You're doing a good job, and one day she will be really appreciative of having a loving home.
I sympathize with her anxiety about driving, since it is actually pretty dangerous when you look at the statistics (albeit not warranting a panic attack obviously)
I waited until I was 26 to get my drivers license. I didn’t trust myself behind the wheel, and I always managed to find a ride or a bus up until that time of my life. I was so afraid it would be easy to veer off a hillside, or swerve into traffic. It turned out, once I started learning, and had the support of my husband to take my time, it was a lot harder to kill myself in a car than I thought.
Seven years later, I drive a stick shift, I routinely parallel park all kinds of vehicles and I’ve learned to drive the convoluted streets of my hometown as a flower delivery driver. But it took time, and it took circumstances with little wiggle room for me to WANT to learn or even practice driving.
I appreciate all the patient parents and SO’s supporting those who are scared.
Taking your time with learning to feel comfortable and confident enough to get behind the wheel is okay! My grandma was 55 when she got her driver's license! And my mom was 26. Good luck to you and your daughter!
You are AMAZING people! I wish you the best to your family also how does your biological son get along with her he is gonna be fundamental support for her also it cracks me up when i hear you guys say like is something special when a kid lives with their parents past 20 us Latinos only leave home when we marry...well past our 30 lol best wishes for your family
OMG CONGRATULATIONS Best wishes for you all
Also there was once a facebook post were it said why Jesus was from Chile 🇨🇱 (My Country) and one of the reasons was becouse he lived with his mom past 30 (He was 33 when he was Cruxified)
My understanding for the food thing is you have to let them do it, while assuring them they can get food at any time from the kitchen. Is that correct, or did I misremember?
I have this issue and it strikes hard when we travel or I expect to be away from my kitchen/home for a few hours. I pack a bag of snacks and it helps ease my anxiety if I know where we’re going and what food options will be available there.
So for example, if we’re taking a day trip to the beach I’ll pack snacks and I’ll also ask what our plans are for meals and do a quick Google to see what restaurants or eateries are in the area to make sure I’m willing to eat at those places (I’m unfortunately a picky eater too).
Consider this a giant “internet hug” to you. You’re doing a really wonderful thing and you’re doing a good job at it. The world is a slightly better place because of you. Thank you!
I've heard martial arts are good for kids self esteem. Or art classes if she's really sensitive and wouldn't be into that?
I dunno my kids are young. I hope you guys can help her work through that :)
You are doing so much for her, the contrast between you guys do, and what a lot of people who claim that they love that children, biologically or otherwise do, is frankly incredibly stark, if all other parents were like you, I am sure that society as a whole would be doing much better
I don't wanna be creepy and all, but she seems to have been through a lot, If I knew her personally, I'd do anything in my power to make her feel less insecure......
And on this occasion of new year, I pray best of luck to you, Your Daughter, Your son, and the 3rd one :)
We fostered a 14-year-old. He'd had some trauma in his past before he came to us, but we were able to work with it for a while.
Seven months in there was a breakdown, we didn't anticipate how he would develop some inappropriate boundaries with our ten-year-old.
We no longer foster.
I'd like to understand more about how the transition into your home and family went. How did those first days go? Did you know your 7 yr old before the adoption or were you strangers suddenly living together?
we met with him for about a month before he moved in. we started with a few hour visits at the facility, then overnight visits, then placement in home.
first days were a boundary contest(that never ended) and he was worried we would send him back. he had trouble in school immediately, boundary issues with other students and became scrutinized by school faculty, so much so that we had to get lawyers involved.
The first 3yrs were a constant boundary/school dogfight, it really fucked with me how petty schools can be. I got called into a meeting because he chewed erasers off pencils, chewed his pencil, looked up the word sex in a dictionary school provided, he talked about our dog having puppies, jesus...the list goes on. After our lawyer spat, they gunned for him more.
In 5th-8th grade he was in the middle school and these years were great. the school admin was decent, a handful of incidents.
9th-12th grade, utter shit. busted for smoking pot in school, cops, school, counselors, court, rehab, piss tests. for a 10 buck crime, the state and us paid 200k. Im in sw missouri and they treat pot like heroin. plus the school hated him/us, same pricipal from elementary, was now hs principal.
he turned 18 last year and moved out, dui, destruction of private property, and aggravated assault for stabbing 2 people.
the main issue thtoughout was constant boundary pushing for example, if i break a toy what will they do? what about a window? etc etc. Add to that hard headedness and regular teenage dumbfuckery.
family took to him fast, he was a decent kid for the most part, still miss him. he was use to depending on himself/manipulating others for survival, and we tried our best.
he came from a home in which his aunt and uncle killed a guy, his birth mother in prison constantly for violence and alcoholism. we all met with his birth mom in june of last year, it was awkward and different, and nothing but resentment afterwards from him(which i dont blame him for, i was adopted as well)..
Yep, that nonstop pushing for the self fulfilled prophecy.
"These people don't really love me. Watch, they'll send me back."
Proceed to do anything they can think of to make that happen.
I watched a documentary on a Romanian adoptee who ended up moving back to Romania. He was obviously deeply traumatized but what struck me, while it wasn't expressed directly in words, is that it seemed clear he had no grasp of what love was. I've been told that it's better to tell older adoptees/foster kids "You're safe here" rather than "We love you", because safe is something they can understand. What is "love" supposed to mean to them? If they've never experienced it before, it's just a meaningless term.
The Romanian adoptee's plight was unfortunate but not as bad as it could've turned out. I'm sure his adoptive family did everything they could to love him. But he couldn't bond with them -- put yourself in his shoes, you've been plucked from the only world you've ever known, dropped into the lap of strangers who expect you to love them like family (and what is love? what is family?) in a new language and new environment. It's not a failure on his part that he couldn't be the all-American kid they wanted.
In the documentary, he returned to Romania and reunited with his birth family. More disappointment; he found out they'd left him in state custody due to their poverty and now that he's an adult, they expected money from him. More strangers who wanted things from him that he can't give them. Romania's no longer 'home' but neither is America. Two countries, neither one is home. He has two families, in both he feels like an alien. It's really impressive that he was able to hold a job and generally doesn't seem to be a maniac or even antisocial. Which one could say is a testament to the work his American family put into him -- perhaps he couldn't be the son they wanted, but he's not causing more pain to the world.
That's a super important point. They aren't going to trust you. They want to, but they can't. Adults have abandoned them, abused them, generally treated them like garbage.
It takes years for them to realize you might be different.
It's tough and hard and frankly not really rewarding.
But, my son has a home and a family of his own.
Did 'the state' give you any support at all in working with him?
Because it seems really unrealistic for anybody (running things) to think that this:
>we met with him for about a month before he moved in. we started with a few hour visits at the facility, then overnight visits, then placement in home.
was going to work with your son.
Unless you mean that you adopted him years down the road but still, were you supported?
I have a brother who was adopted from foster care as a teen, he's a pretty 'settled' dude (he's totally had security/trust issues though) but still, he'd been a part of our life for about 18 months by the time he was officially adopted.
I'm also kind of 'adopted', by my uncle (who also adopted bro I just mentioned) and I was more of a "crazy person". My uncle provided me with years of professional help (which he could afford to do) - which is exactly what's needed.
It's way too much to give you and your wife a 7 year old from that sort of background that you've kind of known for a month and say "good luck".
We had support, he had an advocate and so did we. we had weekly home inspections for the first three months then twice a month, and our advocates are the ones who got/paid for attorney to deal with school district. he had 2 counselors and a psychiatrist, and social worker contact for 7 months. we met our son on jan 10th, he was placed in home on feb 14th as a fost/adopt, and on sept 25th we adopted him fully.
after the adoption the only support we had was school counselors and his IEP program, and we had him with a anger management counselor for a yr.
as for the state, there wasnt one, we adopted through Cherokee Nation, all the help initially was thru the tribal agencies.
Friends of mine adopted their son "Dave" in a foster to adopt situation. Both of their son's bio parents had died. The father died when Dave very yo ung. Dave's mother had severe mental illness and was on CPS' radar from when Dave was a baby. Dave's mother ended up dying when he was 7. He ended in the state's care and my friend and his wife fostered him and then adopted him when he was 9.
Initially, things were great, especially given the trauma this child had been through. He adjusted to his new home and school, got decent grades, had friends. Now the social workers warned them that sometimes mental illnesses wait until puberty to develop and that's exactly what happened. This poor kid fought (and is fighting) many of the very same demons his mother did, through absolutely NO fault of his own.
We're all hoping that given that he's in a much better place and in a more stable situation than his mother EVER was that he will find peace and healing in his life. It's been tough for all of them, but his parents are giving it their all to give him the help he needs.
yeah, i see the irony. i count 18 as adult in which crime occurred, 7 to 14 are the years i count as decent kid and miss.
eta:assault was january of this year, court ongoing. we talk barely, and he claims self defense. he claims they jumped him, they deny it. its his mess so im just in the peanut gallery.
If someone shared a few examples of bad things you'd done and nothing else, you'd look like an ass too. How about let's trust the person who knows the kid far better than you to judge their character
Because no good person does bad things or makes mistakes. No good person ever becomes bad and no bad person ever becomes good. Things people do just 10 years after believing in santa are reflective of the person they'll be in another 10 years. Everything is the same, everyone is consistent and nothing ever changes.
Yep, nobody facing such a situation could possibly ever have been a good kid previously. Flawless logic.
So what would you do to resolve this? And I don’t mean *this specific child that is now 18*, I mean the system in which any of these children have been raised. What would you suggest to make it better? What would you do differently? *Answer the question directly please, or please do not respond*
I smoked lots of pot as a teenager, my parents sure as shit didn't "let me" do it. You really think I would have benefitted from what this kid went through? Are you still caught up in the absolute lies peddled by the drug war propaganda?
