295 | Entering Foster Care, Surviving Abuse, and Accepting Grace (Gaelin Elmore: Part 1)
Episode Description
Gaelin Elmore’s childhood experiences included foster care, homelessness, and abuse. Now a father of two young girls, he reflects on how his past shaped his parenting and shares what other dads need to know about stepping up for children in foster care.
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Gaelin Elmore is a leader, writer, and motivational speaker whose childhood was marked by foster care, abuse, and homelessness. Now, Gaelin advocates for youth with adverse backgrounds. He and his wife, Micaela, have two young daughters.
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· Children naturally give you grace.
· You don’t have to minimize what you’ve gone through.
· Children in foster care are looking for someone to be looking for them.
· What if God asks you to make room for another child in your home?
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·SAVE THE DATE: October 19, 2023 at 7pm CT - Episode 300 Live Event: 30 Voices, 90 Takeaways
· The Reel Hope Project
· GaelinSpeaks.com (Gaelin’s Website)
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Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:00:38] I don't want to put my future in the hands of someone else who tried to sneak out of school, and my coach is parked out front. It was kind of this moment of like, we lock eyes and I'm like, I can make a run for it and you're not going to catch me. But then there is this, like respect of, I know who you are, I respect you too much and you have followed through up until this point. And so I'm going to see where this goes. And so I got in, we got my stuff, and I went to their place.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:01:06] Gentlemen, welcome back to DadAwesome. Today, Episode 295, is the first half of a two part conversation with Gaelin Elmore. Our Fathers For The Fatherless local partner in Minnesota, The Reel Hope Project. Their team introduced me to Gaelin because of the work that he's done in the foster care space in Minnesota and way beyond. He's going to go into his story today and next week, episode 296. Going to unpack even further his story as we kind of weave our way through this conversation, his story into dad life, practical application, back into his story, dad life, practical application. You guys, this is so valuable. I'm so excited you guys are listening today. Hey, before I hit play, though, on my conversation with Gaelin Elmore, announcement, Episode 300 is just five weeks away. Episode 300 is on October 19th. Can you guys do me a favor and save the date? This is five weeks away, so you got a little bit time here. Thursday, the 19th of October at 7 p.m. Central Time Zone. 7 p.m. Central Time Zone. Thursday, October 19th. Put that on your calendar right now. We're doing a live event where we're going to feature 30 voices from the past 300 episodes. 30 voices from, not the DadAwesome favorites, I can't pick my 30 favorites, but guys, it's going to be so packed. Each of these men are going to bring three practical like, do this to be DadAwesome. So you guys are going to walk away, after spending a couple of hours in this live event, you're going to walk away with 90 takeaways. 90 ways that you can be DadAwesome. And between each of these conversations, you're going to be hearing from listeners of the podcast talking joining me live. And there's going to be giveaways like you've never seen before. So there you go. You've been officially invited. Thursday, October 19th, at 7 p.m. Central Time Zone. It's a live event. If you're putting your kids to bed, you can have an earbud in your ear and you can kind of listen in and while you're doing bedtime. It's an important event, though, to celebrate, look what God has done in 300 weeks of DadAwesome. So let's jump right in. This is the first half of my conversation with Gaelin Elmore. How old are your girls?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:03:34] Laniah, our oldest, she is three years old. And then Tatum just turned one. So she is the one that we were just celebrating.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:42] It's funny. Your three year old looks like she could be five. Like, she's like, just like the joy and the confidence that I see in her eyes.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:03:47] Oh, yeah. If you saw her, too, you would see how tall she is. She is, she is everything but a normal three year old in personality and stature and just empathy and communication, all of it. She just she's so special. And it's we get to spend every day with her, so we forget sometimes just how like, how special she is. And yeah, it's a joy to be able to parent her.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:14] So fun. Well, a lot of the conversations I have on DadAwesome are with dads who have older kids because they're just more years logged. But I have requests all the time to like give me some conversations with rookie dads who are in their first, you know, 3 to 5 years. So that's what this is. We're not trying to, I'm not trying to communicate like I've arrived and have graduated kids from high school. My oldest is nine. So I'm a tiny chapter ahead of you, Gaelin, but this is really fun to have you on today and it's good to hear some of your story. And let's start with your family, though, your wife, how long have you guys been married?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:04:45] We've been married for four years, almost, it'll be five next, early, next summer.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:49] Yeah. So you guys got married, started having kids, and here you are, a family of four right now. How would your wife describe you if she was just introducing you to to the DadAwesome community? What are some of the things she would maybe mention?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:05:00] Oof! I think one of the things that would come through immediately is and this is not to get too deep, too quick, but it would be justice. I think justice is something that from my life experience, from how I connect with God, like every facet of my life, it's what I, comes first and foremost. So if we're playing a game, like if we're not doing the rules the right way, justice is going to shine through like...
