Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson - Adopting Seven Siblings - A Conversation with Pam Willis

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

Pam Willis and her husband Gary adopted seven brothers and sisters whose parents died in a car crash. She joins Kate and Oliver to discuss the incredible story, her experience fostering children throughout the years, second chances, and more.Executive Producers: Kate Hudson and Oliver HudsonProduced by Allison BresnickEdited by Josh WindischMusic by Mark HudsonThis show is powered by Simplecast.This episode is sponsored by Sakara, Policy Genius, and Article.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. September is a great time to travel, especially because it's my birthday in September, especially internationally. Because in the past, we've stayed in some pretty awesome Airbnbs in Europe. Did we've one in France, we've one in Greece,

we've actually won in Italy a couple of years ago. Anyway, it just made our trip feel extra special. So if you're heading out this month, consider hosting your home on Airbnb with the co-host feature you can hire someone local to help manage everything. Find a co-host at Airbnb.ca slash host. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club?

Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life. This is Wisecrack, available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos.

Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians, artists, and activists to bring you death and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. The moment is a space for the conversations we've been having us, father and daughter, for years. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos On the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Kate Hudson. And my name is Oliver Hudson. We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship.

And what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling rivalry. No, no. Sibling reverie. Don't do that with your mouth. Sibling revelry. That's good. Oliver, I absolutely adored speaking with this beautiful woman, Pam Willis, Pam Willis.

she is a story that some people might know of she adopted seven children after their parents died in a car crash and I just I mean we were really taken by this story and I have to say this interview I mean it was hard for me not to cry the whole time I was just like oh my god yeah everything she said made me want to yeah I mean it's First of all, we cry all the time. You know, I mean, you and I just seem to cry. I just in general on this podcast, we're crying. But this was basically just a test on how not to blubber. I mean, I'm right with you. It was extremely emotional, but in the most beautiful, happy way.

I mean, we talked about her being an angel in the podcast, but she truly is. I mean, her energy and her spirit and her light comes through the Zoom. And honestly, it made me want to be a foster parent. It was like, you know, thinking about all of these kids in the foster care system. And I loved her approach to what it is and the importance of it and her passion for it. Yeah. Be inspired. This is inspirational. It was actually, it's very inspirational.

you know it makes you want to do good things it was an amazing interview and i really i hope everybody who's listening right now just enjoys and let's get right to it here is pam willis i'm really excited to talk to you first of all we came across your story you adopted seven siblings which is like immediately your story brings tears to I'm sure many people's eyes because it's I'm sure every child's worst nightmare that they lose their parents and they don't know where they're going to go and then there's angels in the world like you who come along and decide to to take in all of them so first of all you're an angel second of all I just want to know how this happened for you?

Well, I think that my husband and I were being prepared for a long time and didn't really know it. I had been a nurse in my prior career. I was a nurse for 15 years and I was a labor and delivery nurse. And so I worked often with the children's services, social workers that would come in and have to take a baby now and then. And I would always come home to my husband and say, oh, I wanted to take that baby. home that poor baby doesn't have anybody to you know take care of it and so I had a heart for this a long time ago and we had five children my husband and I and we were raising a busy family and you know my husband would always say you know someday someday we'll we'll be able to do that and so it was

always kind of on the back burner you know and that that instinct I think that makes someone a nurse is also that you know that natural sort of nurturing personality and So my husband and I, when we had two teenagers left at home of the five, we decided it was time to learn about foster care. So we started fostering. We went through the classes and got certified and started fostering when we had two teenagers left at home. And they were part of that journey, which was really neat because they were the two babies of our family at that time. And they had not been used to caring for younger children. So they got to be part of the journey of bringing in children to our home.

We took mostly like zero to five. So we took mostly toddlers, a couple of newborns. And over five years, we learned how to care for traumatized children, children that had come from neglect, you know, children that had come from environments of violence or things like that. So we learned so much about certain things that this does to children, like it stunts their emotional growth, or it stunts sometimes their physical development if they're not nurtured properly.

