mrimagine

There is enough blame to spread around to make everyone a little uncomfortable. Case workers with unmanageable case loads. Foster parents who can make large money tax free. But what about a culture that pays anyone biologically able to bear children? A culture that condones and encourages single women to have and rear children? A culture that allows a parent or parents to not parent. Broken children are often very hard to fix. Abused and neglected kids are raised to have a very different idea of "normal." The norms established in the earliest and most impressionable months and years of life seem to become a refuge when everything else in their lives -- home, parents, family, school, friends -- changes and changes again. Many foster parents are saints. Most begin with high ideals and standards. But to undo the effects of early abuse and neglect seems often to take superhuman ability and patience. Residential treatment is often the dark hole of child welfare. So there is enough blame to go around. And there is hope. From the perspective of one involved in the system, there is no substitue for the commitment, faith and love of the foster home. The system is limited by many factors; none more important than the caregivers it can recruit and retain. Do not think there is an easy or quick fix for the problems that we as a society have brought upon ourselves. There is Hell to pay.