Foster Mother Cares for Babies No One Else Loves

On the nights when she is still up at 3 a.m. soothing infants who shake uncontrollably from crack withdrawal, Betty Jarrell of La Puente sometimes wonders what keeps her going as a foster mother.

It’s not the money, which she says barely covers the hospital bills, physical therapy, toys and medicines. It’s not the glory--no one has ever honored her, put her name in any “Who’s Who” listing or invited her to the White House.

Jarrell, 60, simply does it because she believes it is what God set her on Earth to do: care for babies who have no one else to love them.

In 25 years, she has cared for almost 300 children. She adopted one of those children, who is now 18, and has become the legal guardian of another, 5-year-old Donnie, who has sickle-cell anemia and often requires hospitalization.

“There is no way I can see him getting hurt or thrown around the system,” Jarrell said of Donnie. “He’s just a child. And if I don’t care for him, who will?”

In the past decade, Jarrell has seen an already strained system buckle under an influx of babies with health and behavioral problems caused by prenatal exposure to drugs. Today, in addition to Donnie, she cares for three foster children who suffer from such problems.

“Those little babies, if anyone could just sit there and watch their tremors and see the blinking of their little eyes, they would never take drugs while they were pregnant,” said Jarrell, a widow whose husband died two years ago.

Her own children are grown and gone from the San Gabriel Valley tract house she has called home for 37 years. Much to her delight, her daughter, who has three children of her own, has become a foster mother. And two of Jarrell’s friends have adopted children she once cared for.

Over decades of diapers, bottles and building blocks, Jarrell has seen it all. She recalls a boy who had never received Christmas presents and was so overwhelmed with the toys she gave him that he refused to play with them. Instead, he locked up his presents and peered at them from time to time to make sure they were still there.

She has put compresses on the lacerated backs of children whose parents had horsewhipped them. She has bought clothing for a 5-year-old girl whose mother, a prostitute, sold the youngster’s apparel for drug money. She has watched a 4-year-old girl, sobbing, lock herself in the bathroom because she didn’t want to go home with her natural mother and the mother’s new boyfriend.

It was not an unusual scenario. On a number of occasions, when the court has ordered the children to move back home, they have been reluctant to go.

“By the time you’ve had them three months, you’re getting bonded,” Jarrell said. “I’ve had children I feel real bad for, they cling to me. I’m all for children going home, but why put them back if the parents haven’t cleaned up?” she says.

In her homespun way, Jarrell puts a human face on a system that the public usually hears about only when it misfires. Jarrell herself admits there are some bad apples among the more than 3,462 licensed foster families in Los Angeles County, but maintains there are legions like her--big-hearted women and men taking in infants who would otherwise languish.

Paula Jeppson, program manager at the Covina Development Center, which works with drug babies and toddlers with other disabilities, calls Jarrell one of the unsung heroes of the system.

“She has fought so hard to get services for those children against an uncaring system. She never gives up,” says Jeppson, who has watched Jarrell bring her children to the development center over the years for special care.

“Foster parents are so overwhelmed today, there are so many social, education and medical problems,” Jeppson continues. “But Betty hangs in there and never gives up.”

Indeed, Jarrell has schooled herself about the special medical needs of these babies and become a walking encyclopedia about how to care for them. In the beginning, she learned the hard way because so little was known. Now, she and other foster moms swap tips.

She has learned, for instance, that swaddling infants tightly helps them with their shakes and tremors. So do baby swings. She has observed that many drug babies are born with respiratory problems and has been trained by doctors to use breathing aids that help congested infants breathe. She knows that phenobarbital can help prevent seizures. She knows to expect irritability, tantrums and poor motor skills.

“Sometimes you’re at the doctor or the hospital twice a week with a sick child,” Jarrell says. She laments the cutbacks in state and local funds that have curtailed busing of children to physical therapists and schools.

Like many foster parents, Jarrell got into the business when her own children began school and she was left in an empty house.

“Back then, most women stayed home and I missed my babies,” she said. So she took her first child. Then she took another. Today, she wonders about what happened to those infants from long ago. She knows some have succeeded in life because they send her Christmas cards and come back to thank her.

“Once they leave, you don’t know what a lot of them do,” she says. “Your reward is when some of them come back and visit you.”

Jarrell has heard about new group homes where dozens of babies are raised at once by “care givers” who change with each work shift. She has been told these babies are well cared for and the facilities are monitored to guard against abuse. Still, it makes her shake her head.

“I think it’s a crime,” Jarrell said. “They’re not going to get bonded to one person there. And if they don’t, how are they going to cope later in life with giving love and affection?”