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:28] The defender's coming out.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:05:29] Yes, I am absolutely going to pound table for that. If it's literally like us cutting someone off in traffic or getting mad that someone cut us off in traffic, it's the justice of like, well, we don't really know, like their side of it, what's going on in their car. We know what it's like to be in a car and your baby's been screaming for the last 15 minutes and tensions get high.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:51] So real, real life.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:05:53] Yeah. So the justice, like nuance of life is something that is for sure, I think she would communicate very top of the list for sure.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:03] Cool.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:06:04] But then I think the the, the soft playfulness side of me is something that she communicates to me all the time that she appreciates. And I think outside looking in, people wouldn't see that or expect that because of the justice peace, right? Like holding people accountable to the standards that we say we live by, to what we say we value and prioritize. But at the same time, like I do want to play, I want to be a kid like that is that is me at my best. And so if she had to say two things, I imagine that would be in the mix for sure.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:36] And then flip it, for a second, introduce your wife as far as what are some of the things you would you would say about her? [
Gaelin Elmore: [00:06:41] Yeah, she sees people. I think that is one of the things that has sharpened me the most as a person is like she genuinely like almost to a fault is very attuned and caring about what other people are feeling at all times. And so there are moments where it's just like she is helping me become more of a empathetic person, more of someone who is always being thoughtful about how my words are making everyone else feel or how someone else might be feeling about something way after the fact. And so that that is definitely one I think her ability to just be her in a space is I really appreciate in the sense of she's going to be goofy. She's going to be, she's going to like, play both sides in the way that she's going to be like, she'll defend me, but then she'll also be like, Well, I see both of your perspectives. Me and one of my really good friends, Rod and his his wife is really good friends with my wife. And we we make fun of them all the time because, do you know the easy button?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:56] Oh, yeah. Sure.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:07:56] Okay. So we we kind of play on words with that call in affirm button because whenever they get around each other and this is how my wife is with most people, she affirms people and what they say, what they're feeling all the time. So if someone could say the most outlandish thing and my wife is going to affirm them and find a way, authentically for her, to support and come alongside them in that. And so her ability to do that in rooms of people she's never met, in rooms of people that have known her since she was two years old is really, really special.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:32] Wow. I mean, that gift, if we could just be like your wife and call things out like that in our own kids, in our friends in our leaders, I mean, that's a gift that keeps giving and multiplies forward.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:08:43] And as someone who's like, So justice, focus for me, I can sometimes be very critical, right? I can very quickly notice like, Oh, I hear something wrong in that. Like that doesn't align with this conversation we had or the thing you said earlier that that you were really passionate about. And my wife is very easily able to see the other side of like, No, I do see where those things connect. And so it's, it's she is great at everything I'm not in and I'm very thankful for her for it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:12] Well, let's practice for a moment. Let's think about your two daughters. What do you see evidence of today that you hope and you pray will be true as they head into first grade or ninth grade or on their wedding day? What are some things you're like, see evidence, but you want to call out, affirm and speak life into? Like that's going to be true and I'm really hopeful and I believe that's going to be true in even greater measure. Are there some things that you see already?