For These Two Perpetual Parents, 97 Is Not Enough

James and Frances McManus are each at an age when they could be traveling around the country, walking the malls or just kicking back and taking it easy.

Instead, they are diapering infants, helping with homework and filling Christmas wish lists.

The McManuses--James, 70, and Frances, 69--have been foster parents for nearly 20 years and have cared for 97 children.

Their latest foster child is a 3-month-old boy. They also have adopted two of their charges, 3-year-old Tiona and 10-year-old Jasmine. And they have five grown children of their own and 14 grandchildren.

The McManuses say they are foster parents for a simple reason--they love kids, especially babies, and they want to help.

“It gives you a sense maybe you’re helping, making a difference,” James McManus said. “It’s let us realize how thankful we are to have what we have. God has given it to us.”

The couple say their role has kept them young in mind and heart. They’ve kept in touch with a few of the children too.

“It kind of brings you back to your youth,” McManus said. “It’s like I’m 35 again.”

It is not commonplace for couples like the McManuses to be adopting or caring for children without blood ties, said Margaret Hollidge, director of the American Assn. of Retired Persons’ Grandparent Information Center in Washington.

“I don’t think it’s a widespread trend among seniors,” said Ernest Lissabet of the Seniors Coalition, a nonprofit senior advocacy group in Virginia. “[Yet] so many seniors are now leading longer and more productive lives, this is not to be unexpected.”

These days, many retirees are starting new careers, others are returning to school--and a growing number are going back to parenting. Those 65 and older make up about a fifth of all people raising their grandchildren, Hollidge said.

The McManuses’ adult children question the couple’s continued interest in foster parenting.

“I would want to be in Florida,” joked their daughter, Traci McManus, 35. “That’s not where their heart is. I love them. But sometimes I wonder and worry about them.”

“They think we’re crazy,” Frances McManus said, adding that she rejected the idea of finding a hobby because she is already doing what she enjoys.

Traci was 15, still living at home, when her parents became foster parents for the first time in 1980. But she was also at an age where she saw friends more than family, so having someone else around was not a big struggle.

“It was an adjustment,” she said. “I was the baby of the family. [But] if I’d have been younger, it would’ve been harder.”

Anna Stone, assistant deputy director of the Missouri Division of Family Services, said there are no age restrictions on foster or adoptive parents. The state asks only that caregivers create a long-range plan for the child.

The McManuses say foster parenting is a ministry they felt called to by God. They say people can make a difference--if they are involved for the right reasons, not for financial reward. Costs can add up, as the state pays a stipend averaging only $9 a day.

The Kansas City couple got involved after Frances McManus saw a woman bring foster children to their church week after week. She always had a soft spot for babies, and it seemed a good way to be around children.

“She told me they were foster parents and I said I’d love to do that,” McManus recalled. “She said, ‘We can work that out.’ ”

The McManuses learned that preparing to be foster parents in Missouri takes commitment. There are criminal and child-abuse background checks and 27 hours of training. A family also must be equipped to handle another person in the home. Prospective parents also undergo physical exams.

The perks of having extra children around are well worth the effort to 10-year-old Jasmine, who loves babies. She helps her adoptive parents bathe, change and feed them.

“It gets boring, so, like it’s nice to meet a new friend at school. It’s the same with having a new baby,” she said. “You don’t know what they’re going to be like.”

The McManuses have lived in their modest, three-bedroom blue home high atop a hill for 10 years. The inside is covered with photos of kids--foster children, birth and adopted children and grandchildren. McManus also carries a bunch of their photos in his wallet.

“You have to love them--this has to be a labor of love, or you wouldn’t do it,” said James McManus, a former Wal-Mart manager.

Their mission, though, is not without drawbacks.

“You’d be surprised how many friends you lose because they don’t want to be around kids,” Frances McManus said.

The McManuses acknowledge that the toughest part of foster parenting is letting the kids go--either back to their parents’ homes or to an adoptive family. But it’s something they have learned to deal with.

By state and federal law, a child is supposed to have a permanent plan of where to live within a year of entering the system. Still, the average stay of a foster child is about 29 months.

Frances McManus said experience doesn’t make it easier.

“I cry a lot,” she said. “It hurts, but you learn to go on.”