And it's so fascinating to me from a nursing perspective and a mom perspective to take these kids who wouldn't even give you eye contact on day one. And then suddenly they're just looking, looking for someone to latch onto and they just connect with you and they start growing in every way possible. They start emotionally growing. They start physically progressing. Even if we only had them in our home for eight months, which was one of our shortest time periods of having foster children was an eight-month

siblings that they grew so much in that time. And so we learned together and we grew together through these different sets of siblings that came through our home. And as that time progressed, my two teenagers that were with us moved out. You know, they were getting ready to get one of them was getting married and the other one was graduating high school. So they were getting ready to move out. And my husband and I were sort of at a crossroads, like, okay.

our nest is going to be empty, what do we do we want to keep fostering? Do we want to move? Do we want to downsize? And we were just sort of like up in the air, you know, just kind of looking for guidance, praying about it, deciding, you know, where were we going to go? What were we going to do? And that was exactly the time where I came across the story of these seven children. So we had this background in fostering.

We knew what to do. We knew how to take care of them. We had a six-bedroom house that was essentially going to be completely empty. We didn't know what to do with our house or our life or our, you know, what was our direction? And I was just scrolling through Facebook and these kids were sitting in this, in this line and they were just looking at me. And it just honestly just pierced my heart and just, you know, I needed to be their mom. And so I watched the little news story with him and I thought, gosh, how do I tell my husband that I need to be their mom? You know, probably a racist to him, right?

Yeah, so there's seven of them. Yeah, honey. So we had, at this point, we had already decided, yes, we were going to foster forever. We just couldn't imagine ourselves without helping children. We had such a heart for the foster care system, and we had decided, yes, that's what we were going to do. We never discussed seven. but so it was on Facebook that I saw this right so I just thought well I'll just tag him in the story and he can read it and digest it a little bit before I come in it so that night I came to him

and I thought okay see how this conversation is going to go and I said hey babe did you see that story that I tagged you in you know on Facebook today and he goes yeah and I was like okay here it comes they said yeah we should adopt them and i mean he blew me away i thought i was you know i thought i was going to have to do some convincing or you know just really like this is what we're supposed to be doing and he just knew he knew just like i did and it was one of those moments of life where you're just like wow everything's aligned you know like we totally agreed we totally knew and so what was it the first time you know actually meeting all seven of these children

children. I'm curious just because there's that feel-out process. Of course, you know, there's everyone wants to be part of a home, but there's that trauma that had just happened with them. How did that all work? Yeah. So they had been in a foster home since the accident, which had happened the previous May. So I saw their story in January and then through all the process of matching and making sure that we were going to be a good fit, it took until March. So about two months from the time I called until the time that we were able to meet them. And what I did, what those social workers suggested in San Diego, the county social workers there that we worked with were incredible.

They suggested that I'd make a little book for the kids with our pictures. So I actually made each of them their own book with pictures of me, pictures of my husband, and this is this is Pam and Pam likes ice cream and pizza what do you like and this is Gary and you know just different pictures for the different age kids obviously for the older kids there was a little more I know this picture of our house there was a picture of some of the things we like to do and that was given to them a couple weeks ahead of time so they could start to process and then we met them at the park one day a local park and their social workers were there for you know the people that they're familiar with and it was varying degrees

of acceptance from the four-year-old at that time, having looked through her book, the door opened, the social worker opened the door, and she yelled out our names, said, hi, how's to meet you, you know? And I still remember that moment. It was like, she's so excited, you know, and of course, they were told, like, these people want to be your name, Mommy, and Daddy. And they, she was so excited. She just ran up to me and, you know, hugged me, had never met me, but had seen my picture and knew that. And I think at that age, you know, the little ones, so the littlest ones were four, three, and two at that time. And the littlest ones were just immediate. They just wanted a mommy daddy. They just needed a connection. And, you know, we were nice people and we were, you know,

we were there to fulfill that need. And it was just, you know, right away. And then I would say, you know, the five and six year old, they had a little bit of their reservations, but it took maybe one visit and they were like, you're pretty cool, okay? I think that this is going to be good. What are the age differences? They were like a year apart, all of them? Yes. Wow. The five, the five youngest are a year apart all the way down, little stair step. Yeah. And then there's two, the two that are older, there's like a four year gap between the oldest stairstep and her. And then there's a two year gap. So these, we call them the bigs and the littles because they, you know, we have but two teenagers now, and then we still have our little stair steps.