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:09:37] Yeah, my, our three year old, Laniah, she, she just has this ability to bring light into a space where everyone else might be unsure how to do. And she's three. She does not think about it, and she just does. And, so like I always want her to feel that even when she is going to go into schools and go into jobs, teams, whatever you want to call it, and she's going to experience people being threatened by that, experience people feeling like it's disingenuous, always wanting her to feel assured enough and confident enough that she can continue to show up in that way, that that light is never lost. I just see that adding so much value like we we normally go to our church service, the second one at 10:30 because young kids, but we're shifting with nap schedules in the morning. So we tried out 9:00 and so our Laniah had never been in that classroom at that time. And so we dropped her off and I came and picked her up and the person that was leading the class just came up to immediately and was like, She is welcome here any time. And it was just like this ability in a room of kids she has never been with to make everyone else feel comfortable because of the way that she showed up as herself. Really, really special. And Tatum our, our one year old, she has this beautiful balance of, like, toughness and tenderness where like she will she would defiantly like, growls. She literally growls and she will growl and hit one moment and then if you like, it's like if I'm talking to Laniah and my voice gets too loud, the next moment she will feel that and start to like, get emotional. And so it's just like in me, she's for someone who never felt like as a kid I could be tough and tender at the same time, she already has that showing up in her life. Where she is like, I am tough and I can fall down for stairs, but there is also time where you tell me no when I want to snack, and that's going to really, really hurt my feelings. And so I really want her to be able to continue to do that, to not to feel like she has to be one or the other. Be in a space where she's like, You know what, I have to protect myself all the time and I have to always be tough or to feel like, you know what, I am very tender and I can only be tender in all these environments, like sometimes our society wants young girls to be. So for her, I really want that to continue to shine through in all this different stages of her life.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:21] I love that. You mentioned before we hit record a comment that your wife made. Just take you, what happened, I think, was yesterday the birthday party that got rained out, and speaking something that you pray is true about your little one year old daughter. What, can you say that again?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:12:35] Yeah. So, I mean, if you've ever, I'm imagining a lot of you have been on, if you're anything like me, you've been in the passenger seat planning a party that you felt like, hey, I don't think we should be putting this much time, energy and effort into it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:50] Into a one year old birthday party.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:12:50] Yes, into one year old birthday party. And I'm someone again, like thinking multiple steps down the line. I was like, All right, what if worst case scenario happens? What if we get rained out? What if all these things happen? And in the midst of like, setting up this really cute, really fun, planned birthday party for our daughter, it starts to rain and it didn't zero like we checked the whole weekend, 0% chance in the forecast. Starts to rain two or the hour leading up to planning and setting up.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:19] So all the work is done?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:13:21] Yes. Continues to rain as people come and eventually at the height of the party becomes a downpour and we're outside. And so I thought, I thought I was going to have to do damage control. I thought my wife was going to she was going to be like feeling the weight of a failed birthday party. And in the midst of it, she just kind of tells me she was like, you know what, this might be super deep for a one year old birthday party, but I look at all of our people that are here and it makes me extremely emotional and optimistic that when it rains in her life that people will continue to show up. And yeah, we didn't get to do the games we played. We didn't get to open presents in front of everybody. And some of the books that were gotten were soaked in rain when we got home.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:06] Yes.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:14:07] But like this idea that there's community of people that will be willing to show up in our daughter's life when it rains is a really deep, beautiful thing to take away from a failed birthday party.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:19] I mean, the gift, that's a gift and also like busyness and life can cause us to put less emphasis on building that community that surrounds and being that community for others.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:14:30] Absolutely.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:30] So I was glad you called that out. I was like, yes, that's I want more of that. And we're, we're building into a new chapter as our daughter, our oldest is turning ten. And, you know, you're youngest has turned one of like, no, we need to build even more into that community of friends and being for others. Let's go, before we go back into your story, just to get, back stories are so important about who you are today. But just this chapter of a one year old, three year old, maybe one or two things that have been like, man, this has been more amazing than I could have even hoped. The dad life, you know, these first couple of years of like, man, I love this. And then maybe a couple of things on the other side of this has been way harder of like a few things that you've noticed or just helped rookie dads out of like, Oh, he's in it with us. So hit both sides, the the tough sides of it and the like delightful side of dad life.