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Homeless Children V049:
By Willie Gaffer:
July 17, 2006:
We are told by ABC News we have half a million children in the foster care system in America. Many of these kids are being switched from family to family like poker chips in a game. Many of them have been in half a dozen or more homes. In fact, these kids have no home. When they interviewed some of the kids you could see the despair in their faces. Our dog has a better home than they do.
The problem, they say, is a shortage of good foster homes. Think about that! In a country of some 300 million people, the authorities cannot find half a million good stable family environments for these kids. I say bullcrap! It must be the cheap two bit political rules that make finding these environments impossible, because the environments do exist. What's going on? I think three things are going on. The major one, I believe is racial politics. Another is financial elitism. Then there are the ownership rules. Let's look at each of these things.
A large proportion of these kids are black. But, we have black raciest who pretend to believe black kids should only be with black families. Say what? So, where are the black families who are stepping up? For whatever reason no enough black families who qualify are being found. So, what these black raciest are really saying is they would rather have the kids homeless that be with Caucasians. Why don't they ask the kids? They might get a different take. Along with the black racism there are some white families who simply will not accept a black kid. In that case, the kids are better off being homeless.
Financial elitism keeps a number of good environments from being made available to these kids. A family must have a certain income level to qualify to be adoptive or foster parents. That is absurd. So long as the child is cared for, what does income matter? Growing up, I knew of some very happy kids who were dirt poor, but they were loved and were pretty much like their neighbors. The didn't notice being poor because they were not different. On the other side, I knew some very unhappy kids who's parents were quite well off. They had neat stuff up the kazoo, but their parents didn't know how to love them. They thought they could buy love at the toy store.
Another problem comes from the rules about natural parent's rights. In many places, perhaps not all, the natural parent's have rights even though they have abdicated their responsibility. People can take a kid in, care for him, love him, and try to adopt him. Then, after investing their hearts and compassion, they learn they cannot adopt the kid. The natural parent refuses to sign the necessary waver giving the kid up to a good home. That's a bunch of crap.
There are enough foster homes and enough compassionate people to adopt the kids, but it will never happen, because of political rules. However, there is another solution for these kids. Think of Boy's Town. Take the idea of an environment like that, remove the religious bias from it, and propagate it through all 50 states. Don't call them orphanages, because fools will go ballistic when we use that word. That is because of some failures caused by criminally inept governments many years ago. That was an era of the spare the rod and spoil the child philosophy.
Many other evils also happened to kids in those days and sometimes still do. Kids were and still are beaten, starved, bullied, sodomized, and tortured. That is an evil and unavoidable truth, but it need not be true of kids in protective custody. Unfortunately, it does continue to happen. We can take a recent case in Flint, Michigan as an example of what should not happen. A five year old kid died at home because his parents were not caring for him. The were, in fact, mistreating him. The conditions were truly horrible. The kids body was crawling with lice when he was found. A social services case worker had been there twice. She knew the conditions in that home, but the kid was left there. He should have been in protective custody along with his siblings. The authorities are going to charge the parents with a crime. I respectfully submit the case worker should be charged as an accessory before the fact. In another case reported on Good Morning America a 12 year old girl had to go into surgery to remove cockroaches form her ears.
In properly run and monitored homes, kids in protective custody should thrive just as they do in Boy's Town. If it's a sore spot, we need not call them orphanages, we can call them Kid's Towns. These could and should work well. An important element in these homes is the kids would not be different. They would all be in the same situation, kids without parents. It's a common bond. For the budget minded people, these homes would cost less than our current hodgepodge of alleged solutions because they would be more efficient. The most important thing though is it would be better for the kids. A lot of kids would be together in a stable environment. They would get proper care, nutrition, education, and medical attention. They would be healthy and happy.
Now, will any state every attempt a solution like ths? You know the answer. By the time th political hacks got through with it, it would not work. They would hedge it in with so many rules and regulations it could never be implementer, or worse, it would be implemented to the detriment of the kids. That's the unfortunate track record of American politics.
Meanwhile, we were shown on TV news, a family who is spending
more than $20,000.00 to import and adopt a kid from China. Even
with that effort, It seems it is just as easy to get a Chinese
kid as to get an American kid. We were shown this family by the
media in a way meant to encouraged our sympathy for their effort.
I was not affected in that way. I consider it to be a tragedy
that they are going to China to get a kid, while there are adoptable
American kids in their neighborhood.
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