Being a parent is tough even under ideal conditions. Learning to parent while you are in foster care and still in high school is next-level hard. Jonny was already a father when he was placed in foster care at age 16. His newborn son, Major, was living with his mother, who was also in foster care.<\/p>\n
Jonny\u2019s start in foster was rocky. \u201cHonestly, at first it was horrible,\u201d Jonny says. \u201cI saw DSS as the bad guys.\u201d Then something unexpected happened: Jonny\u2019s son was placed with him. \u201cIt all turned around when I started living with my son,\u201d Jonny says. \u201cBefore I had Major I was getting in trouble in school. I was a troubled kid at the time. But when my son was placed with me, I looked in the mirror and said, \u2018I\u2019m gonna get myself together.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Paris Brown, social work supervisor from the county that had custody of Jonny and his son at that time, recalls, \u201cHe grew up overnight. He had no trouble taking care of his son.\u201d Jonny says the motivation he needed to take on the responsibilities of a father at such a young age came from his own mother and father. \u201cI had two great parents. I was raised right. I\u2019m not gonna leave my son. I feel I wouldn\u2019t really be a man if I wasn\u2019t in my son\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jonny also gives credit to his foster mother, Ms. Elizabeth, for respecting his role as a father and letting him parent his son. \u201cShe let me mess up. She let me make my own mistakes. But she was also always looking over my shoulder, and she would give me advice if I needed help.\u201d When he turned 18, Jonny chose to remain in foster care by enrolling in the Foster Care 18-21 program. He says the support and resources that come with that program have helped. And he appreciates that his child welfare workers Cartia and Paula are in his life to hold him accountable. \u201cIt\u2019s good to have somebody looking over me to tell me, \u2018Jonny, you need to …\u2019 and \u2018Don\u2019t be doing that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Jonny-225x300.jpeg\")
Today Jonny, 19, and Major, 3, live with Jonny\u2019s dad. Jonny graduated from high school in June and works at Amazon. \u201cI work third shift,\u201d Jonny says, \u201cso during the day I can take care of my son. Then I switch off to my dad so my dad can get him some dinner and put him in the bed. Then I come back and get right back to it, taking care of him.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m planning on getting my own spot, but not quite yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Brown, the social work supervisor, says Jonny\u2019s story shows what\u2019s possible when we support young people in foster care. But she gives most of the credit to Jonny. \u201cFor him to do what he needed to do to be on his own with his son is amazing.\u201d Jonny is more modest. He says, \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just me. It was my social workers. I had great social workers. I had a great foster mom. Every kid doesn\u2019t get that blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by John McMahon Being a parent is tough even under ideal conditions. Learning to parent while you are in foster care and still in high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17,24,22,1,21],"tags":[],"series":[1656],"class_list":["post-2242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-honoring-family-connections","category-promoting-permanency","category-resources","category-teens","category-uncategorized","category-youth-perspectives","series-november-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2242"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=2242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}