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:15:18] Yeah. I appreciate this question, before we get into the backstory, because I think it does add context to the now and what we're about to talk about. So for me, a lot of it, my how I experience life is wrapped up into the things I experienced throughout my childhood. So I think one of the things that has been so awesome in these early stages of fatherhood has been the the grace that my children gave me, naturally, right. Like this idea that I know I'm broken, I know I'm fallible. I know that I mess up way more often than I would ever have hoped as a father, right. But the fact that, like, the grace, just undoctrinated grace that they are able to give and the like, elevation that I have in their eyes is just so special. As someone again, as I mean, I travel for work often and so just coming home and being able to be pursued by my children, not me having like I always thought like, Oh, you're a working dad, you have to do this job and then you have to, like, force your kids to want to spend time with you. And not that I don't pursue my children, but like to be like ran after is such a beautiful, beautiful thing. So to know that from, as someone who lived in a lot of lived in the outcomes of a lot of decisions that were made by adults in my life to know that like, day to day in relationship, in brokenness, like my decisions, aren't like the end all, be all for my children. Like, that is super, super encouraging. And it just continues to to speak into me and give me life. At the same time, I think the hardest thing about being a father is like it's forced me to look differently ar what I did go through, right. Like, there are ways that I'm, as someone who navigated child abuse and neglect, right, like I'm, there are moments where I'm like, hey, how I responded in this moment, made my daughter, like respond to me in a way that I responded to people that abused me, right. Like a look of fear or terror and it was just like there's those moments where it's like one, like I now can start to like, put into context some of the things that I had to deal with, right. Because I'm seeing it through a lens of someone I would do anything for. And I feel like all of us out there can we can have a tendency to diminish what we go through. We have a tendency to be like, you know what, it's not that bad. Or other people have it worse, or we can minimize what we have to navigate. And being a dad is like, I can't do that anymore because I'm like, Man, this is what this impact had on my daughter. What does it look like over years in someone else's experience? So it just it that's that's a hard thing to to think about and and really just relearn and re understand some of the things that I, I kind of suppressed and buried for so long.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:40] Because we know the default is we're going to pass on what we experienced.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:18:44] Yes.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:45] So if we walked through pain, we're going to pass on pain to those we love most. And that's that's where the fact that you're not only in this chapter of dad life, you're being introspective and you're like bringing your full heart to your little girls. But you're also, I mean, you've given your life to helping other young adults, kids who have experienced pain. So, like, it's in front of you, everywhere you look, your own little girls and the pain elsewhere. So let's go into some of your story. And, you know, maybe we don't hit all the points, but I want to make sure the dads listening know, like, this is the journey, because I think all of our hearts, we want our hearts to not that we share your stories to our hearts break, but we want to understand this is what kids that don't have, parents who protect them can walk through. And we all can be advocates, like we have a ministry out of DadAwesome, Fathers For The Fatherless, but we haven't taken any time to, like, go in this, no, this is someone's real lived experience when they didn't have a dad and they were bouncing between 19, 22 homes, however many it was. So could you, yeah, take us into some of your story?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:19:50] My mother and father met in rehab in their mid thirties. They both had children before then. They both had battled with addiction and drug abuse and, yeah, they met at kind of their rock bottom, right. And very early on I became the thing that united them. I was the thing that gave them reason to keep going in their marriage. They ended up getting married after the fact, and at five months old, I was taken from them and placed in foster care for the first time. So the first five years of my life was this kind of back and forth in with like in care with my parents, out of their home, placed in a foster care and just this boomerang experience. And I would I would I wouldn't say that I lacked like relationship or connection or belonging or protection from my biological parents. Like when I was with them, those were, those were the best of days, right. Those are my childhood memories where I just, it was before this dark cloud formed over everything and where just became problematic because they weren't in their brokenness, they weren't able to