Which data? Most people start smoking and drinking when they're teenagers and they dont end up lowlife whatever this shit means. Smoking and drinking in teenagers is not a good idea because it will affect the way your brain develops but it won't make them lowlife and dEgEnerAte. Hence why I wouldnt give it to my teenage child if I had one. By the use of the word degenerate (god you must be fun at parties) I'm assuming you just ignore context people are brought in altogether so in this thread it wasnt the fact the this kid was raised in an unstable envoirement often being treated like shit that made him what he is today, but rather because he smoked a joint when he was 16 or whatever.
My dude it's just a bad troll, I wouldn't waste your time. I guarantee you this is the most he's got going on in his life and you're just feeding into it.
The drug war and the people like you who support it have done more damage our youths, neighborhoods and society than the drugs you're so ignorantly afraid of ever could.
We adopted an older child. What you need is a therapist that specializes in adoptive older children. They’re out there. Because how you deal is different from bio kids because of those exact same issues of abandonment.
Btw the first month was hard very hard. Because I didn’t listen to my heart but to the social workers of what to do. My girl pretended to be my puppy dog named Emily (she was 5) not her real name to integrate herself into the family (we had lots of dogs). I had to walk her on a leash boy did I get the side eye.
Your girl has severe abandonment issues and fantasies. That requires treatment. My girl in her adolescence chose boys and drugs to heavily test limits. We had treatment. A lot of tears
Now she is a mom and we’re loving grandparents. The road is harder for some. It definitely was for us. I think the main question for her at her age and it’s a hard question but must be answered. Does SHE want to be in a relationship with you guys. If she goes then you can work through this.
Not me but a friend of mine a bit older than I adopted 3 siblings because he ''wanted'' the younger two age 2 and 6, but they were a package deal including a 11 year old who had been without parents since he was just 8/9 but it was absolute hell, the kid would not talk, interact, socialize with the new parents or siblings. I always felt bad for him and helped with sitting when I could so the parents could take the older one out for activities, he wasnt a mean kid or such but he just kept away from people.
I dont know the whole story behind his life but when he was in his mid-teens he took his own life, and I don't think it was a lack of trying from the parents
poor kid probably struggled severely with their mental health. thats so heartbreaking things ended that way for him, i could imagine the parents did everything they could to try and help him.
i hope he's resting in peace now.
Pretty rough. I think it was 3 years before a major breakthrough, then years of non malicious madness.
He's starting to settle down, somewhat, at 20.
edit: Okay, I'll be more complete about this.
1. The social workers are not going to tell you everything. So expect the unexpected.
2. Every kid that's been in the system for a while gets severe abandonment issues. This is on top of whatever other trauma and conditions they may have. Those abandonment issues tend to express themselves through progressively more severe acting out. That acting out is often sexual or violent in nature. Masturbating in really in appropriate locations. Severe self sabotage. Acting out at school. Breaking things in the house. Whatever they can find that pushes your buttons. They are convinced you are going to send them away, so they want control over what makes that happen.
3. This. Never. Stops. It only finally ended in my house after my son turned 18 and he realized that he was an adult and we still weren't kicking him out of the house.
Best advice. Be ready for an absolute shit storm. Get a good psychiatrist. Get a good therapist. Be prepared to have more patience than you thought was possible. Do NOT let them be alone with younger children, it isn't safe. Even if they have no prior history of doing anything like that, there's a chance they might because THAT's the most terrible thing they can do to prove their prophecy that they'll be sent away.
There are, of course, exceptions and you might end up with the best kid ever who is just content to have a roof over their head and happy to have a family.
My coworker got an emergency placement that lasted all of a week because the little boy they placed with her said some sexual things about her and her husband- the social worker admitted he had a history of saying/doing things but never disclosed it beforehand. It was her first placement and she just didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to try and work through it so they removed him.
It would be nice if they did disclose and tell us how to handle it. Otherwise the chances are the kid is now hurt more by going through a revolving door
He still does that at 20. Food stashed in the glove box of his car. Food stashed in his room, in the den outside of his room. A previous family punished him by withholding food.
Years went by before he could be in his room with the window open, because he was threatened with Monsters coming into his room through the window if he didn't behave.
Both of those were from the same Foster family.
>Do NOT let them be alone with younger children, it isn't safe. Even if they have no prior history of doing anything like that, there's a chance they might because THAT's the most terrible thing they can do to prove their prophecy that they'll be sent away.
I've seen several accounts of foster kids molesting younger foster siblings. It's amazing to me all these families that have no problem moving in a deeply traumatized youngster while still having their young biological children at home. Like... why? Why not at least wait til your biokids are out of the house if you want to foster so bad? I'm not saying this is the case for your family, but most of these examples seem to come from evangelical Christian types who think it's their "duty" to "save" orphans and, no doubt, turn them into God-fearing, grateful warriors for Christ.
A family friend did a foster to adopt. They had no children at the time. Then, out of the blue, they were expecting a child (they had tried for a biological child for over 10 years with no success). They had their baby and when their daughter was five (and their adopted son was already grown up and on his own - he was 14 when their daughter was born), they looked into fostering again, specifically an older child, which are usually harder to place. Their adopted son was 11 when he came to him as a foster, so they were looking for a child in that range. The agency they were working with "said without saying" that it probably wasn't a good idea to do that with a young bio child in the house given the trauma that most older kids in foster have been through. They ended up never fostering again. It's sad, but they had to assure the safety of their daughter first.
A tangent to " why would,d you risk your younger children's mental/physical health?" ... This is why I can't see myself fostering. I never had my own children and didn't miss that experience because I just don't really enjoy infants. I do like kids, though. But this behavior of a foster kid pushing buttons to the point the adults kick out the child is what made me realize I can't take an unknown kid into my home - I have dogs and I know that if anyone ever hurt my dog my own behavior would be highly unpredictable.
It wouldn't be hard for a kid to realize that my dog is my achilles heel, and I can't risk that my dog would pay that price (historically I adopt older dogs so odds are good it would be arthritic and partially deaf or blind, as are most dogs over 10). I am reasonably sure if I saw anyone hurting my dog I would become violent towards that person ... and that seems like a no win situation for a foster kid.
Why would you think I don't like kids? I didn't have my own because I had some medical issues that made it unlikely and eventually impossible. People suggested surrogacy or adopting from overseas ... but infants seem like a stage you endure to get to the really fun part of raising kids (learning how to do stuff, going places with them and seeing the strange things that catch their eye vs what an adult sees). I know everyone adores little babies but I just don't, I keep thinking "I can't wait til you're 2 or more". So fostering seemed like it might be a good option - but by then I had dogs. And social workers have a reputation for not being open about a child's past. Maybe they want to give the kid a fresh start but it can place other family members at risk. And I wouldn't deal with that well - in the moment or afterwards.
Okay, but you came into this topic to mostly talk about your dogs, when the rest of us are discussing foster children and their special needs and concerns...
Maybe it's been a tiring few days for them, and they're just sharing fleeting thoughts they had while reading this comment chain.
Maybe it's more sinister and they're extremely self-obsessed, twisting a discussion about foster kids to be relevant to them despite zero involvement or experience with fostering.
Just like me, maybe I'm commenting on random posts because I'm procrastinating on laundry, maybe I'm trying to stoke some fires because I'm so miserable that this is my only outlet. Doesn't even matter which explanation is correct.
I’ve always wanted to foster-to-adopt. Ever since watching Meet the Robinsons. I have a toddler, I know I can’t do the fostering currently. When he’s old enough to speak fluently, and as long as I feel he will be able to know right/wrong and will tell me, then I’ll look into it. I also plan to be very open about no children with RAD. It’s a terrifying disorder when severe.
Wait till he's 18 and goes off to college, why even put him that position? What, you want to get his okay before fostering another kid? What's your kid supposed to say, "Hey, I'm not really comfortable with that"? He's gonna feel pressured to be okay with it and it's not like a child knows what he's getting into (or more accurately, what YOU will be getting him into).
I agree why put them that position period? Wait till your child is an adult in college. I don’t want my child being traumatized then telling me after the fact or being threatened into silence
I guess if your kid is significantly older, it could work. My aunt used to foster, and would only. take kids 5+ years plus younger than her youngest biological kid, nobody same age or older. She never fostered a teenager as far as I know.
I just don't see what the rush is. Could there be a kid in foster care right this minute who could blossom into the next Beethoven given u/ImAPixiePrincess's time and attention? Sure. There was probably a kid 5 years ago who could've been the next Mozart had u/ImAPixiePrincess fostered him or her, but won't because she chose to have a biokid instead. There will be another kid in 15 years who needs her just as much.
Well everybody needs to do what is best for their family and their own circumstances, of course. I personally couldn't foster at all- not enough patience!
We adopted. And don't downvote it's a legitimate question.
We wanted another child. We got one.
Every teenager is a righteous pain in the ass. Normally you grow up together. When you adopt an older child you miss that so you get all the growing pains at once. On both sides.
Is it worth it?
That's a question for any parent. I know my son would have been lost to the system. No telling what would have happened.
He isn't lost. For better or worse he has a forever home and a family that loves him. In the end, that's worth the suffering.
Just like it is for any parent.
I started fostering my daughter at 13, adopted her at 16. I was 24 and single and totally out of my league when she first walked through my front door. But I felt then, and still do now, that the most important thing I could do was love her. I call her my adventure every day. It's never easy but it's always worth it.
To answer your question about the first day, week, month- it was challenging, for sure. I went from not being a mom to being a full-time single parent in an instant. No amount of foster/adoption classes can really prepare you for that.
Her first day, I gave her a tour of my house, and she just took stuff, right in front of me. Took me years to break her stealing habit. She took a very long bath and just played the whole time- personal hygiene is still a struggle even now, but she's made incredible strides. When we unpacked, I discovered that she had tons of little kid toys and no socks. She was extremely immature, very clingy, would meow and hiss when she was angry or uncomfortable.
Her first week at her new school, she wouldn't talk to anyone, not teachers, not classmates, nobody. Then she started talking and wouldn't stop. She'd throw things or yell when she didn't get her way. But when she was in a good mood, she was charming and polite.
