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They opened their home to help a child in need. They didn't know it would cost them everything.
Foster parents are doing some of society's most essential work, yet they face judgment, isolation, and suspicion at every turn. Family members stop inviting them to gatherings. Neighbors complain and pull away. Teachers blame them when traumatized children struggle. Strangers stare and record meltdowns on their phones, convinced they're witnessing bad parenting rather than trauma responses.
Behind closed doors, foster parents are managing midnight crises, attending endless appointments, navigating false accusations, and watching their marriages strain under impossible pressure. They're paying out of pocket because the daily stipend barely covers groceries, let alone the broken televisions, holes in walls, and destroyed furniture that trauma leaves behind. They're living under more regulations than any other parents while being treated like they might be doing something wrong.
The Foster Parents Stigma pulls back the curtain on what fostering actually costs, the relationships that fracture, the communities that turn away, the exhaustion that never ends, and the moments of breakthrough that make it all barely worthwhile. Juan Rodriguez Aceves, a foster parent for over a decade who has cared for more than 100 boys, writes with unflinching honesty about the reality no one discusses: that doing good doesn't protect you from being judged for it.
This book is for foster parents who feel alone in their struggle. For families considering fostering who deserve to know the truth before they start. For anyone who has judged a foster parent without understanding what they're actually experiencing. And for a society that desperately needs foster parents but refuses to support them adequately.
The children need homes. Foster parents need support. It's time we understood the difference.
