A Talent for Nurturing : These Foster Moms Have Enough Love to Heal Wounds of Abuse

Sarina Smith decided two years ago that her young daughter, her job with the Ventura Police Department and her relationships with family and friends just weren’t enough.

“Something was missing,” the 36-year-old Oxnard woman said. “I knew another child was missing.”

Divorced and with no immediate marriage plans, Smith opted to become a foster mother.

Although she had planned on taking in one child, she got two--a now 18-month-old boy who came into her home a year ago, and his 4-year-old sister, who moved in last fall.

“I wanted her to get to know her brother,” she said.

On this Mother’s Day, Smith is one of about 300 Ventura County women--single and married--for whom mothering has little to do with blood ties or even shared history.

As licensed foster parents, they take in the abused, neglected or otherwise damaged children who are abandoned by their families or removed from their homes by the courts.

Such mothering is not always easy.

“We’re not talking about grateful orphans here,” said Douglas Miller, head of the county’s Children’s Services Division. “We’re talking about children who have been seriously physically or sexually abused, and these children bring with them a whole host of problems.”

But for Smith and some other foster mothers, the prospect of adding a happy chapter to the sad histories of these children’s lives is precisely what attracts them.

“It’s sort of addictive,” said Thousand Oaks resident Sheri Brister, 33, who with her husband has taken in nearly a dozen different foster children over the past two years. “You feel somehow . . . somewhere down the road, you’ll have an impact on this child’s life.”

In addition to two biological children, ages 12 and 14, and a toddler adopted through a private agency, the couple have two foster children--a 6-year-old and a 5-year-old whom they plan to adopt.

In the past, the Brister family has included as many as four foster children at one time.

“When somebody asks me, ‘How can you do that?’ my feeling is ‘How can you not do it?’ ” said Brister, a full-time homemaker. “There’s such a need out there.”

Some foster mothers said they are driven by a simple confidence that they love children and children love them back.

“Kids attach to me,” said Oxnard resident Delores Yarbrough, 33, a single mother who has had about eight foster children over the past two years in addition to her two biological children. “I’m good with children.”

And other foster mothers regard their capacity for nurturing as not only a talent, but a gift and a vocation.

Camarillo resident Kathy Morgan, 39, decided 10 years ago to become a single foster parent for the hardest-to-manage children, those who suffer from learning and physical disabilities or behavioral problems.

“I decided God really wanted me to work with challenging kids,” Morgan said. “I really feel it’s a ministry. I don’t see it as a job and I don’t see it as a chore.”

Morgan was working as youth minister at her Ventura church when she was licensed as a foster mother.

Now, she, her two foster children and the two children she adopted as infants live with Morgan’s parents in their five-bedroom, ranch-style home, where Morgan earns an income taking in children for day care.

In addition to having her parents’ help with baby-sitting and chores, the living arrangement saves money, freeing Morgan to spend her days home-schooling her two adopted children, Matthew and Maria.

Matthew, nicknamed Manny, is a rambunctious 11-year-old who suffers from Tourette syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes involuntary tics, such as spitting.

Maria, 12, Manny’s sister, is learning-disabled.

Morgan’s two foster children, who are both younger than Manny and Maria, have behavioral problems.

“This is just something that fills me,” Morgan said. “It’s neat to see these kids come out of some real difficult problems and just blossom.”

Like Morgan, Ventura resident Sandie Lykins, 41, said she views her mothering skills as a divine gift.

And Lykins said her religious faith also helps her cope with one of the most difficult parts of foster parenting: letting go.

When she and her husband took in their first foster child 10 years ago, Lykins became overwrought during the two weeks before the girl left, she said.

“Every time I’d look at her I’d burst into tears,” she said.

Since that time, more than 60 other foster children have passed through Lykins’ four-bedroom home for periods ranging from overnight to two years.

Now, Lykins said, she and her husband pray for each child who comes into their care, which helps them come to terms with the loss.

The couple also accept that they inevitably become attached to each of the children.

“We’ve decided if it ever doesn’t hurt to let go of them, we’ll quit doing it,” Lykins said. “We’ll know we’re doing the wrong thing.”

With some children, however, the Lykins have not let go.

Although the couple started out with two sons of their own, they have more than doubled their brood’s size over the years by adopting three foster children: Christina, who is 9, and two boys, Sean, 6, and Matthew, 5.

“You fall in love with all the children,” Lykins said. But, “some of them just really fit into your family.”

For Simi Valley resident Linda Ernst, it was the fourth foster child she brought into her home who fit in and stayed.

Toni St. Amant showed up on the doorstep to Ernst’s two-bedroom apartment three years ago.

Like the other foster children Ernst had previously cared for, Toni was already a teen-ager when she came.

“I didn’t have the time or the means” for a baby, said Ernst, who works full time as an administrative assistant at the Simi Valley Landfill.

Toni’s age--14 when she arrived--also made her compatible with Ernst’s biological daughter, Brenda, who was then 12.

But, by her own admission, Toni was rebellious when she moved in with Linda and Brenda Ernst.

Shuffled back and forth between relatives and her loving but alcohol- and drug-addicted mother during most of her life, Toni said she had grown distant and depressed.

“I was a real don’t-touch-me kind of person,” Toni said. “But the first day I came here I felt comfortable.”

Soon, she said, her grades shot up, her attitude improved and her mood lightened. Toni credits at least some of the change to Ernst.

“I never felt threatened by her,” Toni said. “My first impression was she wasn’t out to get me.”

After two years with the family, Toni asked Ernst to become her legal guardian. She said she wanted to feel safe and get out of the county’s foster-care system.

“Every time the social worker would come or I’d hear about courts, I’d think, ‘Oh no, I’m going to be taken away,’ ” Toni said.

Although Ernst agreed and took legal guardianship, both she and Toni know that Toni’s biological mother is a big part of her life.

Toni and her mother, who lives in Northridge, talk daily on the telephone and get together frequently.

“I don’t know what I’d do without my mom,” Toni said. “I’d be devastated.”

Annette St. Amant said she is recovering from her alcohol and drug problems and has no hard feelings toward the woman who has helped mother Toni for the past three years.

“If there were another woman out there who I could say is a good mother, that would be Linda,” St. Amant said. “She has loved my daughter and cared for my daughter as much as she has her own. I’ll always be grateful.”

Likewise, Ernst said she accepts that she will never replace the mother of the girl who has been in her care.

“I know I’ll never be, in Toni’s case anyway, her ‘Mom,’ ” Ernst said. “But she’ll always be a daughter in my heart.”