that love can grow in the cracks, like a rose pushing through concrete.
A stable home is more than four walls. It is the steady sense that your basic needs will be met, that someone will be there when life takes an unexpected turn. Without it, there is no built-in confidence, no inherited belief that your safety is certain, no foundation to steady you when everything else feels unstable. Many of us entered adulthood without a blueprint for love or partnership, left to piece together trust and boundaries through trial and error, often at a great cost.
I remember my sophomore year at North Carolina Central University when a snowstorm shut down campus. The cafeteria was closed, the power went out, and I had no food. With no parents to call, I reached out to acquaintances and even professional contacts. That kind of reaching out is exhausting. Yet, my former guardian ad litem showed up with groceries, braving icy roads. She did not have to, but she chose to meet me in my humanity. That act of kindness remains etched in my memory as proof that presence matters.
Around the same time, I dated someone involved in dangerous activities. Some warned me, but the loudest voices urged me to give him a chance, even if it meant compromising my safety. Without a blueprint for healthy love, I mistook compassion for commitment. At 20, I thought responsibility meant carrying someone else’s burdens. I eventually walked away, but not without scars and the grief of learning, through pain, what a safe relationship is not.
Housing instability is another cost of these missing foundations. In 2017, after returning from a job in Oregon, I believed I had housing with a friend. The night I arrived, she withdrew the offer. Suddenly, what looked like stability dissolved. My stepdad picked me up, and I eventually rebuilt, but the lesson was clear: when you lack a safety net, every misstep cuts deeper. Nationally, nearly one-third of young people who age out of foster care experience homelessness by age 26. That statistic is not abstract. It is a lived reality for too many.
Instability does not only affect housing or school. It wears down mental health. Up to 80% of young people in foster care have mental health challenges compared to their peers. And while brain science shows decision-making abilities are not fully developed until about age 25, support often ends years earlier. We are asked to leap into adulthood while still building the wings we need to fly, and too often, the crash is costly in housing, in health, and in hope.
The absence of a stable home, healthy relationships, financial literacy, and a supportive network is not only a personal loss. It is communal and systemic. When young people are left without these foundations, it affects children, partners, workplaces, and communities. And when foster parents, social workers, or mentors burn out because they are not supported either, those fragile connections vanish, leaving youth even more isolated and vulnerable.
Each of these stories is its own “what if.” What if my parents had protected me? What if I had grown up watching a healthy relationship unfold at home? What if housing had been steady enough to focus on school instead of survival? These questions are not abstract. They shaped my adulthood and resurface again and again as grief in new forms.
Yet, reclamation is possible. For me, it looks like returning to school, building a loving home for my son, and nurturing a healthy marriage. None of this erases the grief, but it proves that what once felt out of reach can still be grasped. Reclamation is about drawing new blueprints and laying foundations where none existed.
I can acknowledge the losses as part of my story, but not the ending. So, the question is this: How can you help shape a young person’s “what if” narrative into a story of redemption rather than grief?