So the teenagers, that was sort of a new experience for us. We hadn't foster teenagers. Obviously, we'd raised our five teenagers, but we hadn't fostered teenagers. So we were just, but we were so just invested in this whole, I mean, I just looked at their pictures and I could see their faces, that there was sadness in there and, like, they needed happiness and I needed to give them to their childhood, you know, that they had had a burden. for a long time and you could just see the weight on them and so we talked and you know i having had teenagers before i said we may not always like each other but you'll always be safe and i'll always

love you in my home and i think those are the kinds of things they needed to hear was that you know this it's reality you know we're not going to it's not going to be all butterflies and rainbows but but you're going to be safe and there's going to be love and we're going to have a good time was the with the teenagers or the older kids a little bit more difficult than the young ones who came running up to you immediately? I don't think that it was difficult. I think that it was different.

I wouldn't say it was difficult with them because they were probably a lot easier in the beginning. They were very parentified, so they were very used to looking out for the better good of those children. And so I think for them, whether they thought it was the best idea or not.

They knew that it was the best idea for their little siblings. And so they were going to do it no matter what. And that just, I mean, it breaks your heart when you hear that. But in the beginning, they were very, you know, easygoing. And it took a while for them to develop their own safety and their own feelings of being able to bring their thoughts out, and their emotions to grow. And so there's been separate work that's gone on with them as far as emotional growth.

I talked about my, she was 11 when she came, my Ruby, and she's 13 now. When she first came, I said, you know, parts of her are like nine and other parts of her are like 22. She's very, very mature, very articulate in many ways. and in other ways, very immature because parts of her had to be put on hold so that she could focus on survival and survival for the kids and getting, finding food sometimes, or, you know, they were homeless at times and just things that they had gone through where there was domestic violence, so protection of the children. She just was very maternal. I met some folks that knew the kids through my Instagram, they saw the story. The story was very publicized before I created this Instagram that I talked about trauma and foster care and adoption and everything. I met some folks that said, I think I know these kids.

Did they live in this park in San Diego? And I asked my daughter, she said, yeah, that's where we lived in that park before we went to the tent shelter. And she said, this woman said, I was so concerned because I saw this nine-year-old girl taking care of five kids by herself in this. huge park in San Diego and there were no parents around and I didn't know where anybody was and she described exactly what I had thought that my daughter really had been sort of in charge of the brood you know and pushing them wing and and you know helping them down the slide and you know and we're talking about the baby was like a one year old at that time and she's you know in charge of all of them and she was nine just barely turning 10 so what was the story of the birth

parents. I mean, so they're all the same parents. Yes. And then they, they died in a car crash. They did. So the parents themselves actually came, grew up in the foster system. So there was very little family support for them. There was very little even contact with biological families. And, you know, obviously dysfunctional for, you know, the kids to have not grown up in the home. And, you know, so there were issues on both of their. parts in their own families growing up and unfortunately they developed drug addictions that you know by all the reports sort of got worse and worse and worse as the years went by they had some periods of time where they were doing okay and had a nice house and had plenty of

food and then other periods of time where they didn't have anything and had to live with other people and you know really like scrape and borrow for food so it was sort of this up and down by the reports that I have from kids or, you know, some family friends that I've found. And they mostly grew up in Las Vegas and went to San Diego to sort of make a fresh start. And when they went to San Diego, they really didn't have anything in their pockets and were homeless for a while, got into an apartment and then decided that they were going to leave and moved to Texas. So they packed up a U-Haul trailer with as much as they could stuff in it.

