CINDY STIRLING’S life has always
revolved around kids. The eldest of six,
she grew up caring for her younger sib-
lings. After high school, she enrolled at
Seneca College in Toronto to begin
training as a cop—she figured it would
be a good way to protect children—but
she dropped out after a year to take a
more direct approach as a residential
counsellor with Community Living, a
non-profit for people with disabilities.
In 1985, she met her future hus-
band, Ross, who worked at a centre
for youth with mental-health prob-
lems in Oshawa, Ont. Stirling would
pick him up from work before dates,
chatting with the teens while she
waited. Soon after, she studied family
and rehabilitative work, and began a
new career in social work.The Stirlings married in 1986. For
them, the decision to become foster
parents was easy. Through their work,
they’d seen how many kids needed lov-
ing parents, and what happened when
kids didn’t have them.
In 1999, they bought a four-bedroom
house in Mississauga. Over the next 20
years, they filled it with children, as
many as nine at a time. Three of them
were theirs, biologically: Molly, Drew
and Jaslan. The others were foster kids.
If there was no one else to care about
a kid, Cindy and Ross Stirling would.
Ross started doing sales and market-
ing for large companies, while Cindy
worked part-time at Community Liv-
ing and ran the household. She became,
in fostering lingo, the “designated par-
ent,” meaning she was the one dealing
with child services, filing paperwork,
talking to biological families and bring-
ing kids to court.
She has fostered more than 200 kids
over the years, between the ages of
18 months and 16 years old. The kids
call her Cindy, Mom or Mama Bear.
Dozens of former foster kids still
come by the house some months,
looking for money or a meal. One of
her former foster daughters, now in
her 30s, calls her multiple times a day
for favours and parenting advice.
Nowhere in the foster-parenting fine
print does it say that she has to keep
caring for kids once they leave, but
she does it unceremoniously, because
that’s what you do for your kids.reader’s digest
52 may 2020