withstand and navigate the system alongside me. And so, yeah, I experienced a ton while in foster care, but some of my, like not some of, most of my best memories come from relationship with my parents. And so, yeah, my, my dad, it's and I love that we're having this conversation because although I was a mama's boy growing up, 0 to 5, definitely a mama's boy. I don't have very many years of experience of connection with my mom. She ended up losing her parental rights when I was six years old, and so I never had a relationship with her as mom from six on. Like, it was just it was kind of severed, it was it. Whereas my dad got his rights terminated at the same time, but he appealed and continue to fight the court and continue to win and continue to like push it off to a point where when I was 12 years old and me and my sister ran away from our abuser, I was able to get placed back in his custody and got reunified with my dad. So like there is something unique about my relationship and connection to, to fathers, right. And my biological father, but also other men that came along the way that helped me become the man that I am. Whereas likd I didn't have a lot of moms, Right. I didn't. So I love that we get a chance to have this this conversation.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:44] Yeah. Can I just ask for the dads who don't quite understand what that means, parental rights were terminated because of safety and they weren't able to provide. So that moves you into a spot of foster care, maybe hoping to be adopted by another family.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:22:59] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:00] But yet your dad still came after you, came after you and fought. And foster care, just even to help the guys understand, it exists to help protect and care for kids while their parents are getting to a healthy place so you can go back. So that's the idea.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:23:15] Yes. It's supposed to be a stopgap for families that are, that are struggling for adults, parents, excuse me, for adults and parents that may be struggling to adequately take care of their children. Or failing to protect them at all. Maybe they are the the abuser. Maybe they are the one that is harming or neglecting. And so foster care, in those situations, when parental rights are are terminated, they're essentially saying you are unable to take care of your children and you have no, other than blood, like you have no connection or draw to them. And so then that's when you're open to be adopted. You kind of become a ward of like you become a ward of the state until someone claims you as theirs. What ended up happening was my dad, his rights were terminated at the same time that my mom, whose rights was about to be terminated, voluntarily, gave hers up in an effort that me and my sisters would stay together and be adopted in one home. So my mom term or terminate or voluntary voluntarily gave hers up and testified against my dad for him to lose his. And so since I was the only kid they had together, my sisters, when my mom gave up their rights, they were adopted immediately. My dad ended up appealing and it ended up going to the Illinois State Supreme Court, like for multiple years for that to be overturned. And honestly, maybe doesn't happen if me and my sister don't run away at some point to like, kind of bring, like, I guess, eyes back to our case. But yeah, my dad, he told me a story about where he showed up to court, hung over one day and just testified in front of the judge and everyone there that he was like, I want my son back and I'm going to get him back. And he's said, the judge literally laughed at me that day. And when I walked out, I knew, he was like I knew I was going to do everything I could in my power to get you back. And that included becoming clean for six plus years in that process. So, yeah, my my dad defied the odds in many ways. Dad's aren't, and honesty in the foster care space, dads aren't given the same benefit of the doubt that moms are. It's it's obviously an ongoing epidemic and problem within within child welfare. You can see it in other places, too, right. Where you have you have child support, like disparities in child support. You have lack of support and elevation of dads. And so the fact of my dad, amidst addiction and alcohol abuse, was able to battle the system and come back and get me was was a pretty profound moment.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:26:05] It's amazing.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:26:06] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:26:06] And if I understand your story, those first kind of five years were a lot of different places back and forth to mom and dad and a lot of homes. And then it was about five years in the same home where the abuse happened.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:26:19] Yeah. So the people that adopted my two sisters on that after my mom allowed them to be eligible to be adopted, were they were our physical and emotional abusers. And I stayed, it's the only home I stayed in longer than a year. And I ended up staying there until I was almost 12 years old. And the only way that we kind of got out of it was me and my sister, who was 14, I was 11 or almost 12 at the time, we ran away and we were gone for a month. And at the end of that time we ran out of places to go and stay and sleep inside, indoors and decided to turn ourselves in, fully expecting that we were just going to be taken right back to our foster parents home. And luckily we got a police officer who looked deeper right than the surface of these kids who were on the run, these foster care kids who have nothing better to do than than bite the hand that's feeding them. He saw something more and he dug deeper. And that launched an investigation that really changed the course of our lives.