And they bought a secondhand car and they, you know, put all the kids in there with no car seats or anything and took off to drive to Texas. And on that drive before they left California, they were still on the California side of things. They flipped the vehicle somehow, it flipped multiple times. And, of course, the trailer just, you know, everything exploded out of the trailer. The kids were all thrown from the vehicle. the parents were thrown from the vehicle but died instantly and the kids they had varying degrees of injury some the older two were pretty severely injured and then down to the baby who barely had a scratch amazingly but they some of them remember the accident some of them don't remember

because they all had head injuries so I'm sure from being you know tumbled and thrown from the vehicle and folks stopped on the side of the road to help them and then, you know, they were split up into different hospitals and then went to a group home in San Diego where they found a foster family that could at least take all of them together. So they were able to stay together in their foster family, but it wasn't ideal and it wasn't an adoptive family. So that's how they came to be in this news story because they really try, of course, not to separate siblings. So, yeah. Wow. You are an angel. I mean, holy. You, you, you, it's, it's so interesting because there's so, I have so many questions.

I can't even ask questions. You know, but just the, just the, just the, the, the, the, the, the, having to deal with not just one child or two, but seven children's traumas, you know, in varying degrees of it, you know, the ones who don't remember anything, but unconsciously are feeling things, you know, the older ones who might and have different, there are different sets of traumas. I mean, you are. are running the gambit really on on on on on on trauma I mean how are you dealing with that sort of on a day to day basis because that doesn't go away you know what I mean yeah and I think I suppose it's it's sort of a blessing that each child processes differently and so they process on their own timeline you know there's there's so many feelings but as I mentioned the teenagers sort of theirs was sort of more delayed as far as processing I think they were

still in just survival mode. Like, we're here. I don't know if we trust this, but for now it's safe, you know, I'm sure for a while it probably felt like, is this real? Is this going to go away? Like, you know, just the things that would be said to me, like, wow, it's so nice to have like a nice meal every night and just know that it's going to be here. And, you know, just simple things like that where you're like, you know, you're just blows your mind. And that's the reward for, you know, for dealing with all of their trauma. I think that's the nurse part of me that, you know, I want to help them and the mother part of me.

To be honest, yes, I was a nurse for 15 years. Yes, I'm an attorney, but I'll tell you when I was the little girl, all I ever wanted to be was a mom. People would ask me, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a mom. And if I have to work, I want to work with ladies who have babies because I love, and that's what I did, because I love, you know, just children and just. the whole idea of mothering and um so i think just i definitely don't think i'm an angel but i think

i'm a natural mom and i think um you know i'm a nurse i'm a nurse and a mom and it just fits together with this passion that i have for um helping children heal how about your husband i mean you know having that male figure in in your adoptive kids lives and i'm sure he's just as amazing, you know, and hands-on and ready and willing to sort of participate in all the good and all the bad, huh? Absolutely. My husband was, he's always been a baby snuggler. He's always loved the little ones. He's always loved the tickling and the wrestling and, you know, just running around with kids. I mean, I would find him wrestling, you know, with my older kids, my bio-kids, all the time they'd be wrestling. The thing about his career was he was, he was, he was,

in the Navy, and then he worked for the post office, and he was getting towards the end of his postal career and getting ready to retire. So he actually retired last year, and he's a full-time stay-home dad. Awesome. So he's definitely hands-on, especially with COVID and all the homeschooling that we've had to do. He's definitely hands-on. And he is an amazing man. I mean, he, you know, through all of our lives together, we met when we were in high school, you know, we were teenagers, when we met. We were married for 33 years this month. And he's just an incredible guy. He's one of those strong, silent, supportive, do whatever, whatever makes you happy, babe kind of thing. Want to go to law school and we have five kids? Sure, go right ahead. How many men would be like,

no problem. Go for it. So that's just kind of how he is. He's a hard worker. He's, he's, he's, he's just a naturally kind, caring person and we know how to parent together. We know how to make that team. You know, we've done it for a little time. Sikara, Sikara is one of our longest standing sponsors and we love, love them personally. And we love their product. It's a nutrition company. It focuses on your overall wellness, starting with what you eat. And these are organic, ready-to-eat meals. They're made with powerful plant-based ingredients designed to do all kinds of things like boost your energy, improve your digestion, get your skin glowing.