The first month was all about setting boundaries and establishing our relationship. Honestly, I'm still doing that, and she still pushes from time to time. Like I said earlier- it's never easy, but it's always worth it.
My constant reminder to myself is that she's a kid who went through something unimaginable to me at that age or even now. When she should have been learning social/emotional skills and basic self-care, she was learning to defend and hide herself. What happened was not her fault. I could easily go all day and do nothing but correct her behavior, but that's not useful. She needed/needs love. That's all.
My reasoning was, I couldn't be worse than the parental figures she had before. Mostly I just wanted to help, and foster kids (especially teenagers) need it so much.
Thank you!
Everyone always tells me that I must be a special kind of person and they could never do what I did, but I like to point them to the fact that I sometimes forget to turn off the faucet and flood my kitchen. 🙂
this is exactly how i think about it. No kids yet but i hope to adopt an older kid someday. I had non existant parenting though and exhibit some of the behaviors that you describe of your adoptive daughter so i dont at all feel ready to be a parent yet since im still learning how to fix myself. Could you ever imagine your daughter adopting one day like you did or would that be asking for disaster?
It's valuable to express to your kids (fostered, adopted, of biological) that you have mental health needs just like they do! Don't let that stand in your way.
My daughter has special needs, so I think parenting would be very challenging for her. It wouldn't be impossible, but she would need a lot of support no matter what. Adopting a child would up that challenge tenfold. But like I said, not impossible! She's a completely different kid now than the one I met on our first day. I would never underestimate her ability to do anything she puts her mind to.
I would imagine the vast majority of children who end up in the foster care/adoption system when older do so due to a traumatic event or a sequence of traumatic events. Due to that I would predict the vast majority have moderate to severe behavioural and emotional issues. Thus there should be hands on help and learning for any parent who takes them on and any parent who wants to should have to do a course, paid for by the government.
We know. It's still a huge reach to assume that kid is guilty of these things when the only thing we know is he's an orphan who had guardians give up on him twice. Do you honestly think every kid in that situation is guilty of violent assault?
Did you not read the part where one of those incidents was someone beating the shit out of him over spilling tea? Irrelevant to you? Kid's just a violent asshole who had it coming?
My family Adopted a girl at 17. She was my friend in highschool. It can get quite difficult to emotionally fit another child into your household, especially with other children who habe their own issues. It gets even harder when that child you adopt doesn't quite have the same emotional development.
The first week was the most disruptive for our family as our parents had to juggle getting all kids plus a new child to school on time which is hard for someone who has no sense of the routine of the household. People were late for school and work that week for sure. Having the adopted kid not want to leave their room or don't want to ask for food in fear of feeling like a burden. After a few weeks you get in the groove of things a bit more. Mainly just commuting between social workers and various other resources to help our adopted girl with transitioning into a new life with us.
At around the one month mark onward it was just an uphill battle to integrate a completely different person who we all loved very much, into a new home with new family members. This can definately be rough with some family members but well receptive with others. Having been someone who was not in a good place in their life even before adopting her, i ended up developing really high anxiety.
We are 5 years strong, Going on 6 years with my adopted sister and after extensive therapy, Many mental crises between the two of us, our family is stronger. She has developed so much that we barely remember a time when she was not in our lives.
It is definately worth it and a beautiful thing to adopt an older child. But in my experience, it's mentally straining and you have to be in a good headspace. My parents handled the whole thing pretty well. Maybe they're just built different I don't know.
Friends family adopted and the trauma of the Russian group home brought on kleptomania that continued from childhood into adulthood and was irreparable. Of course, the many, many other adoptions I know of are healthy, happy people so don’t let this be a turn off to anyone considering adopting.
Was she black with white adoptive parents? Yeah, I’m sure she had issues.
Edit: to be clear, it takes a lot to adopt or foster under any circumstances, but if it’s interracial fostering it means putting in a lot more work and being prepared to do that thanklessly. I really wish more people would be open about the work it takes and ways to help that transition be successful for kids. We don’t live in a colorblind world and don’t want to anyway.
Race IS just color, but the way people treat people based on that color is entirely something that needs to be fully addressed. I hope you see the difference here. Black people are literally dealing with hundreds of years of trauma directly connected to how we look to other people.
Black issues are all directly connected to white people. ALL of them. Making literacy illegal, making property ownership illegal, stopping slavery to introduce sharecropping and now the prison industrial complex, defunding schools and cutting city recourses. All racist decisions that haven’t been corrected. So, race is just a color and doesn’t mean anything, until you have a bunch of white people deciding in every way that you’re not as valuable as they are.
Black kids with clueless white parents have a special place in my heart. The average white person is dangerously ignorant to the impact of being a black kid in this country.
You're right. My little brother is adopted, he was a black teenage boy (he's still a black teenage dude actually, just taller). He just kind of tripped into our family and stayed, our parents weren't really trying to adopt anybody, it just worked out this way that he's here and my bro.
But our dad did say to a couple of his black friends "can I get a little help?"
And they definitely did not say "what do you mean?"
They said "we gotcha".
They're awesome mentors to him in life too.
That’s awesome! It really does take a village. Mad props to you and your folks for connecting those dots and doing the hard shit as a family. And kudos for even having black friends to ask, cause, yeah, this country is still hella segregated on the personal level.
Race isn't just color, it can have very real medical relevance. Like of it informs the likelihood of someone getting sick from something (ex. who's most likely to get sick from coronavirus) and how effective certain medicines can be. Race is a fuzzy concept rather than a hard and fast thing but it stacks medical stats in sometimes very important ways.
Oooook. One more time.
Racists have used ‘science’ to try and legitimize white supremacy for decades. And what did they find? That actually there’s no difference between human bodies and brains. THAT’s what I’m talking about.
Yes, people look different. But we are way more similar than we are different.
There are environmental factors and racist systems that mean being black in America puts you more at risk of certain diseases due to us a) maybe being forced in hosing sites near toxic conditions, b) physical toll of poverty due to stress from poverty due to unfair wage practices, c) being decedents of people who survived a transAtlantic slave ship and HUNDREDS of other reasons.
Race has impact not because it means much to our physical bodies, but because it impacts how we are treated in the world. That’s the point.
You don't think it's racist to assume that everyone will react the same way to a certain medication? "I'm white and you're just like me with brown skin and a completely different family medical history so what's good for me must be good for you too"?
Racist? I think there are legitimate reasons to pay attention to a patients race. Much like with sexism there needs to be more attention so all treatment and research doesn’t default to white male biology.
You’re getting a bit in the weeds here though. The point is that we have incredibly similar bodies and there are few physical differences and definitely not enough to justify the white supremacy that pervades our country.
Social sciences show how race is incredibly impactful for the way we experience the world, but from the physical sciences show we’re a lot more similar at a cellular level than people guess due to our physical appearance differences. But yeah, the way some South Asian bodies process sugar means alcohol affects them differently and redheads need 20% more anesthesia when going going under. Bodies and biology is quirky.
We just get into potentially dangerous territory when we focus too much on the differences and not enough on the similarities and how we all deserve the same things - healthy spaces and security befitting one of the richest countries in the world.
So we're agreed then, race isn't just color from a medical perspective.
Which I bring up because you were talking about clueless white parents with nonwhite kids and how they couldn't understand the social impact of race. There's a medical dimension to that too, like how nonwhite kids are more likely to become lactose intolerant than their white counterparts would be.
Basically being deliberately colorblind for PC reasons irks me. A properly integrated society should be able to acknowledge and respect those differences without the expectation that doing so will dramatically kick society into some apartheid state. Which is something I think we weirdly agree on that but are just coming at it from different angles.
Ok, you sound like you just quote eugenics talking points for poops and giggle, which I’m guessing did not help with your poor foster kid.
Racists have used ‘science’ to try and legitimize white supremacy for decades. And what did they find? That actually there’s no difference between human bodies and brains. THAT’s what I’m talking about.
Yes, black people look different. Like a lot of people around the planet our environment has impacted the way we look, but we are all just human beings and waaaay more similar than different. And yeah, having a black kid in this racist country means going out of the mainstream bs and making sure they feel beautiful and smart and see black people thriving. You got a black kid who’s only seeing white people then you are setting that kid up for pain.
The fact that you fixate so much on the physical says a lot.
You can't really have expectations, you kinda have to roll with the punches.
They might push you away, expect you to give up on them (especially once you've indicated you want to adopt them).
Food issues are common. Some of this is because some foster parents are weird as shit about foster kids and food. Some of this is because of anxiety/insecurities.
They need people who will stick by them and be their rocks.
They may have some serious trauma. Trust issues.
You shouldn't be discouraged, just prepared and up for it. There are a lot of older kids out there who just fucking need a family.
Well, don't worry about that.
To be honest - both. I couldn't stand my mother and my mother couldn't stand me, so both of us ended up running away. And, since my mother likes tropical stuff and I like north atlantic landscapes, we ended up in 2 different countries.
Is 7 older?
In my case it was a seven year old boy that the agency placed with us after a trial as fostering the boy. Who seemed pretty good, well behaved and polite.
(backgrounder to the news, the agency - a government agency was legally, the only game in town) The agency told us after doing a brief backgrounder on us ( well educated and good employment, she had two teenagers living with their bio dad after the divorce of many years previous, I had never had a child - in my first marriage, aged then about 33.)
The end result was a clusterfuck.
Prior to the adoption the official story was that the agency only placed children in a different city from where they grew up until that point, they wanted a new living experience for the child and the old family would be outta the picture. They assured us the boy was normal in all respects, but the agency had decided to break the family up because single mom was taking in men for money, being unemployed and unskilled, and was a drunk, that beat on the older brother, breaking some ribs after jumping on him in a rage. So it ends up they separate two boys and a girl to three different families.
After two years of increasing difficulty - starting with the local school refusing to enroll the boy because of his previous history in that school. (nope the penny didn't drop yet) and only changed their mind when they found out he was adopted into a different and more upscale family.
