page 1 - Mature Living in the Southeast

cover storyChildren . . .The Key to ParadiseBy Helen Gardner“Each child is an adventureinto a better life - an opportunityto change the old patternand help to make it new.” Thisis a quote made famous byHubert H.Humphrey manyyears ago about children.Shelia and RobertTaylor are a livingexample of thisquote today. Thecouple have beenFoster Parents for 18years and served ashost for Foreign ExchangeStudents forseveral years.The couple hashad up to 100 ormore foster childrenin their home and sixforeign exchangestudents over theyears. All of the foreignstudents havebeen girls and mostof the foster childrenhave also been girls,therefore Robert hashad to learn to live in a housedominated by girls.In regards to the foreignstudents they have had twofrom Germany, two from Korea,one from Indonesia andone from Mexico.When asked about the differencein students from other32Mature Living Winter Editioncountries and students inAmerica the couple said, “Foreignstudents are more appreciative.They focus more ongetting a good education.”But in contrast they havealso noticed that families inAmerica seem to be closer dueto the fact that students’ parentsfrom overseas have towork many hours in order tosupport their families. Theydon’t seem to have as muchquality family time as mostAmericans spend with theirfamilies.A large number of the childrenthat have been a part ofthe Taylor family, even thoughthey are grown now, still stayin touch with them.The reason the Taylors becamefoster parents was becauseof their love for children.They wanted a large family andcouldn’t have any more childrenafter their first daughterwas born so this brought aboutthe idea of adoption. Thecouple was told the best wayROBERT AND SHEILA TAYLOR AND THEIR DAUGHTERS DAWN, MELINDA AND MARIA.to adopt was to become fosterparents first and then adopt.They did and this led to themadopting two other daughters.Their daughters are Dawn,who is a teacher with the BaconCounty High School;Melinda is in college and istraining to become a teacherfor early childhood education;and Maria is a student at BaconCounty Middle School.“The advantage of beingfoster parents is we and ourchildren have learned so much.continued on page 34