Door Is Always Open at This Home

Today, like every Mother’s Day, the phone will ring off the hook at Betty Howard’s house on Cardigan Avenue.

Her children, ages 9 to 35, will call from around the nation to tell her how much they love her. Flower shops will deliver bouquets of carnations, Howard’s favorite flower. Mail carriers have already filled her mailbox with cards and letters addressed simply, “Mom.”

If there was a record for child-rearing, Howard would be in the running. Over the past two decades, the boisterously outgoing woman has mothered four natural children and more than 200 foster children.

“My whole life’s been my kids,” said Howard, 55, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m a mom and I wouldn’t know how not to be a mom.”

She will share this Mother’s Day with six children. She is a foster mom to three, an adoptive mom to two and a legal guardian to one. Foster child Melissa Keliipio, 17, moved in only a few months ago and already knows she never wants to leave. “I’m staying until I’m 80,” she said.

Not every Mother’s Day around the Howard house is a scrapbook moment. But each is memorable. Surrounded by framed photographs of her children and grandchildren, Howard, a small woman with a large, welcoming presence, giggled as she remembered the time several of her children took her out to breakfast--but left her with the bill.

Then there was the time they brought her breakfast in bed-- soggy pancakes and burnt toast.

Howard became a foster mom 21 years ago, when her son was in the hospital. Down the hall, a girl in the custody of social services was being treated for complications from diabetes. Knowing the girl needed a home, Howard applied for a foster parent’s license. When her son was ready to go home, the girl came too.

Since then, Howard has opened her front door, her refrigerator and her heart to scores of foster children, many who were physically and sexually abused.

“I want these kids to be safe, and to be able to deal with life,” she said. “I want to help them get strong enough to say no to abuse and strong enough to ask for help.”

Howard has won awards for her generosity. Ventura County’s child welfare agency has named her Ventura County’s foster parent of the year, as well as the most requested foster parent.

Brian Howard, 26, her biological son, said even though he felt like the house was a little too full at times, he can’t imagine growing up differently. “My mom gives so much,” he said. “And I love her a lot.”

Howard’s husband, Danny, has been a willing partner through it all, including the time it came to remodel the family’s three-bedroom house and turn the garage into two more bedrooms.

Every day, several children and grandchildren pop in and out to have a snack, play cards, watch television or get a hug. But on Mother’s Day, the house really fills up.

“I’ll hear from them on Mother’s Day, and I may not hear from them until next Mother’s Day,” she said. “But I know I made some impact on them.”

And then there are the Mother’s Day presents--most of them homemade: a ceramic handprint, a clay flower holder, a cloth embroidered with “Happy Mother’s Day.” One year, foster daughter Jamie Rosengrant, now 22, gave Howard a ring with stones matching all colors of the rainbow.

“There are so many different kinds of stones, and I know that she has quadruple that number of kids,” said Rosengrant, who recently returned to Howard’s house from Pennsylvania.

She said she has felt like Howard was her mom since the day she came to live with her eight years ago. “I was a kid in the family,” she said. “I wasn’t just a foster kid. And even if we have other moms, she’s still mom.”

Keliipio said she can’t believe how many kids have lived there. “I think she’s nuts for having this many kids in the house,” she laughed. “I’d go crazy. She has a lot of patience.”

Occasionally, her children try that patience. But whatever they do, she keeps opening the front door to new ones. But last week, when social workers asked Howard to be a foster mom to two more teenagers, she had to decline. Every bed in her home is full, she said. And still she feels bad.

“Those are kids out there that need homes, and it’s hard to find homes for them,” she said. “But sometimes I have to just let go.”

This year, Howard expects her Mother’s Day celebration to last all weekend. One of her sons planned to take her to a concert on Friday, and two of her grown children said they would take her dancing Saturday. Today, she plans to go to brunch.

“Don’t forget to bring your credit card,” Rosengrant joked.

But of all the Mother’s Days, one stands out in her memory. That was the day, 15 years ago, that the Howards adopted Teresa, a 3-year-old with big brown eyes and ringlets. She had been Howard’s foster daughter since she was 10 months old.

On Mother’s Day in 1984, Teresa’s natural mother signed the adoption papers. That moment, both women cried, hugged and cried some more.

“What better gift can you get than having a child given to you?” Howard said.