You can't phone in fatherhood, Walter Dobbins knows.

Growing up, Dobbins had to seek out his father, a TV repairman who didn't live with him.

His dad never initiated contact.

But Dobbins' baseball coach treated him like a son, not an afterthought. He took him everywhere with his daughters. Dobbins calls him his foster dad.

Now Dobbins is a foster dad. He and his wife, Cheryl, raised five of their children and 12 other children in their eight-bedroom home in Madisonville.

For 18 years, they've worked through Beech Acres' therapeutic foster care, which places troubled or disabled kids, ages 10 and up, in temporary homes.

Dobbins is a layout technician for Cinergy and pastor of First Baptist Church of Mount Auburn. But parenthood is his life's work.

"Me and my wife want to plant a seed in children," he said. "A lot of children going through tough times need to see that there's some light; it's not all darkness."

A father figure

It starts when a child walks in. Dobbins can tell the ones who aren't used to a father figure. They ask his wife for everything; they avoid his eyes.

He's patient. He wins them over with sports, his five aquariums, videogames. Sometimes he's never more than a buddy.

Other times, he's an advocate. Some of his kids have been in trouble for shoplifting, running away, shooting a dog with a BB gun.

Once Dobbins challenged a magistrate who refused to let a kid incarcerated 30 days come home for Thanksgiving Day.

Dobbins said, "Sounds like you just want to put him in jail. Why don't you just put me in jail, too?"

Luckily, the judge didn't take him up on it. The boy came home 90 days later.

How do you raise five of your own and 12 others with special needs?

You shop in bulk, Dobbins says. You fit in the required twice-a-year physicals, their medications and therapy sessions.

You also keep them in church. Like true preacher's kids, they attend Bible study, choir practice and Sunday services.

It's not foolproof. One of Dobbins' boys walked out of church two weeks ago and hasn't returned. The Dobbinses have filed a police report, but they fear he's returned to drugs.

It's tragic, Dobbins says, how determined some foster children are to return to their parents, no matter how unfit they are. They'll starve, even live on the streets, to be with them.

Drawn to their parent

One 11-year-old boy came to the Dobbinses after 14 foster homes. His dad died when he was two; his mom was on crack.

"He was very smart but had a lot of anger in him," Dobbins said.

"On his good days he was great. On his bad days he was terrible. He'd throw things, cuss you out. He'd apologize a day or two later."

The boy constantly manipulated the system, Dobbins said, angling to get back to his mother in California. He never did; his aunt adopted him when he was 16.

When a foster child leaves, the Dobbinses give them a photo album full of their pictures. Dobbins says it's so their families can see how they've grown. So they won't feel as bad for missing the time with them.

Of course, some foster kids never really leave. The Dobbinses' first foster child, a mentally disabled boy, was supposed to stay only 90 days. He lived there 11 years. His mother had six other kids and an alcohol problem.

Now, at 25, he lives on his own in Norwood, a high school graduate who works in a cafeteria. He calls Walter Dobbins almost every other day.

---

E-mail damos@enquirer.com or phone 768-8395