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PolicyGenius.com to get started. PolicyGenius. When it comes to insurance, it's nice to get it right. I'm curious about the foster care, the reality of that when you're fostering kids and then you have to, I mean, how do you not keep the children? I mean, you know, for me, it's one of those things where it's like I even look at it like, you know, when I'm fostering even an animal, let alone a child, it's hard to give the animal their forever home. You know, what is that process like? There's a saying in the foster community and like a hashtag that we use too, and it's get too attached. People always say, I couldn't do it.

I would get to attach. And we say get to attach. That's what they need. They need attachment. They need our love. They need our whole heart. And does your heart break into a million pieces? they leave? Absolutely. Absolutely it does. I cry for days, but you know what? My heart's broken,

not theirs. And that's what matters. That's what matters. And so the whole time you do it, I mean, I even get chills thinking of some of my babies that I had to let go. But I keep in touch with them because what I do is as I understand the safety of the situation or where they're going to go, I start to develop a relationship with either that bioparent that they're going to go back to because it looks like, hey, they're going to go back to mom. Mom got out of the bad situation with dad. They're going to go back to mom. So I write mom a letter, hey, you know, your children are amazing.

Can't wait to meet you. You know, they love you so much because, you know, the foster system is based on attempting to reunify. And I think it probably for me probably helped that I wasn't looking to adopt. I wasn't looking to grow my family necessarily, which, you know, some parents who are in it for that and really want to grow their family. It's got to be twice the heartbreak for them. Imagining maybe this could be my child,

but we don't know until the case progresses for a year, you know, and thinking like that for a year and then having to give them back. I can't imagine that difficulty. For me, I always thought from the very beginning, this is not my child, but I am long-term caregiver, long-term nursing assignment, if you will. You know, it's like I'm going to give them everything and I want to heal them. and I want to help them, but I also want to help and heal their parents if they're going back to

their parents. I want healing to take place there. So I would tell the moms, I would say, you heal yourself and I'll care for your baby while you heal yourself and then you'll be back together soon. And I think just feeling that support, I've had biopparents come back to me and say, you know, nobody in any of my classes has the kind of support that you give from their foster, families like you know they just tell me like thank you so much I know that my kids are taken care of and I know it's you know it's just grace it's grace and it's forgiveness and it's

you know I had I had a brother myself who was a drug addict it's not it's not judging it's not judging my brother died from a heroin overdose who am I to judge you because you have a situation where you fell into drug addiction and couldn't take care of your baby for a little while just get well. Just get well and take care of you. Your baby loves you and your baby wants you back and I'm here to help you during that time. So fostering is definitely an emotional roller coaster. It takes it takes a lot out of you, but it's so rewarding. Well, I actually want to just the concept of love, you know, because traditionally, you know, you have a child and that child is looking at you and you're looking at your child and that love happens immediately. I mean, there's something

unconditional about it. You can't control it. It's just there. When you are an adopted child or the parents who are adopting, love is different. And I'm just, I'm pontificating here. I don't know. I'm honestly asking, but it grows, it moves. It's not just right there. Does it take time to fall in love with your kids, your new kids? And does it take time for them to fall in love with you. There must be a process there, right? So interesting that you're bringing this up because I was just on my Instagram talking to another adoptive mom about the same subject.

And she was saying, you know, sometimes I feel like, you know, I'm missing something like, am I a bad mom because I don't, didn't feel that instantaneous connection. And so there's so many complications to that. But the thing that, and depending on age and what they've gone through and what they remember, and all of those things. But the thing that they teach you in sort of the science of caring for traumatized children or caring for children that you're trying to create a new attachment with, there's so many bonding things that you can do.