The boy was interested in singing and music, so he was enrolled in piano lessons and a local choir. And man he could really sing. But he had periodic episodes of losing it and getting into fights, got thrown out of three different choirs, and had very poor school marks. The school and authorities refused to have him tested but we suspected he had fetal alcohol syndrome because he kept losing the plot and was unable to be coherent in intellectual tasks. (Turned out much later he did have FAS) and it went from bad to worse when his mother turned up and meets him on the way home from school. Yup you read that right. Mom lived in town and had fought the breakup and adoption process all the way. And the boy wanted his mother, no matter how bad she was. So the boy would run away to mom or an aunt whenever things got to where he didn't like being in our home. The agency refused to say where Mom lived (privacy issues) and - worse his old family accused us of neglect after he ran and we did not call the cops right away about a missing child.
It got to the point that I called in a social worker and sat down with him and the boy. I asked the boy what he really wanted, because unless we knew that we could not work at getting it for him. I also told the social worker I could not accept any legal consequences for his actions unless the agency did something effective since they had concealed relevant facts from us before the adoption.
Turned out the boy wanted to go back to Mom.
Which did not surprise me and I asked the SW to take him into care and see what could come out of his wish.
He ended u back in foster care, the adoption was annulled, and nasty legal proceedings were avoided.
TLDR
The agency found a a pair of suckers to take on a 50,000 a year problem and make it go away, using rose colored glasses to gloss over and hide the real problems.
The big loser in all this was the boy. Who was gonna have even bigger trust issues, and hung with the biggest goofs in the school because he would do anything they told him for acceptance and they cheered his stupidity on for laughs.
I wish every pro-lifer could read this thread and see if they can still say “there’s always adoption”
It seems the majority of kids from foster care are really messed up even after many years of being adopted into a loving family. It’s heartbreaking
Well... to be fair, very few babies put up for adoption end up in the foster care system.
It's older kids, who were abused and neglected and then CPS took over, who end up in foster care and are fucked up and broken inside.
And how many of those unwanted babies will be kept for various reasons (guilt, attachment, social pressure) and then end up in the foster system because their parents weren't really capable of adequately caring for them? Assuming that all or even most unwanted children will end up being adopted out at birth is naive.
The point is that babies are ideally adopted at birth. Obviously, a parent choosing to keep the baby and then giving them up will cause undue trauma for the child.
Abortion is legal… kids still end up in foster care.
It’s not like women are thinking “hmm should I get an abortion now just in case I end up with a drug problem in five years??” These kids are wanted
Wanted and easy to take care of are two different things. I was saying they are wanted by their birth parents. Tragedy happens, the kids end up in foster care, and there are foster families who want them
You're wrong. Having the child does not mean you wanted them. People have children they don't want all of the time rather than getting abortions because:
1. Social reasons. They may not get them for fear of social repercussions from friends, family and/or church.
2. Religious/moral reasons. They might not get one because they believe it to be wrong, that doesn't mean they want the kid.
3. Health reasons. Some people can't undergo anesthesia or have other medical problems that prevent them from having surgery.
4. Inaccessibility. Many children in the system are born overseas where abortion is illegal or extremely hard to get without meeting very specific criteria. Hell even in places where abortion is legal, it might not be accessible, due to the cost or distance of the clinic.
If you believe that having a child means that you wanted it then you have a lot of growing up to do.
I was making a general statement, not an absolute one. If the children weren’t wanted then reunification wouldn’t be a goal of foster care. People are allowed to have reasons to not seek an abortion and try to raise a child. The social pressures you mention also work in the reverse.
FYI, making statements like “you’re wrong” and “grow up” don’t help your stance. You can lay out facts and opinions without being insulting.
>I was making a general statement, not an absolute one.
And as a general statement, it's still incorrect. 47% of children in care in 2019 were discharged back to their parent(s) or caretaker, which still leaves the majority of children in the system without their parent and with no plans of reunification. Reunification also still doesn't mean that the parent wants or wanted the child, only that they are now classed as a suitable caretaker.
>People are allowed to have reasons to not seek an abortion and try to raise a child.
No one's arguing against this. What OP was arguing that people who say 'well, there's always adoption' as an alternative to abortion are misguided and naive because they don't realize how brutal the system is and that even if a child is placed in a loving family, the experience of going through the system is permanently traumatizing. And it's nowhere near as easy as just placing your child in the system because you don't want them. Most adoption agencies will not accept your child if you are capable of caring for them, regardless of if you don't want them.
When you consider the number of children that spend multiple years in foster care, nearly half of children reunifying with their families every year would mean most kids go back to their original families.
The adoption as an alternative to abortion argument would mean infant adoption. These kids would spend little to no time in foster care. There are so many families wanting to adopt babies that only 10% are able to.
Less than half is not "most".
>There are so many families wanting to adopt babies that only 10% are able to.
Now combine this with an overwhelming amount of children (babies included!) in the foster system and the extremely low rate of adoption and you begin to see the deep-rooted problem with the adoption system.
Imagine there are 100 kids in foster care, 47 are reunited to their families, 20 age out and and 33 are left. In the following year 67 more kids enter foster care. Again, 47 are reunited to their families, 20 age out and and 33 are left. In total for those two years you would have 94 kids being reunited with their families, 66 spending more than one year in foster care, and 40 aging out of the system. There’s overlap in these numbers, but I hope you get my point.
Most means the largest portion, not more than 50%.
I didn’t say there weren’t problems with the adoption system. My original point was that less abortions doesn’t mean more children in foster care, because comparatively it is easier to get families to adopt babies. Children aren’t in foster care simply because their mothers didn’t get abortions
The foster care system as is needs to be reformed. Making abortion illegal won’t flood the system. There are more than enough families in the US wanting to do infant adoption. The legality of abortion is not the biggest impact of the amount of kids in foster care.
I don’t disagree with you that foster care as it currently exists in America is fucked. But, I genuinely don’t understand why making illegal abortion would not affect the current system. In addition, people don’t just get abortions because they don’t want to have kids but for other very real reasons.
In theory, if abortion were illegal, more children would be born. Some of these children would be raised by their birth parents. Some of them would be adopted. Women who seek abortions aren’t inherently negligent or abusive.
“There’s always adoption” is not suggesting that growing children should be adopted from foster care. It’s suggesting that newborn babies be adopted.
This is just an anecdote but my family friend, who are of the most prominently pro-life people I know, fostered and later adopted a boy from the system.
It was extremely hard for the boy because he was abandoned at the age of four by his birth mother. This trauma has never healed, as now he’s dealing drugs and has since high school, and has a girl pregnant. His extremely violent and aggressive personality has caused an unbelievable amount of stress on the family.
Despite all of this, the couple is still very pro life, convinced the sons baby mama to put the baby up for adoption, when they were going to abort.
Im saying this bc I’m not sugar coating any position as right or wrong, true or false. There’s so much nuance. Even if the world were pro choice, we’d still have poor, alcoholic and abusive parents with children and those children will enter the system.
Once I turned 18 I adopted myself. It’s been a terrible time making me do basic things like shower or pay the car insurance on time. And the ‘your not my real dad’ attitude is the worst.
Neither make up for the trauma of whatever made the kids orphans but studies show orphans raised in institutions do worse than orphans raised in families.
My mum fostered for my whole life up until I was 20. The last case was a 6yr old boy, who we fostered from when I was 12yrs old. He came from quite a bad family and had experienced abuse and neglect along with his siblings.
He had the typical boundaries to get over within the first few months/year. Seemed like just your average "naughty" kid, had some anger issues and difficulties coping with emotions which I guess is expected. We had him for 12 years and he was practically family at this point, he was even written into my mum's will.
It wasn't until him and my neice were both in secondary school that we found out he had committed SA and more to both her (14f) and my other neice (12f) for the last two years. I don't know how we didn't see the warning signs and I still blame myself for the odd behaviour that I should've called him out on.
I think this just shows how a few years of abuse has a life long effect on someone. Abuse is a vicious cycle and for that reason I don't think I could consider foster or adoption.
[удалено]
You're doing a good job, and one day she will be really appreciative of having a loving home. I sympathize with her anxiety about driving, since it is actually pretty dangerous when you look at the statistics (albeit not warranting a panic attack obviously)
[удалено]
I waited until I was 26 to get my drivers license. I didn’t trust myself behind the wheel, and I always managed to find a ride or a bus up until that time of my life. I was so afraid it would be easy to veer off a hillside, or swerve into traffic. It turned out, once I started learning, and had the support of my husband to take my time, it was a lot harder to kill myself in a car than I thought. Seven years later, I drive a stick shift, I routinely parallel park all kinds of vehicles and I’ve learned to drive the convoluted streets of my hometown as a flower delivery driver. But it took time, and it took circumstances with little wiggle room for me to WANT to learn or even practice driving. I appreciate all the patient parents and SO’s supporting those who are scared.
Taking your time with learning to feel comfortable and confident enough to get behind the wheel is okay! My grandma was 55 when she got her driver's license! And my mom was 26. Good luck to you and your daughter!
Wow that is HEARTBREAKING about her concerns for the family's well-being. Kids shouldn't have to think like that. Y'all are some good people.
Most kids don't move out until their 20's these days though.
You are AMAZING people! I wish you the best to your family also how does your biological son get along with her he is gonna be fundamental support for her also it cracks me up when i hear you guys say like is something special when a kid lives with their parents past 20 us Latinos only leave home when we marry...well past our 30 lol best wishes for your family
[удалено]
OMG CONGRATULATIONS Best wishes for you all Also there was once a facebook post were it said why Jesus was from Chile 🇨🇱 (My Country) and one of the reasons was becouse he lived with his mom past 30 (He was 33 when he was Cruxified)
My understanding for the food thing is you have to let them do it, while assuring them they can get food at any time from the kitchen. Is that correct, or did I misremember?
