Thoughts on fostering and the ivory tower

I discovered this blog this morning via StumbleUpon and have been reading it off and on, with my heart breaking, all day. The blogger, Rebecca, makes her love for her foster child obvious, but so is her pain at losing the little girl, whom she calls "Jacket." I've gotten through about 50 pages now, and I'm almost overwhelmed at what this woman is doing: essentially single-parenting while working full-time, while also dealing with the emotional ups and downs of knowing that the child you have come to love will eventually leave you and probably go back to an unhealthy environment. It's definitely worth a read, though I will warn you about getting sucked in.

Reading and thinking about this corresponds rather nicely with a conversation Sam and I had this weekend about our chosen professions and, more specifically, perceptions of the "ivory tower." I told her that one of the things I struggle with as a training medievalist is the fact that what I'm learning to do doesn't directly help anyone. The conclusion that I've come to is two part. One, if I'm doing what I love, I'm a happy, productive member of society, which is better than me doing something I hate that I think I ought to do. Two, though my work with, say, Anglo-Saxon poetry may not be life-changing for any of my students, the way I teach can be. Everyone has had a teacher in the past (or perhaps has one now) that has changed them, even if they didn't like the subject that particular teacher was teaching. That's who and what I want to be when I grow up.

So while right now I may not be able to save the world one foster child at a time, there are people that I can impact by doing what I love and doing it well. I'm not entirely convinced that that's the answer to my ivory tower dilemma, but that's what I'm working with at this point. Any thoughts?