What If Father’s Day Was Also a Call to Show Up?

After 97 foster children, here’s what I’ve learned about fatherhood.
 
The first time a child walks into your home with everything they own stuffed into a trash bag, you don’t forget it.
 
You don’t forget the look on their face. You don’t forget the silence. You don’t forget knowing that, at least for that night, your home may be the safest place they have.
 
My wife, Lisa, and I have been foster parents for more than 22 years. During that time, 97 children have come through our home. We have adopted five of them. Some stayed for a short time. Some stayed much longer. Every one of them mattered.
 
As Father's Day passes, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a dad.
 
For many men, fatherhood feels like something you are supposed to have figured out. You provide. You protect. You teach. You show up. But when it comes to foster care, many good men hesitate. They wonder if they have what it takes. They worry about getting too attached, saying the wrong thing, or not being enough.
 
I understand that fear. But kids in foster care do not need perfect dads.
 
They need steady ones.
 
They need men who will sit at the dinner table, toss a ball in the yard, drive them to school, help with homework, or simply be present when life feels uncertain. They need men who can be calm when they are scared, patient when they are angry, and consistent when everything else has changed.
 
That kind of fatherhood matters more than most people realize.

In my professional life, I work as a therapist and as a co-responder with the Sheriff’s Office. I often meet people in crisis. People struggling with chronic mental health challenges, substance use, homelessness, trauma, or repeated involvement with the justice system.
 
Over time, you start to see patterns. Not always, but often, there is a story underneath the crisis: childhood instability, neglect, abuse, loss, or abandonment. A story of a young person who did not have enough safe adults around when it mattered most.
 
I have often wondered how many lives might have been different if someone had stepped in earlier. If one safe family had opened the door. If one steady dad had shown up. If one child had experienced, even for a season, what it feels like to belong.
 
Foster care is not easy. Children enter foster care because something painful has happened.
They may be confused, angry, withdrawn, anxious, or grieving. They may not know how to trust. They may test limits because limits have not always been safe or consistent.
 
But that is exactly why foster parents matter.
 
A foster home is not just a roof and a bed. It is a place where a child can begin to breathe again. A place where they can learn that adults can be safe, meals can be predictable, birthdays can be remembered, and bedtime can come without fear.
 
For dads especially, the role is powerful.
 
You do not have to be a superhero. You do not have to have all the answers. You do not have to be wealthy, young, married, retired, or experienced with children. You simply have to be willing to learn, show up, and open your home and heart to a child who needs both.
 
As we celebrated Father's Day over the weekend, I hope more men asked themselves a serious question: What if I could be part of changing the direction of a child’s life?
 
Lisa and I did not know, 22 years ago, that 97 children would come through our doors. We did not know we would adopt five. We did not know every challenge, heartbreak, or joy that would come with saying yes.
 
But we knew children needed families.
 
And that was enough reason to begin.

By Paul McGinnett