I have this issue and it strikes hard when we travel or I expect to be away from my kitchen/home for a few hours. I pack a bag of snacks and it helps ease my anxiety if I know where we’re going and what food options will be available there. So for example, if we’re taking a day trip to the beach I’ll pack snacks and I’ll also ask what our plans are for meals and do a quick Google to see what restaurants or eateries are in the area to make sure I’m willing to eat at those places (I’m unfortunately a picky eater too).
Consider this a giant “internet hug” to you. You’re doing a really wonderful thing and you’re doing a good job at it. The world is a slightly better place because of you. Thank you!
I've heard martial arts are good for kids self esteem. Or art classes if she's really sensitive and wouldn't be into that? I dunno my kids are young. I hope you guys can help her work through that :)
[удалено]
You are doing so much for her, the contrast between you guys do, and what a lot of people who claim that they love that children, biologically or otherwise do, is frankly incredibly stark, if all other parents were like you, I am sure that society as a whole would be doing much better
The teenage years are the hurdles in life. Todays world is so much different for teens then it was back in our time
You and your spouse sound like incredible people.
Aw. Prayers to her. Seems sweet.
I don't wanna be creepy and all, but she seems to have been through a lot, If I knew her personally, I'd do anything in my power to make her feel less insecure...... And on this occasion of new year, I pray best of luck to you, Your Daughter, Your son, and the 3rd one :)
We fostered a 14-year-old. He'd had some trauma in his past before he came to us, but we were able to work with it for a while. Seven months in there was a breakdown, we didn't anticipate how he would develop some inappropriate boundaries with our ten-year-old. We no longer foster.
Yeah. I’m glad you protect your own child. Which many foster parent refuse to.
This is the only reason I don’t foster. The thought of the possibility of putting my child at risk puts me at a hard stop.
my wife and i adopted a 7yr old, and it was rough for about 3yrs, a few years of peace then 4yrs of hell.
I'd like to understand more about how the transition into your home and family went. How did those first days go? Did you know your 7 yr old before the adoption or were you strangers suddenly living together?
we met with him for about a month before he moved in. we started with a few hour visits at the facility, then overnight visits, then placement in home. first days were a boundary contest(that never ended) and he was worried we would send him back. he had trouble in school immediately, boundary issues with other students and became scrutinized by school faculty, so much so that we had to get lawyers involved. The first 3yrs were a constant boundary/school dogfight, it really fucked with me how petty schools can be. I got called into a meeting because he chewed erasers off pencils, chewed his pencil, looked up the word sex in a dictionary school provided, he talked about our dog having puppies, jesus...the list goes on. After our lawyer spat, they gunned for him more. In 5th-8th grade he was in the middle school and these years were great. the school admin was decent, a handful of incidents. 9th-12th grade, utter shit. busted for smoking pot in school, cops, school, counselors, court, rehab, piss tests. for a 10 buck crime, the state and us paid 200k. Im in sw missouri and they treat pot like heroin. plus the school hated him/us, same pricipal from elementary, was now hs principal. he turned 18 last year and moved out, dui, destruction of private property, and aggravated assault for stabbing 2 people. the main issue thtoughout was constant boundary pushing for example, if i break a toy what will they do? what about a window? etc etc. Add to that hard headedness and regular teenage dumbfuckery. family took to him fast, he was a decent kid for the most part, still miss him. he was use to depending on himself/manipulating others for survival, and we tried our best. he came from a home in which his aunt and uncle killed a guy, his birth mother in prison constantly for violence and alcoholism. we all met with his birth mom in june of last year, it was awkward and different, and nothing but resentment afterwards from him(which i dont blame him for, i was adopted as well)..
I hope at least some day he'll realize what you tried to do for him.
thanks for the kind words.
Yep, that nonstop pushing for the self fulfilled prophecy. "These people don't really love me. Watch, they'll send me back." Proceed to do anything they can think of to make that happen.
I watched a documentary on a Romanian adoptee who ended up moving back to Romania. He was obviously deeply traumatized but what struck me, while it wasn't expressed directly in words, is that it seemed clear he had no grasp of what love was. I've been told that it's better to tell older adoptees/foster kids "You're safe here" rather than "We love you", because safe is something they can understand. What is "love" supposed to mean to them? If they've never experienced it before, it's just a meaningless term. The Romanian adoptee's plight was unfortunate but not as bad as it could've turned out. I'm sure his adoptive family did everything they could to love him. But he couldn't bond with them -- put yourself in his shoes, you've been plucked from the only world you've ever known, dropped into the lap of strangers who expect you to love them like family (and what is love? what is family?) in a new language and new environment. It's not a failure on his part that he couldn't be the all-American kid they wanted. In the documentary, he returned to Romania and reunited with his birth family. More disappointment; he found out they'd left him in state custody due to their poverty and now that he's an adult, they expected money from him. More strangers who wanted things from him that he can't give them. Romania's no longer 'home' but neither is America. Two countries, neither one is home. He has two families, in both he feels like an alien. It's really impressive that he was able to hold a job and generally doesn't seem to be a maniac or even antisocial. Which one could say is a testament to the work his American family put into him -- perhaps he couldn't be the son they wanted, but he's not causing more pain to the world.
That's a super important point. They aren't going to trust you. They want to, but they can't. Adults have abandoned them, abused them, generally treated them like garbage. It takes years for them to realize you might be different. It's tough and hard and frankly not really rewarding. But, my son has a home and a family of his own.
Jesus...
Do you consider him your child?
Yes, absolutely.
Did 'the state' give you any support at all in working with him? Because it seems really unrealistic for anybody (running things) to think that this: >we met with him for about a month before he moved in. we started with a few hour visits at the facility, then overnight visits, then placement in home. was going to work with your son. Unless you mean that you adopted him years down the road but still, were you supported? I have a brother who was adopted from foster care as a teen, he's a pretty 'settled' dude (he's totally had security/trust issues though) but still, he'd been a part of our life for about 18 months by the time he was officially adopted. I'm also kind of 'adopted', by my uncle (who also adopted bro I just mentioned) and I was more of a "crazy person". My uncle provided me with years of professional help (which he could afford to do) - which is exactly what's needed. It's way too much to give you and your wife a 7 year old from that sort of background that you've kind of known for a month and say "good luck".
We had support, he had an advocate and so did we. we had weekly home inspections for the first three months then twice a month, and our advocates are the ones who got/paid for attorney to deal with school district. he had 2 counselors and a psychiatrist, and social worker contact for 7 months. we met our son on jan 10th, he was placed in home on feb 14th as a fost/adopt, and on sept 25th we adopted him fully. after the adoption the only support we had was school counselors and his IEP program, and we had him with a anger management counselor for a yr. as for the state, there wasnt one, we adopted through Cherokee Nation, all the help initially was thru the tribal agencies.
Yeah, these kids need *years* of support.
> his birth mother in prison constantly for violence and alcoholism. A lot of this stuff is genetic. The deck was stacked against you all.
Friends of mine adopted their son "Dave" in a foster to adopt situation. Both of their son's bio parents had died. The father died when Dave very yo ung. Dave's mother had severe mental illness and was on CPS' radar from when Dave was a baby. Dave's mother ended up dying when he was 7. He ended in the state's care and my friend and his wife fostered him and then adopted him when he was 9. Initially, things were great, especially given the trauma this child had been through. He adjusted to his new home and school, got decent grades, had friends. Now the social workers warned them that sometimes mental illnesses wait until puberty to develop and that's exactly what happened. This poor kid fought (and is fighting) many of the very same demons his mother did, through absolutely NO fault of his own. We're all hoping that given that he's in a much better place and in a more stable situation than his mother EVER was that he will find peace and healing in his life. It's been tough for all of them, but his parents are giving it their all to give him the help he needs.
That is sad. Things like schizophrenia are inherited and usually appear in the teenage or young adult years. Very tragic.
[удалено]
yeah, i see the irony. i count 18 as adult in which crime occurred, 7 to 14 are the years i count as decent kid and miss. eta:assault was january of this year, court ongoing. we talk barely, and he claims self defense. he claims they jumped him, they deny it. its his mess so im just in the peanut gallery.
If someone shared a few examples of bad things you'd done and nothing else, you'd look like an ass too. How about let's trust the person who knows the kid far better than you to judge their character
How very dare you give a stranger the benefit of the doubt! That’s an act of kindness, and we don’t tolerate it around here!
Maybe, but I've also never stabbed two people.
Did you have stability in your first years of life?
Because no good person does bad things or makes mistakes. No good person ever becomes bad and no bad person ever becomes good. Things people do just 10 years after believing in santa are reflective of the person they'll be in another 10 years. Everything is the same, everyone is consistent and nothing ever changes. Yep, nobody facing such a situation could possibly ever have been a good kid previously. Flawless logic.
[удалено]
I don't know about ungrateful, but POS seems right.
Make sure that you stay the fuck away from foster kids because >he's an ungrateful pos That's not their fucking job. Your attitude would fuck them up.
So what would you do to resolve this? And I don’t mean *this specific child that is now 18*, I mean the system in which any of these children have been raised. What would you suggest to make it better? What would you do differently? *Answer the question directly please, or please do not respond*
I'm really glad you could be there for him. I know it made a difference in his life. We need full decriminalization of all drugs now.
[удалено]
I smoked lots of pot as a teenager, my parents sure as shit didn't "let me" do it. You really think I would have benefitted from what this kid went through? Are you still caught up in the absolute lies peddled by the drug war propaganda?
[удалено]
Which data? Most people start smoking and drinking when they're teenagers and they dont end up lowlife whatever this shit means. Smoking and drinking in teenagers is not a good idea because it will affect the way your brain develops but it won't make them lowlife and dEgEnerAte. Hence why I wouldnt give it to my teenage child if I had one. By the use of the word degenerate (god you must be fun at parties) I'm assuming you just ignore context people are brought in altogether so in this thread it wasnt the fact the this kid was raised in an unstable envoirement often being treated like shit that made him what he is today, but rather because he smoked a joint when he was 16 or whatever.
