This single dad adopted 3 children so that they wouldn’t have to have the life he did in foster care
Barry Farmer always dreamed of being a dad but never expected his family to turn out as it did.
“I look in the mirror all the time, and if you would have told me 10 years ago that this would happen, I wouldn’t believe you,” the 30-year-old Richmond, Va., man shared with WTVR.
Farmer, a single father, adopted his first son ten years ago when Farmer was just 21-years-old.
The boy named Jaxon was 8 at the time when farmer decided to become a foster parent, he told Inside Edition.
“Personally, I grew up in kinship care, which is another form of foster care. My grandmother raised me,” Farmer said. “Her doing that for me, there was no way I could actually pay her back so I decided it’d be a good way to pay it forward.”
Kinship care is a kind of foster care where a child is cared for by a relative or other adult, such as a godparent if the real parents are absent or unable to do so. Foster parents, however, are normally unrelated to the kids they give care to.
Farmer first started to think about adopting a second child over the next few years, and began searching through the Adopt U.S. Kids website, as per WTVR. And that is where he found 15-year-old Xavier, who became his second son in 2015, according to Inside Edition. And the following year, Farmer added 8-year-old Jeremiah to the family, he told the site.
He understands his sons do not look like him – he is black and they are all white. However, he does not mind their differences in color.
“It’s a typical family, Farmer told ABC 7. “We may not look alike, but it’s a typical family. In this day in time when it comes to family, and seeing color or seeing unity and belonging, and that’s what I was hoping to accomplish with my family anyway.”
Farmer’s tale comes during a foster care crisis. Several locations such as Georgia, are in desperate need of foster parents. Children are increasingly at risk of falling through the cracks and being lured into drug dealings and sex trafficking, according to John Degarmo of the Foster Care Institute. The currently dire condition of the opioid crisis is straining the system, as a rise in addictions and overdoses have pushed many kids into foster care, The Washington Post reported.
And as foster kids grow, such as around the ages of Farmer’s boys, people are less likely to adopt them, according to Deseret News.
Farmer told WTVR that people need to overcome their notions about child adoption.
“There’s no reason to be afraid of our foster children who are waiting to be adopted,” Farmer told the station. “Fatherhood has brought me lots of joy. I can’t imagine my sons not being with me.”
See Barry’s heartfelt interview with INSIDE Edition in the video below.
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