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:24] Wow. And maybe before the the part of your story of going back with your dad, what, from that first decade, 11 years of your life, Like for us dads listening to this is like we just haven't either heard your story or heard like like this is what kids are experiencing in foster care. What would you want us to know about what you know at large is happening? Or I mean, there's amazing stories and there's really horrific stories. Like what are some of like an insight in for us to just know more about foster care?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:27:59] Yeah, it's it's something that, foster care goes against our natural like biology, right. We are, like we are created to be with the people who, like birthed us. There's there's a quote that I love, and it's so haunting in a lot of ways, it says, We are all born looking for someone, looking for us. And the idea that there are a bunch of kids going throughout life, where they are looking for someone and no one's returning that that favor, no one's returning that that gesture or that commitment to being in relationship with them. And it's not the foster parents aren't, right, but it's this understanding of like that isn't our role. And so you're actively looking for someone, looking for you. And there's so so a kid going through it, a lot of that just begins to be this like internal soundtrack of your worth and your value. And you start to run into adults that maybe have things that they haven't healed from who are perpetuating the same stuff and you start to believe it. You start to believe, you know what, maybe I don't have a family because I'm not worthy of one. Maybe I'll just always be alone and this is what I can expect, and maybe it's better off that way for the people I do care about. And so you just, you're the worst things you can imagine start to feel like reality and start to feel true. So much so that it's going to have decades of impact in your life beyond just the time that you spent in someone's home as a foster child. And, I think something that I think really speaks to the connection to parents, but also just the fatherly connection is that even when I was not with my dad, like he was not the person who shaped me. He was not the person whose impression, like, was implementing all the virtues and beliefs in the way that I saw the world because I wasn't living with him. I still was like him. I'm still drawn toward him like there was some, couple of years back, before my wedding, it was actually we were it was days leading up to me and my wife's wedding. My mother in law, who I love to death, we were all hanging out with my dad, we flew my dad into town for the wedding and we were all hanging out, doing stuff and we were walking. And my mother in law pointed it out and she was like, Oh my gosh, you guys walk the exact same. And she's like, she's able to see me in someone else. So that's a really cool experience for her. But the context of that is like, I didn't grow up just only around my dad. And so just like this natural connection to those to those relationships. And I think it's even further solidified in like, the ways that my dad showed up, even amidst, like, foster care being the the moderator in our relationship. And so visitations, getting to connect with him, things like that, like he never changed his parenting style just because I wasn't with him, right. So my dad was a military man. He's very like, like strict like these are the rules oriented kind of person. And just because I wasn't living with them doesn't mean he was going to change who he was. His willingness and ability to boldly be him, even when like he had every reason to just give me everything I wanted out of like, shame that we weren't together. Those things had lasting impression on me and is part of the reason why I see such a, like the world through such a justice lens and mindset. And and so even though my dad will never take credit for me being who I am, he had such a tremendous impact on me.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:32:02] See that, that feels like a thread since we first met about 45 minutes ago. The honor that you speak of when you talk about your dad. I sense a deep honor. And to me, that's like, that's only, only God can can, I feel like, from what I know about your story, can like in still the way that you talk about your dad. And it's the way God's created us to honor our mother and father, but it's it's very rare when we've been hurt by or, you know, abandoned to some degree or they haven't been able to take care of. Can you take us into, the running away, then there is the, with you and your sister and then getting placed back with your dad?