“I could do that!” she thought excitedly.

Carolyn Stedman, listening to the radio many years ago, heard about the critical need of foster carers. She loved being a stay-at-home mother for her children, aged four and two, and enjoyed such simple pleasures as taking the children to playgroup and to the park.

She wasn’t missing her career at all. She could easily fit another child into her routine. When her husband David returned from work that day, they “had a bit of a chat” about becoming foster carers – and agreed together to undergo the training.

Thus began Carolyn’s new “career” – offering love to needy and abused babies, toddlers, and young children. Forty-eight years later, now aged 75, she sees no need to stop and has looked after more than seventy-four children through the years, apart from her own. Her home was a safe place for children in need, and still is.

“We will continue to do this, even though some people think we are too old. But we’re fit, and we can, and there’s a shortage of foster carers, so we will continue,” is her standard reply to questions about “retirement”. She and David are now “foster-Nanny” and “foster-Grandpa” to the children of some of their special children.

Their aim was to take just one child at a time where possible, so they could focus their love and attention on that one’s special needs, and provide a safe and secure start to life, emotionally and physically. Each one was needy, following neglect or abuse. No foster child arrived without an awful background story of trauma.

Some babies were abandoned by their mothers at birth, left in the hospital. Carolyn cared for them until a permanent loving adoptive family was found.

Some were neglected and hungry. They sometimes arrived in a nappy (diaper) which hadn’t been changed for days, needing a bath to soak it off.

Others came with broken bones, (one toddler with both legs broken as well as a broken arm!) and stayed until a permanent safe home could be found or the parents were helped, supported, and monitored by Social Services so they had better coping skills. Restoration to a birth family was a desirable outcome, but not necessarily an achievable one. Authorities always put the highest priority on the child’s well-being.

Others were born addicted to drugs and could not remain in the care of their drug-addict mothers. These were perhaps the most difficult as Carolyn had to help the severely distressed babies go “cold-turkey” in order to give them an optimal beginning in life. Her strategies included firm swaddling and a lot of patting and rocking.

These poor “heroin babies” had a particularly shrill and unceasing cry and were only settled with movement. Their piercing cry damaged Carolyn’s hearing – too many hours of walking with a screaming baby on her shoulder close to her ear. Other times Carolyn rocked the bassinet or bouncinette for four or five hours at a time, stopping only to feed the baby or herself.

Even eighteen months later these babies of drug-addicted parents retained the markers of addiction, becoming tense and jumpy toddlers with an inability to sit still, and with delayed developmental markers. David and Carolyn could always tell the toddlers born as drug addicts. Once an addict, always an addict, even if they aren’t actively using. Even for babies. What a terrible disadvantage to starting life.

Social Services tried to re-home siblings together wherever possible, to reduce trauma for the children, so there were many times when several children from one family were taken in. David and Carolyn also accepted three sets of twins during their fostering years.

At one stage Carolyn and David were caring for nine children.

Her role as foster-mother was not without many obvious challenges, but her patience and love were enormous. How did she do it? She credits God for giving her the strength. “God called me to love babies; that’s the gift He gave me,” she declares “God expects us to use the gifts He gives us for as long as we are able.” He enabled her, day by day, by giving her the physical and emotional strength to carry on.

Her babies and toddlers all did well, many times exceeding expectations. When a baby born with syphilis, drug addiction and suspected cerebral palsy developed naturally into an active and healthy toddler, opening cupboard doors and sometimes running around being naughty, Carolyn was thrilled to see the change.

David and Carolyn went on to have another four children of their own, and took a two-year break after each birth, providing a normal beginning for their own. That system worked well.

As the Stedman children grew older, they too took turns at rocking or feeding babies and toddlers; they grew up with compassion for these foster-siblings and developed a very realistic and immeasurable understanding of infants, toddlers, and young children. They also could appreciate what it was to enjoy a stable and loving family life, being aware of the traumas these little ones had already lived through.

For Carolyn and David, who knew these foster children were theirs to love on only a temporary basis, the hardest part was saying good-bye to the little ones when a permanent placement was found, never knowing if they would see them again. But they knew too that they had provided love and stability during the child’s earliest years, giving each one the best possible beginning.

Each child left with the Stedmans’ love and prayers to sustain them, and a children’s Bible. Carolyn and David were always happy to see the changes and the love in these special children – that was their reward.

Their own children too found it hard to say good-bye to the foster children. One daughter reflected that the pain of separation never got easier – “We had to learn from the age of ten, or younger, how to manage our grief when the little ones left us! It never got easier!”  

Even as a child she found herself upset because the next family might not know the meaning of certain cries of the child, or understand his little ways. She worried that the child may not understand where he was, or why he had gone to another home.

This daughter also admitted that life was not always easy – when her mother was too busy to take her somewhere she wanted to go, or when the little ones’ crying was upsetting and frustrating, and she was asked to rock the baby “for the thousandth time”, but as she says, it was the only childhood she knew.

Now she cannot be prouder of her parents who were both recognised with an Order of Australia medal in the 2022 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for New South Wales.

Carolyn used her award to speak of both the necessity and the privilege of being a foster carer and what an essential service it is.

She and David now have twenty-six grand-children to love as well – so their children’s childhood obviously did not deter them from the thought of having their own babies to look after!

Mothering eighty children! That’s no small achievement. Wishing her a wonderful Mother’s Day.