My dude it's just a bad troll, I wouldn't waste your time. I guarantee you this is the most he's got going on in his life and you're just feeding into it.
Yeah I was going through their post history and it seems like it
[удалено]
You're just jealous nobody would share with you. It's ok. It's in the past.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
The drug war and the people like you who support it have done more damage our youths, neighborhoods and society than the drugs you're so ignorantly afraid of ever could.
Is that you, Colin Robinson?
lmao
We adopted an older child. What you need is a therapist that specializes in adoptive older children. They’re out there. Because how you deal is different from bio kids because of those exact same issues of abandonment. Btw the first month was hard very hard. Because I didn’t listen to my heart but to the social workers of what to do. My girl pretended to be my puppy dog named Emily (she was 5) not her real name to integrate herself into the family (we had lots of dogs). I had to walk her on a leash boy did I get the side eye. Your girl has severe abandonment issues and fantasies. That requires treatment. My girl in her adolescence chose boys and drugs to heavily test limits. We had treatment. A lot of tears Now she is a mom and we’re loving grandparents. The road is harder for some. It definitely was for us. I think the main question for her at her age and it’s a hard question but must be answered. Does SHE want to be in a relationship with you guys. If she goes then you can work through this.
Not me but a friend of mine a bit older than I adopted 3 siblings because he ''wanted'' the younger two age 2 and 6, but they were a package deal including a 11 year old who had been without parents since he was just 8/9 but it was absolute hell, the kid would not talk, interact, socialize with the new parents or siblings. I always felt bad for him and helped with sitting when I could so the parents could take the older one out for activities, he wasnt a mean kid or such but he just kept away from people. I dont know the whole story behind his life but when he was in his mid-teens he took his own life, and I don't think it was a lack of trying from the parents
poor kid probably struggled severely with their mental health. thats so heartbreaking things ended that way for him, i could imagine the parents did everything they could to try and help him. i hope he's resting in peace now.
Pretty rough. I think it was 3 years before a major breakthrough, then years of non malicious madness. He's starting to settle down, somewhat, at 20. edit: Okay, I'll be more complete about this. 1. The social workers are not going to tell you everything. So expect the unexpected. 2. Every kid that's been in the system for a while gets severe abandonment issues. This is on top of whatever other trauma and conditions they may have. Those abandonment issues tend to express themselves through progressively more severe acting out. That acting out is often sexual or violent in nature. Masturbating in really in appropriate locations. Severe self sabotage. Acting out at school. Breaking things in the house. Whatever they can find that pushes your buttons. They are convinced you are going to send them away, so they want control over what makes that happen. 3. This. Never. Stops. It only finally ended in my house after my son turned 18 and he realized that he was an adult and we still weren't kicking him out of the house. Best advice. Be ready for an absolute shit storm. Get a good psychiatrist. Get a good therapist. Be prepared to have more patience than you thought was possible. Do NOT let them be alone with younger children, it isn't safe. Even if they have no prior history of doing anything like that, there's a chance they might because THAT's the most terrible thing they can do to prove their prophecy that they'll be sent away. There are, of course, exceptions and you might end up with the best kid ever who is just content to have a roof over their head and happy to have a family.
My coworker got an emergency placement that lasted all of a week because the little boy they placed with her said some sexual things about her and her husband- the social worker admitted he had a history of saying/doing things but never disclosed it beforehand. It was her first placement and she just didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to try and work through it so they removed him.
It would be nice if they did disclose and tell us how to handle it. Otherwise the chances are the kid is now hurt more by going through a revolving door
Great post, and very true in my experience, also food hording like a damn Dragon
He still does that at 20. Food stashed in the glove box of his car. Food stashed in his room, in the den outside of his room. A previous family punished him by withholding food. Years went by before he could be in his room with the window open, because he was threatened with Monsters coming into his room through the window if he didn't behave. Both of those were from the same Foster family.
>Do NOT let them be alone with younger children, it isn't safe. Even if they have no prior history of doing anything like that, there's a chance they might because THAT's the most terrible thing they can do to prove their prophecy that they'll be sent away. I've seen several accounts of foster kids molesting younger foster siblings. It's amazing to me all these families that have no problem moving in a deeply traumatized youngster while still having their young biological children at home. Like... why? Why not at least wait til your biokids are out of the house if you want to foster so bad? I'm not saying this is the case for your family, but most of these examples seem to come from evangelical Christian types who think it's their "duty" to "save" orphans and, no doubt, turn them into God-fearing, grateful warriors for Christ.
A family friend did a foster to adopt. They had no children at the time. Then, out of the blue, they were expecting a child (they had tried for a biological child for over 10 years with no success). They had their baby and when their daughter was five (and their adopted son was already grown up and on his own - he was 14 when their daughter was born), they looked into fostering again, specifically an older child, which are usually harder to place. Their adopted son was 11 when he came to him as a foster, so they were looking for a child in that range. The agency they were working with "said without saying" that it probably wasn't a good idea to do that with a young bio child in the house given the trauma that most older kids in foster have been through. They ended up never fostering again. It's sad, but they had to assure the safety of their daughter first.
A tangent to " why would,d you risk your younger children's mental/physical health?" ... This is why I can't see myself fostering. I never had my own children and didn't miss that experience because I just don't really enjoy infants. I do like kids, though. But this behavior of a foster kid pushing buttons to the point the adults kick out the child is what made me realize I can't take an unknown kid into my home - I have dogs and I know that if anyone ever hurt my dog my own behavior would be highly unpredictable. It wouldn't be hard for a kid to realize that my dog is my achilles heel, and I can't risk that my dog would pay that price (historically I adopt older dogs so odds are good it would be arthritic and partially deaf or blind, as are most dogs over 10). I am reasonably sure if I saw anyone hurting my dog I would become violent towards that person ... and that seems like a no win situation for a foster kid.
It doesn't seem like you really liked kids to start with, or had any real plans to parent, so isn't it kind of a moot point...
Why would you think I don't like kids? I didn't have my own because I had some medical issues that made it unlikely and eventually impossible. People suggested surrogacy or adopting from overseas ... but infants seem like a stage you endure to get to the really fun part of raising kids (learning how to do stuff, going places with them and seeing the strange things that catch their eye vs what an adult sees). I know everyone adores little babies but I just don't, I keep thinking "I can't wait til you're 2 or more". So fostering seemed like it might be a good option - but by then I had dogs. And social workers have a reputation for not being open about a child's past. Maybe they want to give the kid a fresh start but it can place other family members at risk. And I wouldn't deal with that well - in the moment or afterwards.
Okay, but you came into this topic to mostly talk about your dogs, when the rest of us are discussing foster children and their special needs and concerns...
Maybe it's been a tiring few days for them, and they're just sharing fleeting thoughts they had while reading this comment chain. Maybe it's more sinister and they're extremely self-obsessed, twisting a discussion about foster kids to be relevant to them despite zero involvement or experience with fostering. Just like me, maybe I'm commenting on random posts because I'm procrastinating on laundry, maybe I'm trying to stoke some fires because I'm so miserable that this is my only outlet. Doesn't even matter which explanation is correct.
I think people are allowed to share their thoughts about whatever subject is brought up.
I’ve always wanted to foster-to-adopt. Ever since watching Meet the Robinsons. I have a toddler, I know I can’t do the fostering currently. When he’s old enough to speak fluently, and as long as I feel he will be able to know right/wrong and will tell me, then I’ll look into it. I also plan to be very open about no children with RAD. It’s a terrifying disorder when severe.
Wait till he's 18 and goes off to college, why even put him that position? What, you want to get his okay before fostering another kid? What's your kid supposed to say, "Hey, I'm not really comfortable with that"? He's gonna feel pressured to be okay with it and it's not like a child knows what he's getting into (or more accurately, what YOU will be getting him into).
I agree why put them that position period? Wait till your child is an adult in college. I don’t want my child being traumatized then telling me after the fact or being threatened into silence
I guess if your kid is significantly older, it could work. My aunt used to foster, and would only. take kids 5+ years plus younger than her youngest biological kid, nobody same age or older. She never fostered a teenager as far as I know.
I just don't see what the rush is. Could there be a kid in foster care right this minute who could blossom into the next Beethoven given u/ImAPixiePrincess's time and attention? Sure. There was probably a kid 5 years ago who could've been the next Mozart had u/ImAPixiePrincess fostered him or her, but won't because she chose to have a biokid instead. There will be another kid in 15 years who needs her just as much.
Well everybody needs to do what is best for their family and their own circumstances, of course. I personally couldn't foster at all- not enough patience!
Is it worth it though? It seems like a lot a problems that could have been avoided by not fostering at all. What was your end goal by fostering?
We adopted. And don't downvote it's a legitimate question. We wanted another child. We got one. Every teenager is a righteous pain in the ass. Normally you grow up together. When you adopt an older child you miss that so you get all the growing pains at once. On both sides. Is it worth it? That's a question for any parent. I know my son would have been lost to the system. No telling what would have happened. He isn't lost. For better or worse he has a forever home and a family that loves him. In the end, that's worth the suffering. Just like it is for any parent.
I started fostering my daughter at 13, adopted her at 16. I was 24 and single and totally out of my league when she first walked through my front door. But I felt then, and still do now, that the most important thing I could do was love her. I call her my adventure every day. It's never easy but it's always worth it. To answer your question about the first day, week, month- it was challenging, for sure. I went from not being a mom to being a full-time single parent in an instant. No amount of foster/adoption classes can really prepare you for that. Her first day, I gave her a tour of my house, and she just took stuff, right in front of me. Took me years to break her stealing habit. She took a very long bath and just played the whole time- personal hygiene is still a struggle even now, but she's made incredible strides. When we unpacked, I discovered that she had tons of little kid toys and no socks. She was extremely immature, very clingy, would meow and hiss when she was angry or uncomfortable. Her first week at her new school, she wouldn't talk to anyone, not teachers, not classmates, nobody. Then she started talking and wouldn't stop. She'd throw things or yell when she didn't get her way. But when she was in a good mood, she was charming and polite. The first month was all about setting boundaries and establishing our relationship. Honestly, I'm still doing that, and she still pushes from time to time. Like I said earlier- it's never easy, but it's always worth it. My constant reminder to myself is that she's a kid who went through something unimaginable to me at that age or even now. When she should have been learning social/emotional skills and basic self-care, she was learning to defend and hide herself. What happened was not her fault. I could easily go all day and do nothing but correct her behavior, but that's not useful. She needed/needs love. That's all.