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:32:42] Yeah, it's it was, it was very anticlimactic, right. So you have this big runaway. You have all this stuff that comes with that, the police knowing and the investigation and school knowing like, we, I'd missed a month of school. So like coming back in the school was a shock for everybody. But I'm like, over time, over the next couple of months, I'm in new foster homes and in that time they are like, I'm slowly getting more and more involved with my dad. So we go from visitations again to overnight visits where I get to sleep at his place to weekend visits to where in the summer is like, okay, you can spend a couple of weeks here now. And it's funny because I was like, it was at the end of a weeklong like visit in the summer, and I was so ready to go back to my foster home. I was like, I was mad. I was just like, I don't want to be around you. I'm tired of you, like, I need to get away. This break is going to be good. And I'm sitting by the door, packed like mad, ready to go and I get a call from my caseworker and she's like, Hey, good news, we're not coming to pick you up because you're back with your dad.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:33:55] You're staying.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:33:56] I'm here. And she's just kind of like, we'll bring your stuff on Monday and hung up. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me. I'm here with this dude no,. Like, this is a time when I like, I would be okay not seeing him for a couple of weeks. Like, this is the time you're going to tell me I live here. And it was super anticlimactic. And really, we had to refigure each other out. Like it had been, I hadn't lived with him since I was four and a half. So I'm 13, I'm about to be 13 in a couple weeks, at that point. I'm going into seventh grade. Like I'd lived almost ten years without him. And so we had, and he had an parenthood for almost ten years, and so we had we had to figure each other out. And like it was it was new. And we were, as we were figuring each other out, we started to struggle financially. And I understand it now is this like deep desire to provide and take care of my family. So I can't imagine the weight that my dad was carrying around in his like, okay, we just climbed this tall mountain and now I can't keep the lights on. And so what he was carrying around, and so we we struggled going back and forth. And eventually at the end of my seventh grade year, we end up moving from Illinois to western Wisconsin, seeking better opportunity and although there was better resources, better opportunity, my dad quickly ended up relapsing in that time became our relationship became very physical and violent. And like, I'm battling, like my dad's battling like this 13, 14 year old challenging him where he's been this militaristic, like this is the way it is. This is the hierarchy kind of man. And I'm coming from a point of like I've lived most of my life without a voice. Now that I'm 13, 14, there's no way I'm willingly giving it up. So we just we fought all the time. And halfway through my eighth grade year, we became homeless. And even though there was turmoil at home, I was never going to jeopardize that to go back into foster care. So we just kind of lived in isolation, going to school, leaving school, not having a home. Did that for a half a summer, eventually got connected to an AAU basketball team where one of my coaches kind of recognized we didn't have a place, offered for us, for me to stay with him and his son for and their family for the summer, for the rest of our tournament schedule. And we did. And that ended up, we moved towns and kind of tried try to start new.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:48] And then there was a moment where your dad was not able to take care and you had a coach, I believe, step in. Could you help us understand that?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:36:56] So we moved to this new town, my freshman year, we struggled financially still. We lived above a dance studio. We lived in a bar. We lived, we shared a one bedroom out of a stranger's home down the street. Like, literally anywhere on the spectrum, we stayed. And eventually, like, we got kind of stable, for the first time. My dad, being a vet, got more military support. He was able to keep a job, and we started to do better financially. And then halfway through my sophomore year of high school, he ended up getting arrested and my dad is, was a felon, and it was just like immediately there before any sentencing, they were just like, he's not getting out any time soon. So, community, the system kind of starts to get involved again. And in my head I'm like, I'm going to, I'm going to run away and live life on my own. Like, I'm not putting my hand, my future back in the hands of someone else. I'm a trust me. And so I was committed to dropping out to giving up a future as a sophomore who was a starter, two year starter in football and basketball for high school team leading scorer. I had the honor roll student, had my whole future ahead of me and I was ready to throw it away because I didn't want to put it put my life in the hands of other people. And luckily, a man, a father, a coach in my school didn't let that happen. He pursued me pretty consistently and extended the invitation to come live with him and his family. He had three children, two of which I was going to school with and knew and invited me to come live with his famil,. And immediately my answer was no. Like, No, thank you. Like generous, but again, not trusting. I don't want to put my hands my future in the hands of someone else and tried to sneak out of school and my coach was parked out front and it was kind of this moment of like, we lock eyes and I'm like, I can make a run for it, or You're not going to catch me.