And it's interesting to see that there are studies that show that even up to age seven, rocking a child, fosters bonding with the mom and the child. So it's not just that I'm trying to make this child be attached to me, but I'm bonding with the child as well. It's you go backwards. You re-parent. They call it reparenting. So these kids every night, not the teenagers, obviously, but the five youngest, every night I would rock each of them before bedtime. And I would just rock them and eye contact.

Look in your eyes. I mean, I wasn't rocking them to sleep at this point. I was bonding with them. So I would sit on their floor and I would take turns rocking and then they would, some of them would say, I'm done now and other ones would stay there forever. But so rocking is one thing that is incredibly powerful. If you think about how we bond with our newborns, what's the first thing we do? We look in their eyes and we rock them. Well, that works.

That works with kids who've never had it before. It works incredibly with kids who've never had that bonding time because they've missed that. And so you go backwards and you re-parent them. So not only the rocking, but the eye contact when they're eating is another thing. So what do we do when we feed our babies? You know, we either hold them with a bottle and we're looking in their eyes and cooing at them and feeding them. We're looking at them or a mother is nursing and they're looking at their baby. So you feed your kids and you face them and you look at them and they're eating a bowl of ice cream and you just look at them and you talk to them because eating is pleasurable and we're bonding eye contact.

bonding. And so there, there's a lot of science behind bonding with children at different stages of their lives and different, you know, areas of trauma. Another thing is positive touch. So I tried every day, which was hard. I lost count sometimes. I tried every day to give 10 positive touches to each kid, whether it's just like a pat on the head or a pat on the shoulder, you know, I contact them positive touch. So there's things to do that can foster that bonding and that love and that connection but it comes at different times with different kids depending on where they're at emotionally and how ready they are to receive it and some days they're really ready to receive it and other days they're they're grieving or they're going through some difficult you know

behavior issues or whatever but just ending that day with our bonding was what we did for several months in the beginning um to really make that you know by patience article I am in the process of remodeling two houses it's been long overdue I've had my house over here I've had my house for 17 years

and it's been it's been 15 years since I've done anything to it and now I'm doing a full like it's like time you know it's the my house needs a facelift And so I'm looking at Article like crazy, and there's some really, really good stuff. I absolutely love some of their wicker. They've got really cute out.

They've got a great outdoor setup. The Garden Terrace, this is a good look. This is a very good look. We have outdoor furniture from Article in the backyard right now. And it is fantastic. It's not expensive and looks expensive. This is what we want out of life. It's not inexpensive because it's made inexpensively.

It's inexpensive because they cut the middleman out. That's right. What you have is a more direct-to-consumer experience so they can cut that sort of that price off that you would, the typical retail pricing. Right. There's no showrooms. There's no sales. people. There's no retail markups. So you're getting the quality. Yes. Without all of those

extra added on costs. Can I tell you what my favorite outdoor items are? I love the tana stool. The tana stool is like really great. It's super sleek. It's modern. And the Kolova side table is one of my favorites because I do love a little wicker. And I would pair that with the Livia Natural Lounge chair. I like that whole little situation. And if you want to to spruce up your outdoor area. The Livia natural lounge chair, for instance, is $199. The designs are amazing. Honestly, they're really great. They exemplify my personality, which is mid-century Scandinavian, industrial, and bohemian. If that doesn't scream Oliver Hudson, honestly, nothing does. Anyway, article, article is offering our listeners $50 off of your first

purchase of $100 or more. So go to article.com. slash sibling, and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com slash sibling to get $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Jets of the jury, go to article.com if you know what is good for you. How is it going now? now it's been almost two years since they moved in our adoption was final last august but for for us the adoption was really a formality i mean from the moment they moved in there was no question that they were forever you know we told them from day one you're here forever this

is security safety we're never leaving you know like this is your home if something ever happened to us. Look at all these other people that are here. You now have grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters, you know. So it was just reminding them over and over again of that security. And I would say that, you know, because of COVID, things are a little abnormal still. We just barely started going back to school half days. So I don't want to say things are normal, but things are definitely routine now. When I talk on my, I blogged a lot kind of with through my Instagram posts for the first year. And I talked about my husband and I sleeping on the floor in the hallway and making sure that they knew that we were there.

