INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — James and Frances McManus are each at an age when they could be traveling around the country, walking the malls or just kicking back and taking it easy.
Instead, they are diapering infants, helping with homework and filling Christmas wish lists.
The McManuses--James, 70, and Frances, 69--have been foster parents for nearly 20 years and have cared for 97 children.
Their latest foster child is a 3-month-old boy. They also have adopted two of their charges, 3-year-old Tiona and 10-year-old Jasmine. And they have five grown children of their own and 14 grandchildren.
The McManuses say they are foster parents for a simple reason--they love kids, especially babies, and they want to help.
"It gives you a sense maybe you're helping, making a difference," James McManus said. "It's let us realize how thankful we are to have what we have. God has given it to us."
The couple say their role has kept them young in mind and heart. They've kept in touch with a few of the children too.
"It kind of brings you back to your youth," McManus said. "It's like I'm 35 again."
It is not commonplace for couples like the McManuses to be adopting or caring for children without blood ties, said Margaret Hollidge, director of the American Assn. of Retired Persons' Grandparent Information Center in Washington.
"I don't think it's a widespread trend among seniors," said Ernest Lissabet of the Seniors Coalition, a nonprofit senior advocacy group in Virginia. "[Yet] so many seniors are now leading longer and more productive lives, this is not to be unexpected."
These days, many retirees are starting new careers, others are returning to school--and a growing number are going back to parenting. Those 65 and older make up about a fifth of all people raising their grandchildren, Hollidge said.
The McManuses' adult children question the couple's continued interest in foster parenting.
"I would want to be in Florida," joked their daughter, Traci McManus, 35. "That's not where their heart is. I love them. But sometimes I wonder and worry about them."
"They think we're crazy," Frances McManus said, adding that she rejected the idea of finding a hobby because she is already doing what she enjoys.
Traci was 15, still living at home, when her parents became foster parents for the first time in 1980. But she was also at an age where she saw friends more than family, so having someone else around was not a big struggle.