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:38:57] I'm faster than you.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:38:58] Yeah, but then there was this like respect of, I know who you are, I respect you too much and you have followed through up until this point. And so I'm going to see where this goes. And so I got in and we got my stuff and I went to their place.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:39:13] Was it three years?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:39:15] It ended being two and a half.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:39:16] Two and a half years now of, I mean, just for us dads who, you know, most of us listening don't have high schoolers and are not in that phase, but like that chapter of thinking, I can make room for another. Just looking for what if, what if God does bring even some of us who are not currently in respite or foster care parents. Like because probably, was he not a foster care parent?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:39:40] No. He knew nothing about it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:39:41] So he got permission from the state to take you in.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:39:42] He actually and this is the cool thing, and I think it speaks to his character, I didn't find out that him and my dad had a relationship until after my dad was arrested. So my dad would literally, my coach invited my dad up to school during the day, during his lunch hour, and they would just sit and have lunch together. And so like, I don't trust, my dad trusts this man more than I do, right. I don't, like I've been, I've been in fights, I've been in trouble. Like I'm like, I don't know you, other than me being a player on your team. And so he actually pursued my dad without me being a part of it. And my dad was like, Yeah, I'll give you temporary guardianship of my son. And so in an effort to keep me from going into foster care, my dad gave my coach custody of me.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:40:33] Wow.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:40:33] Yeah. Which speaks to the character of both of them.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:40:36] It does.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:40:37] Right. I couldn't imagine being a dad, going through years and years of disrespect and laughing in your face and total disregard for your heart for your children to get me back, to get your child back, and then to voluntarily give them up, in an effort to protect them. That's why I honor my dad, right. And then for my coach to be someone that is pursuing my dad, has no reason to to be pursuing him, even when things were good, also, spoke pretty highly. My coach would start taking me to the county jail to literally visit my dad and I would talk to him and he would be out and then he would come in and they would talk. And um, so yeah, I, that's when I ended up living with my coach.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:41:35] So his love was for you as a, as a son, as a, you know, you were an athlete on his team, but like, he showed you fatherly love and he showed that love as a, as a friend to your dad. Thank you so much for joining us for this first half of my conversation with Gaelin Elmore. All the show notes, the conversation links and more information from the ministry, DadAwesome, is going to be at dadawesome.org/podcast. So you can find, maybe you haven't checked it out yet, but there's now searchable like 19 different filters that you can add to search through. Again, now we've had 295 podcast conversations. Just trying to make it more helpful for you guys at the new DadAwesome website. As a quick reminder, October 19th at 7 p.m. Central Time is the episode 300 live event. So, that's again, Thursday, October 19. at 7 p.m. Central Time Zone. Save the date. That's five weeks away. You got a little bit of time, but save the date for that special live event celebrating 300 weeks of this ministry. Guys, thanks for joining us this week. Thank you for being a DadAwesome. Have a great week with your kids.
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· 15:29 - “How I experienced life is wrapped up into the things I experienced throughout my childhood. I think one of the things that has been so awesome in these early stages of fatherhood has been the the grace that my children give me, naturally. This idea that I know I'm broken, I know I'm fallible. I know that I mess up way more often than I would ever have hoped as a father. But the fact that the grace that they are able to give and the elevation that I have in their eyes is just so special.”
· 29:45 - “Something that really speaks to the connection to parents, but also just the fatherly connection is that even when I was not with my dad, he was not the person who shaped me. He was not the person whose impression was implementing all the virtues and beliefs in the way that I saw the world because I wasn't living with him. I still was like him. I'm still drawn toward him.”
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