And there was an instance where my daughter was my seven-year-old at the time. She was coming in every night for telling me she had bad dreams. And I thought, well, this is unusual. It just kind of popped up out of nowhere. You have bad dreams. And then so I said, you don't want to tell me about your dream, honey? And maybe we can talk about it. see what's making you have bad dreams and she kind of thought about it for a minute and then she says

i didn't really have a bad dream and i said oh what happened and she said i just wanted to make sure you are still here she was coming into my room at midnight every night making sure i wasn't gone and that was like six months in you know so it takes time but i i really feel like now we're in a routine we have all the rules down we have kind of the family culture you know everybody kind of knows the culture of the family this is how we run things this is and and we've we've adapted obviously a new normal because they bring their own part of culture you know into their their own behaviors into our family culture but i feel i feel pretty normal now i feel like i feel like everything still.

Do you feel like you discipline your bio, you disciplined your bio kids differently than you're, than you're disciplining your new family, your new children, just because of based on who they are and the traumas that they've been through? Not really, because I think those fundamental basics of parenting

that we have in the back of our minds, like, you know, these are we should say please and thank you or you know this is basic things like that that we're teaching your children i think are all pretty similar i we you know they they have chores just like you know our older kids had and they you know different things like that that we felt that helped them develop responsibility and character you know when we were raising our first family we sort of try to instill those same things are there nuances sure because you know they're with the teenagers, I sometimes have to, I have to take into account their remaining feelings of

insecurity. I think those feelings last a lot longer in the teenagers. And so, you know, I was kind of on one of them the other day about school. And I was like, look, you know, and this, this, this. And he really reacted very differently than he normally reacts to anything. And I thought, oh, okay, I hit a nerve, you know, and so do you parent differently? Yes, because you want to take into account what they're dealing with and where they're coming from. And, you know, they have triggers that you don't even know they have or they don't even know they have, right? So, so I triggered something the other day and I just had to back way off. Whereas I was approaching it like I would normally approach the way I got on my other kids about school, you know?

Like, you know, you're never going to get into college and, you know, saying those kind of things. And then I triggered something. I don't know what I triggered. I don't know why I triggered. He probably didn't even know why. But I had to back up and think, well, okay, I can't always do the same thing with every single kid because they're coming to me in a different place. So yes and no, you know, is the answer to them.

what were what were your your birth children's response to you adopting seven kids the thing about fostering for five six years five and a half six years before was that they were used to these other little little personalities in our family gatherings you know part of fostering is making the children that are with you feel part of your family at the time making them have the full experience of the family. So, you know, they're always part of family parties or family get-togethers. You have little birthday parties for them, things like that. And so all of my bio-children were used to that for several years.

And so I don't think it was that big of a leap to say, you know, that we're adopting. I think they kind of knew that we were always going to foster and there were always going to be little ones around. but I don't think it was that I mean you know for they were like I mean this is the mom who goes to law school when she's got five kids at home they were probably like okay sure yeah that's mom you know like I kind of feel like they were probably like not surprised but not surprised like okay yeah my mom could do that my mom would do that so they were very accepting I think my oldest son who was 30 was like you know are you you know you're retirement and you know he was very like he counseled us you know to make sure that um you know this is a wise decision financially and health wise and everything you know um but other than that concern i think for just you know he said all right if you say you're okay then i'm you know behind you 100 it was really um they're great kids they're they're great kids they have beautiful

hearts and they've just embraced these kids i remember the first time we all got together as one before they moved in. It was Mother's Day. And my oldest son was like, wow, that was a lot less chaotic than I thought it would be. So I think at first they had this vision of, you know, probably one of my most ill-behaved foster children that I'd ever had. They probably imagined seven of those all running around everywhere, climbing the walls and everything, which, you know, that was like one that had a lot of trauma. Were you fostering, but you were fostering, but you were fostering kids when they were all in your home, when all your bio kids were in your home? Or just two of them?