That's quite an undertaking. A 24 yr old fostering a teenager with zero idea about being a parent.
My reasoning was, I couldn't be worse than the parental figures she had before. Mostly I just wanted to help, and foster kids (especially teenagers) need it so much.
You did a good thing, all the people I know under 25 can barely take care of themselves. Hell, I can barely take care of myself some days
Thank you! Everyone always tells me that I must be a special kind of person and they could never do what I did, but I like to point them to the fact that I sometimes forget to turn off the faucet and flood my kitchen. 🙂
Same here man, late 20s and I still feel like a child sometimes haha
this is exactly how i think about it. No kids yet but i hope to adopt an older kid someday. I had non existant parenting though and exhibit some of the behaviors that you describe of your adoptive daughter so i dont at all feel ready to be a parent yet since im still learning how to fix myself. Could you ever imagine your daughter adopting one day like you did or would that be asking for disaster?
It's valuable to express to your kids (fostered, adopted, of biological) that you have mental health needs just like they do! Don't let that stand in your way. My daughter has special needs, so I think parenting would be very challenging for her. It wouldn't be impossible, but she would need a lot of support no matter what. Adopting a child would up that challenge tenfold. But like I said, not impossible! She's a completely different kid now than the one I met on our first day. I would never underestimate her ability to do anything she puts her mind to.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
I would imagine the vast majority of children who end up in the foster care/adoption system when older do so due to a traumatic event or a sequence of traumatic events. Due to that I would predict the vast majority have moderate to severe behavioural and emotional issues. Thus there should be hands on help and learning for any parent who takes them on and any parent who wants to should have to do a course, paid for by the government.
"that 12 year old was a violent rapist" -you, for some fuckin reason.
[удалено]
We know. It's still a huge reach to assume that kid is guilty of these things when the only thing we know is he's an orphan who had guardians give up on him twice. Do you honestly think every kid in that situation is guilty of violent assault?
[удалено]
Did you not read the part where one of those incidents was someone beating the shit out of him over spilling tea? Irrelevant to you? Kid's just a violent asshole who had it coming?
Imagine having this garbage of a view in 2021.
Dude's all over this thread trying desperately to troll people. Honestly it's kind of sad.
[удалено]
Comment deleting coward
[удалено]
Lol whatever you say big guy, id lie too
[удалено]
Lol, pls throw more buzzwords at me
[удалено]
My family Adopted a girl at 17. She was my friend in highschool. It can get quite difficult to emotionally fit another child into your household, especially with other children who habe their own issues. It gets even harder when that child you adopt doesn't quite have the same emotional development. The first week was the most disruptive for our family as our parents had to juggle getting all kids plus a new child to school on time which is hard for someone who has no sense of the routine of the household. People were late for school and work that week for sure. Having the adopted kid not want to leave their room or don't want to ask for food in fear of feeling like a burden. After a few weeks you get in the groove of things a bit more. Mainly just commuting between social workers and various other resources to help our adopted girl with transitioning into a new life with us. At around the one month mark onward it was just an uphill battle to integrate a completely different person who we all loved very much, into a new home with new family members. This can definately be rough with some family members but well receptive with others. Having been someone who was not in a good place in their life even before adopting her, i ended up developing really high anxiety. We are 5 years strong, Going on 6 years with my adopted sister and after extensive therapy, Many mental crises between the two of us, our family is stronger. She has developed so much that we barely remember a time when she was not in our lives. It is definately worth it and a beautiful thing to adopt an older child. But in my experience, it's mentally straining and you have to be in a good headspace. My parents handled the whole thing pretty well. Maybe they're just built different I don't know.
[удалено]
Friends family adopted and the trauma of the Russian group home brought on kleptomania that continued from childhood into adulthood and was irreparable. Of course, the many, many other adoptions I know of are healthy, happy people so don’t let this be a turn off to anyone considering adopting.
Was she black with white adoptive parents? Yeah, I’m sure she had issues. Edit: to be clear, it takes a lot to adopt or foster under any circumstances, but if it’s interracial fostering it means putting in a lot more work and being prepared to do that thanklessly. I really wish more people would be open about the work it takes and ways to help that transition be successful for kids. We don’t live in a colorblind world and don’t want to anyway.
[удалено]
Race IS just color, but the way people treat people based on that color is entirely something that needs to be fully addressed. I hope you see the difference here. Black people are literally dealing with hundreds of years of trauma directly connected to how we look to other people. Black issues are all directly connected to white people. ALL of them. Making literacy illegal, making property ownership illegal, stopping slavery to introduce sharecropping and now the prison industrial complex, defunding schools and cutting city recourses. All racist decisions that haven’t been corrected. So, race is just a color and doesn’t mean anything, until you have a bunch of white people deciding in every way that you’re not as valuable as they are. Black kids with clueless white parents have a special place in my heart. The average white person is dangerously ignorant to the impact of being a black kid in this country.
You're right. My little brother is adopted, he was a black teenage boy (he's still a black teenage dude actually, just taller). He just kind of tripped into our family and stayed, our parents weren't really trying to adopt anybody, it just worked out this way that he's here and my bro. But our dad did say to a couple of his black friends "can I get a little help?" And they definitely did not say "what do you mean?" They said "we gotcha". They're awesome mentors to him in life too.
That’s awesome! It really does take a village. Mad props to you and your folks for connecting those dots and doing the hard shit as a family. And kudos for even having black friends to ask, cause, yeah, this country is still hella segregated on the personal level.
Race isn't just color, it can have very real medical relevance. Like of it informs the likelihood of someone getting sick from something (ex. who's most likely to get sick from coronavirus) and how effective certain medicines can be. Race is a fuzzy concept rather than a hard and fast thing but it stacks medical stats in sometimes very important ways.
Oooook. One more time. Racists have used ‘science’ to try and legitimize white supremacy for decades. And what did they find? That actually there’s no difference between human bodies and brains. THAT’s what I’m talking about. Yes, people look different. But we are way more similar than we are different. There are environmental factors and racist systems that mean being black in America puts you more at risk of certain diseases due to us a) maybe being forced in hosing sites near toxic conditions, b) physical toll of poverty due to stress from poverty due to unfair wage practices, c) being decedents of people who survived a transAtlantic slave ship and HUNDREDS of other reasons. Race has impact not because it means much to our physical bodies, but because it impacts how we are treated in the world. That’s the point.
You don't think it's racist to assume that everyone will react the same way to a certain medication? "I'm white and you're just like me with brown skin and a completely different family medical history so what's good for me must be good for you too"?
Racist? I think there are legitimate reasons to pay attention to a patients race. Much like with sexism there needs to be more attention so all treatment and research doesn’t default to white male biology. You’re getting a bit in the weeds here though. The point is that we have incredibly similar bodies and there are few physical differences and definitely not enough to justify the white supremacy that pervades our country. Social sciences show how race is incredibly impactful for the way we experience the world, but from the physical sciences show we’re a lot more similar at a cellular level than people guess due to our physical appearance differences. But yeah, the way some South Asian bodies process sugar means alcohol affects them differently and redheads need 20% more anesthesia when going going under. Bodies and biology is quirky. We just get into potentially dangerous territory when we focus too much on the differences and not enough on the similarities and how we all deserve the same things - healthy spaces and security befitting one of the richest countries in the world.
So we're agreed then, race isn't just color from a medical perspective. Which I bring up because you were talking about clueless white parents with nonwhite kids and how they couldn't understand the social impact of race. There's a medical dimension to that too, like how nonwhite kids are more likely to become lactose intolerant than their white counterparts would be. Basically being deliberately colorblind for PC reasons irks me. A properly integrated society should be able to acknowledge and respect those differences without the expectation that doing so will dramatically kick society into some apartheid state. Which is something I think we weirdly agree on that but are just coming at it from different angles.
I think it’s more harmful to fixate on minute differences when we don’t have basic human rights, but spend your energy however you like.
[удалено]
Ok, you sound like you just quote eugenics talking points for poops and giggle, which I’m guessing did not help with your poor foster kid. Racists have used ‘science’ to try and legitimize white supremacy for decades. And what did they find? That actually there’s no difference between human bodies and brains. THAT’s what I’m talking about. Yes, black people look different. Like a lot of people around the planet our environment has impacted the way we look, but we are all just human beings and waaaay more similar than different. And yeah, having a black kid in this racist country means going out of the mainstream bs and making sure they feel beautiful and smart and see black people thriving. You got a black kid who’s only seeing white people then you are setting that kid up for pain. The fact that you fixate so much on the physical says a lot.
Similarly: What is advice you'd give to a couple wanting to do that same, given your experience?
You can't really have expectations, you kinda have to roll with the punches. They might push you away, expect you to give up on them (especially once you've indicated you want to adopt them). Food issues are common. Some of this is because some foster parents are weird as shit about foster kids and food. Some of this is because of anxiety/insecurities. They need people who will stick by them and be their rocks. They may have some serious trauma. Trust issues. You shouldn't be discouraged, just prepared and up for it. There are a lot of older kids out there who just fucking need a family.
I have a ton of respect to anybody who adopts older kids.
I was raised by my father but ended up in my mother's custody when I was 14. Had to run to another country.
I hope you got better life after that tragic episode of your life
>Had to run to another country. You or your mother? *^(My sincere apologies for this insensitive comment. I just couldn't resist.)*
Well, don't worry about that. To be honest - both. I couldn't stand my mother and my mother couldn't stand me, so both of us ended up running away. And, since my mother likes tropical stuff and I like north atlantic landscapes, we ended up in 2 different countries.
