Janie Boschma

Junior Emily Mueller has 66 brothers and sisters.

While technically 64 were her family’s foster children, Mueller said she loves them all like her own siblings.

“I’ve had that many kids in my house, and that many kids touched my heart. Why wouldn’t you consider them your own?” Mueller said. “If you’re loving them and treating them like part of the family, they are your family.”

The Muellers became a foster family for the first time in 2002.

Since then, 64 children have entered their home, they made a new addition to the family and Mueller says it’s made her see life differently.

“Do we still get our own rooms?”
When Mueller’s parents, Litha and Gary Mueller, sat her and her brother, Jacob, now 14, and sister, Grace, now 17, down years ago, little did the siblings know that something drastic was going to happen to the family.

“My mom and dad sat down and said ‘You know, we’re interested in doing (foster care),'” she said.

In 2002, the family moved into Mueller’s grandparents’ house after her grandma passed away.

“My grandparents did foster care . so we’re living that legacy in the same house that my mom grew up in,” Mueller said. “It’s kind of cool that way.”

She said when she and her siblings found out their parents’ plan, they were thrilled and had just one question.

“I think at that age, we’re like, ‘Do we still get our own room?’, ” she said with a laugh, adding that they did and had an extra room to spare for a nursery. “It was cool. We were very excited and couldn’t wait.”

Mueller’s mom, Litha, said once her children got older she thought they would understand why they were helping these children.

“Our three children were getting old enough for them to be able to understand that some of the kids would be beaten or hurt or broken,” she said.

And she said she thinks the experience has opened several communication doors with her kids.

“It has given us a lot of opportunities to talk about different subjects that probably never would have come up otherwise, and I think that they are both mentally and emotionally healthier because they learned unconditional love,” Litha Mueller said. “I think that is going to make them better adults.”

The family takes children ranging from 4-year-olds to premature babies, Emily Mueller said, and they usually stay anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple years.

The family is registered under Milwaukee County, and a licensing worker inspects their home once a month. Whenever a child needs a home, and the family has an open bed, a placement team calls to ask if they would be willing to take the child.

Usually, Emily Mueller said the county limits the number of children at each home to three or four at a time, unless there is a sibling group. Then it can be a little more.

“Sometimes it’s hard.”
Emily Mueller said it’s sometimes difficult to get the kids adjusted depending on what kind of circumstances they come from.

“We’ve had some kids come in and they don’t know how to play with toys,” she said. “We had a little 18-month-old who didn’t know how to eat; he had been given bottles until he was a year-and-a-half . We’ve had some drug babies.”

But seeing them transition into functioning, normal kids is what Mueller said is the most rewarding.

“After a while they start realizing, ‘OK, someone’s here, someone’s loving me, someone’s taking care of me’ and they just become so content and it’s awesome,” she said.

Of course, the time always comes when the children are adopted or go to live in a different home, something the family said is always a difficult time.

“It’s hard to say goodbye, but to know that they’re going to be in a really good place that they can just stay there and that they’re going to have a good family is just awesome,” Grace Mueller said.

“We get to have our own lives, too.”
Emily Mueller said people always ask her if she feels deprived of a normal childhood, since this took place during her high school years, but she said she doesn’t.

“The experience has been really great,” she said. “If anything, I developed that unconditional love that you can have for something or somebody, so that’s been probably the best and most rewarding part of the experience.”

She said she and her siblings have their own lives, as well; it wasn’t always about babysitting.

But Mueller said they love to help out.

“We love to be around them and kid with them,” she said. “We get to incorporate our outside lives into the family . It’s perfect.”

Grace Mueller agreed.

“It’s really fulfilled my life even more,” she said. “It’s weird if we don’t have any babies, our house just feels empty. They’ve really become part of our life and we remember every one of them.”

“I can experiment with what I’ve learned.”
A music therapy major, Emily Mueller said she wants to work with kids, so she’s had several opportunities to practice what she’s learned.

“At home, I can sit at the piano and plop someone up next to me and it’s really cool, because I can experiment with what I’ve learned,” she said.

And Litha Mueller said she thinks the reason Emily picked music therapy was to give back to people.

“As our children are approaching adulthood, we’re challenging them to give back now in one way,” she said. “If every family would give back to the community in one way can you imagine what our society would be like?”

She said her daughter is very gifted with music therapy.

“She’s very patient and compassionate and very understanding.”

“I don’t see in color …”
During last Christmas break, there were nine people living in the Mueller house.

“It was quite the experience,” Emily Mueller said with a laugh, adding that that was probably the most memorable experience.

“We had so many kids, and it was funny because me and my mom and my sister decided one day ‘Let’s go shopping with all the kids!’ ” she said. “It was a little bit chaotic, but it was fun.”

But she said some people stared at them with unkind eyes.

“We have kids that are African American, Asian, all different races,” she said, adding that some people she’s dealt with are prejudiced against that. “It’s just too bad that people still think that way.”

She said some foster homes get bad reputations, because there are mixed race families and people hear horror stories all the time.

“You never hear anything good and positive, which is too bad,” she said. “I know other foster families and they’re wonderful and they treat these kids like their own.”

Elijah, her 3-year-old adopted brother, is African American, and Mueller said it’s not an issue at all.

“I don’t see in color I guess, because everybody deserves to be loved,” she said. “It shouldn’t matter what you look like.”

Litha Mueller agreed.

“People need to realize that for every negative (story) that you hear, there’s so many kids that are being blessed by parents and families that you don’t hear about.”

The family said they were never in it to adopt, but they fell in love and adopted Elijah two years ago.

“He has been with us since he was eight days old,” Emily Mueller said, adding that he was with the family for more than a year and when his parent’s rights were terminated they decided to adopt him.

And they said their family will probably keep getting bigger..

Mueller’s life drastically changed in 2002, but she says it opened her eyes to how lucky she is.

“It really gives you a chance to put your own life into perspective and see it could be a lot worse,” she said. “You could have parents that don’t care, that don’t realize you’re even there. When you’re having just a really crappy day all of a sudden you’re like ‘You know what? This kid has nobody but us.’ ”

She said it’s made growing up fun and she wouldn’t want it any other way.

“I can’t believe we didn’t start sooner,” she said with a laugh. “At the end of the day, it’s uplifting, and I’m proud that it’s been a part of my family.”