Yeah, this is the youngest, too. But of course, you know, the older three were, one of them was in college when I first started fostering. But by that time, the older three were married and, you know, they started to have a baby or two, you know, a couple of them. So I think now their relationship is they have, I have, we have eight grandchildren. our oldest grandchildren are six. We have two six-year-old grandchildren.

And so they fit in that. You're so young. I know. I can't get over. I can't get over. It's crazy. How old were you when you had your first child? I was 17.

We got married when I was 17. So, you know, I graduated high school early. And, you know, like I said, when I was younger, all I wanted to do was get married and be a mom. And, you know, that's what I did. So because I grew up. graduated early. We started early and we've been going ever since. We've been parents for 30, almost 32 years now. Yeah, because I'm looking at you. I'm like, how do you have eight grandchildren? That's insane. Yeah. Yeah. We started. So advice to people who want to foster but

don't know where to start. That's a great question. I get that question all the time on my Instagram blog and really it's your local county everyone's every state is slightly different and even from county to county can be very different so the best thing to do I've done this for people who I've been talking to on Messenger you know just Google your county and do put foster care in your county and you'll get some resources some areas have private agencies and some areas you go directly through the county, some places you have a choice. So for our county in California, I had a choice of going through a private agency or going through the county. And I chose a private agency just because there was a lot of support and classes and help for the foster parents. And I felt like I got good

education as to what to expect and things like that. But they'll put you through classes first. You know, they do background check and fingerprinting and all of that stuff. There's some minimal costs, like maybe your CPR classes, maybe some things you have to buy for your home like baby gates and, you know, fire extinguishers, little things like that. But a lot of misconception is I have to, it cost me, you know, $40,000 to adopt even from foster care. And that's not the case at all. In most places, fostering and adopting from foster care is very minimal cost, if not free. And tons of people don't know that. They think, how do you, how did you, how did you, forward to adopt seven children, you must have had to pay like hundreds of thousands of

dollars. But from the foster care, that's not, from foster care, that's not the case. They want to encourage these children to have forever families. So there's a lot of support, but everyone does it slightly differently. So just look to your local county or state foster system and they'll have it all laid out for you as far as what the process will be. Wow. Amazing. Well, I feel an adequate. I need to do something more with my life. We each have our talents. We each have our areas of, you know, that God blesses us with different talents. And I think being a mom or caring for kids is, it falls in that category. I mean, I don't play the piano. I don't, you know, I can't sew. I'm not the best cook. But, you know, it's, it's one of my just,

abilities that, you know, God's blessed me with this nurturing. And I just, that's how I manifest it. Pam, this has been so great. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Oh, thank you. I just know this is going to be an episode that people are going to love listening to. Oh, yes. Big time.

I'm so glad. I'm so happy to share it. And nothing makes me happier than getting messages on my Instagram that say, how do I get started in foster care? How do you do it? It's just something that I'm so passionate about. I can't take any more children. They won't let me.

I don't know why. My home is too full for some reason. But if I can't take any more myself, then I can at least tell others how to do it and inspire others and teach. What is your Instagram handle just so people can know? Oh, yeah. It's called Second Chance Seven. And I say that because it's our second chance at being parents, and it's their second chance at having another family.

So second dot chance dot number seven. That's great. Pam, thank you. Well, thank you so much, Pam. It was a pleasure meeting you. And now I'm going to go look at pictures of all of your children. Oh, thank you. Well, sending love to you and the family and your husband and all your children.

Thanks so much. doing amazing things. Sibling Revelry is executive produced by Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson. Producer is Alison Bresden. Editor is Josh Windish. Music by Mark Hudson, aka Uncle Mark.

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