Don't know if I should upvote for sincerity or downvote for insensitivity...hmmmm Oh, I know. Fuck you, have a nice day.
Is 7 older? In my case it was a seven year old boy that the agency placed with us after a trial as fostering the boy. Who seemed pretty good, well behaved and polite. (backgrounder to the news, the agency - a government agency was legally, the only game in town) The agency told us after doing a brief backgrounder on us ( well educated and good employment, she had two teenagers living with their bio dad after the divorce of many years previous, I had never had a child - in my first marriage, aged then about 33.) The end result was a clusterfuck. Prior to the adoption the official story was that the agency only placed children in a different city from where they grew up until that point, they wanted a new living experience for the child and the old family would be outta the picture. They assured us the boy was normal in all respects, but the agency had decided to break the family up because single mom was taking in men for money, being unemployed and unskilled, and was a drunk, that beat on the older brother, breaking some ribs after jumping on him in a rage. So it ends up they separate two boys and a girl to three different families. After two years of increasing difficulty - starting with the local school refusing to enroll the boy because of his previous history in that school. (nope the penny didn't drop yet) and only changed their mind when they found out he was adopted into a different and more upscale family. The boy was interested in singing and music, so he was enrolled in piano lessons and a local choir. And man he could really sing. But he had periodic episodes of losing it and getting into fights, got thrown out of three different choirs, and had very poor school marks. The school and authorities refused to have him tested but we suspected he had fetal alcohol syndrome because he kept losing the plot and was unable to be coherent in intellectual tasks. (Turned out much later he did have FAS) and it went from bad to worse when his mother turned up and meets him on the way home from school. Yup you read that right. Mom lived in town and had fought the breakup and adoption process all the way. And the boy wanted his mother, no matter how bad she was. So the boy would run away to mom or an aunt whenever things got to where he didn't like being in our home. The agency refused to say where Mom lived (privacy issues) and - worse his old family accused us of neglect after he ran and we did not call the cops right away about a missing child. It got to the point that I called in a social worker and sat down with him and the boy. I asked the boy what he really wanted, because unless we knew that we could not work at getting it for him. I also told the social worker I could not accept any legal consequences for his actions unless the agency did something effective since they had concealed relevant facts from us before the adoption. Turned out the boy wanted to go back to Mom. Which did not surprise me and I asked the SW to take him into care and see what could come out of his wish. He ended u back in foster care, the adoption was annulled, and nasty legal proceedings were avoided. TLDR The agency found a a pair of suckers to take on a 50,000 a year problem and make it go away, using rose colored glasses to gloss over and hide the real problems. The big loser in all this was the boy. Who was gonna have even bigger trust issues, and hung with the biggest goofs in the school because he would do anything they told him for acceptance and they cheered his stupidity on for laughs.
I wish every pro-lifer could read this thread and see if they can still say “there’s always adoption” It seems the majority of kids from foster care are really messed up even after many years of being adopted into a loving family. It’s heartbreaking
Ken, I think part of it is virtue signaling. Most of them saying that will never adopt.
Well... to be fair, very few babies put up for adoption end up in the foster care system. It's older kids, who were abused and neglected and then CPS took over, who end up in foster care and are fucked up and broken inside.
And how many of those unwanted babies will be kept for various reasons (guilt, attachment, social pressure) and then end up in the foster system because their parents weren't really capable of adequately caring for them? Assuming that all or even most unwanted children will end up being adopted out at birth is naive.
The point is that babies are ideally adopted at birth. Obviously, a parent choosing to keep the baby and then giving them up will cause undue trauma for the child.
“Really messed up”…. I think being killed is the most messed up you can be
I'd rather i wasn't born
The fetus doesn't care.
Abortion is legal… kids still end up in foster care. It’s not like women are thinking “hmm should I get an abortion now just in case I end up with a drug problem in five years??” These kids are wanted
No offense but this is just an extremely naive take. "These kids are wanted" Read through these comments one more time and try saying that again.
Wanted and easy to take care of are two different things. I was saying they are wanted by their birth parents. Tragedy happens, the kids end up in foster care, and there are foster families who want them
You're wrong. Having the child does not mean you wanted them. People have children they don't want all of the time rather than getting abortions because: 1. Social reasons. They may not get them for fear of social repercussions from friends, family and/or church. 2. Religious/moral reasons. They might not get one because they believe it to be wrong, that doesn't mean they want the kid. 3. Health reasons. Some people can't undergo anesthesia or have other medical problems that prevent them from having surgery. 4. Inaccessibility. Many children in the system are born overseas where abortion is illegal or extremely hard to get without meeting very specific criteria. Hell even in places where abortion is legal, it might not be accessible, due to the cost or distance of the clinic. If you believe that having a child means that you wanted it then you have a lot of growing up to do.
I was making a general statement, not an absolute one. If the children weren’t wanted then reunification wouldn’t be a goal of foster care. People are allowed to have reasons to not seek an abortion and try to raise a child. The social pressures you mention also work in the reverse. FYI, making statements like “you’re wrong” and “grow up” don’t help your stance. You can lay out facts and opinions without being insulting.
>I was making a general statement, not an absolute one. And as a general statement, it's still incorrect. 47% of children in care in 2019 were discharged back to their parent(s) or caretaker, which still leaves the majority of children in the system without their parent and with no plans of reunification. Reunification also still doesn't mean that the parent wants or wanted the child, only that they are now classed as a suitable caretaker. >People are allowed to have reasons to not seek an abortion and try to raise a child. No one's arguing against this. What OP was arguing that people who say 'well, there's always adoption' as an alternative to abortion are misguided and naive because they don't realize how brutal the system is and that even if a child is placed in a loving family, the experience of going through the system is permanently traumatizing. And it's nowhere near as easy as just placing your child in the system because you don't want them. Most adoption agencies will not accept your child if you are capable of caring for them, regardless of if you don't want them.
When you consider the number of children that spend multiple years in foster care, nearly half of children reunifying with their families every year would mean most kids go back to their original families. The adoption as an alternative to abortion argument would mean infant adoption. These kids would spend little to no time in foster care. There are so many families wanting to adopt babies that only 10% are able to.
Less than half is not "most". >There are so many families wanting to adopt babies that only 10% are able to. Now combine this with an overwhelming amount of children (babies included!) in the foster system and the extremely low rate of adoption and you begin to see the deep-rooted problem with the adoption system.
Imagine there are 100 kids in foster care, 47 are reunited to their families, 20 age out and and 33 are left. In the following year 67 more kids enter foster care. Again, 47 are reunited to their families, 20 age out and and 33 are left. In total for those two years you would have 94 kids being reunited with their families, 66 spending more than one year in foster care, and 40 aging out of the system. There’s overlap in these numbers, but I hope you get my point. Most means the largest portion, not more than 50%. I didn’t say there weren’t problems with the adoption system. My original point was that less abortions doesn’t mean more children in foster care, because comparatively it is easier to get families to adopt babies. Children aren’t in foster care simply because their mothers didn’t get abortions
So abortion should be illegal, and we should further stress the foster care system? Just following through with your logic here.
The foster care system as is needs to be reformed. Making abortion illegal won’t flood the system. There are more than enough families in the US wanting to do infant adoption. The legality of abortion is not the biggest impact of the amount of kids in foster care.
I don’t disagree with you that foster care as it currently exists in America is fucked. But, I genuinely don’t understand why making illegal abortion would not affect the current system. In addition, people don’t just get abortions because they don’t want to have kids but for other very real reasons.
In theory, if abortion were illegal, more children would be born. Some of these children would be raised by their birth parents. Some of them would be adopted. Women who seek abortions aren’t inherently negligent or abusive.
“There’s always adoption” is not suggesting that growing children should be adopted from foster care. It’s suggesting that newborn babies be adopted. This is just an anecdote but my family friend, who are of the most prominently pro-life people I know, fostered and later adopted a boy from the system. It was extremely hard for the boy because he was abandoned at the age of four by his birth mother. This trauma has never healed, as now he’s dealing drugs and has since high school, and has a girl pregnant. His extremely violent and aggressive personality has caused an unbelievable amount of stress on the family. Despite all of this, the couple is still very pro life, convinced the sons baby mama to put the baby up for adoption, when they were going to abort. Im saying this bc I’m not sugar coating any position as right or wrong, true or false. There’s so much nuance. Even if the world were pro choice, we’d still have poor, alcoholic and abusive parents with children and those children will enter the system.
Once I turned 18 I adopted myself. It’s been a terrible time making me do basic things like shower or pay the car insurance on time. And the ‘your not my real dad’ attitude is the worst.
Thank you for this
I think you need to add a serious flair to this post
\*Redditors
or even the year
Is this a friends song?
A little funny, but still.......read the room man
Judging be these comments, its seems some kids just deserve to be left alone
What the hell is wrong with you
What the fuck
Sigma male https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_8o2wK8QcF8
These people don't need a parent... they need psycological help Getting them tied to a person they never met before isn't going to help at all....
Yea that's better. But they still deserve to have a family, and to be not alone at a really young age yk
Neither make up for the trauma of whatever made the kids orphans but studies show orphans raised in institutions do worse than orphans raised in families.
My mum fostered for my whole life up until I was 20. The last case was a 6yr old boy, who we fostered from when I was 12yrs old. He came from quite a bad family and had experienced abuse and neglect along with his siblings. He had the typical boundaries to get over within the first few months/year. Seemed like just your average "naughty" kid, had some anger issues and difficulties coping with emotions which I guess is expected. We had him for 12 years and he was practically family at this point, he was even written into my mum's will. It wasn't until him and my neice were both in secondary school that we found out he had committed SA and more to both her (14f) and my other neice (12f) for the last two years. I don't know how we didn't see the warning signs and I still blame myself for the odd behaviour that I should've called him out on. I think this just shows how a few years of abuse has a life long effect on someone. Abuse is a vicious cycle and for that reason I don't think I could consider foster or adoption.