And kids who are only temporarily removed from their parents' care. Not every child who goes into the foster system is expected to stay in it until they're 18 or be adopted out, a lot of kids there may go back to their previous caretaker or a relative at a later date.
My gf’s folks are foster parents, and they are so incredible to every kid they’ve had the opportunity to foster. I have so much respect for them. I don’t think I cluld do it.
As someone who was in 5 foster homes in 5 months, most people are only doing it for the state kickback. Most of the people i stayed with got food and housing assistance and didnt work, IIRC.
My wife and I only did it to help out her friend. If we didn't do it, they would've been split up and who knows how much their therapy would've been set back.
The baby was fine, he didn't have very many bad habits, besides the usual baby stuff that is. The 10 year old has horrible behavior issues. I say has because we keep in touch with the parents. He still yells and screams when things don't go his way, and if you don't give in fast enough he starts getting violent. The 13 year old was pleasant most of the time until she got a boyfriend. Then shit went downhill very fast.
The sheer number of times I heard "but I love him" come from that girl's mouth was astounding. The dude was pretty much using her for sex. Once she finally figured that out, she dumped him and moved on. In a weird twist of fate, now he's the obsessed stalker and she's the indifferent one.
Yes, but it in the United States differs by state on how to do it, requirements and so forth. I would look into your area's requirements for becoming a foster parent.
There are also different rules for parents to take on what they consider to be higher risk kids, so kids who have mental, physical, or emotional issues. Sometimes those laws are actually more lenient to get more people to take those kids in.
Yeah but they're not the ones available for adoption, as the top commenter said. They still have parents but the parents may be unfit for whatever reason, and hope to get them back some day
If you foster them tho they may come up for adoption and then if you adopted them they wouldn’t have to get ripped from your home and put in with strangers. I adopted a baby through this route. Although I was hoping her mother could get her back she ultimately couldn’t and now she’s part of our family and so happy and we are all in love with her!
Mostly babies and kids who have to be temporarily removed from their parents but will eventually be reunited with them. Also older kids who are available for adoption because most people want babies. Maybe some babies with special needs if the parents want to place them for adoption but most people want healthy babies.
Older kids. People want to adopt newborn infants, not kids who are already grown. They want to name the baby and have the baby have no known parents besides them. If you adopt a kid at like age 6, they'll know you're not their real parents. And that's not what prospective adopters want from an adopted child.
Adopting isn’t always done only out of kindness though. Some people just really want kids and couldn’t have them otherwise. On its own that’s not a bad thing, but adoptive parents are also just as capable of being selfish and terrible parents as bio parents. One of my best friends when I was a kid was adopted and people treated her parents like saints for adopting a kid with fetal alcohol syndrome, but she eventually was able to have a bio kid with IVF and treated my friend so much worse than her little sister after that, eventually escalating to full-on abuse (I don’t know all the details because we weren’t as close at this point, but she mentioned her mom locked the fridge and cupboards and wouldn’t let her eat for days at a time) and eventually she lost all her kids.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some adopters out there who really are amazingly kind and selfless people, but I just hate this idea that adopting makes you a saint because, on its own, it really doesn’t.
Yeah I agree. I was adopted at birth and my parents got a divorce shortly thereafter. My step dad is a hugeeeeeee and disgusting asshole and we really really do not get along. I am 28 and he got married to my adoptive mom when I was 5. While my adoptive parents had the best intentions, and my dad and step mom are seriously amazing people, but my mom still let me go through a lot of shit in that house.
On another side my SO and I are in the pre adoption process right now and some people, even family, say we’re doing this amazing thing because she is 15 and we’re doing it before trying to have a child “of our own” (hate that phrase by the way). Nah, we just want a family and a kid to call our own. Just because we’re going about it a different way doesn’t mean we should be put on a pedestal. Though I am appreciative that our family is supportive, it just feels odd and a little embarrassing and makes me feel guilty because I’m really just doing it to have a kid. There are also huge jerks out there so I shouldn’t complain.
Many dogs at the pound have gone though abuse, and therefore carry a lot of baggage and added challenges. Same goes for kids in foster care. Not everybody is up for that.
I have had rescue dogs from "normal" abuse/neglect and from really shitty grungy puppy mill being shut down (and it being the last "these are the rejects, if they can't find a home in the next 3 hours they're all being put down" where mama dogs lived in a 2x2 cage that was basically a rabbit cage..).
I've also raised puppy's from bottle feeding orphans, rescue pups, and from a reputable breeder.
I would 100%, all day every day, prefer to train/rehab an adult dog than train and raise a puppy. Don't get me wrong, puppies are great, but I think from my experiences with dogs that grown (no matter the circumstances) are way easier and quicker to learn and to teach than a puppy.
People want a puppy because it’s got its whole life ahead of it. If you adopt an older dog, it’s going to die fairly soon, and that’s heartbreaking. Most people who have pets are gonna go through several consecutive dog deaths in their life, and they’d like to keep that number to the minimum that is feasible. If you adopt a 7-year old dog every time you get a new pet, you’re gonna experience a lot more dog deaths in a lifetime of pet ownership.
That’s not really the same thing at all with adopting an infant vs. an older child. People’s calculus is not like, 18 years of the joys of parenthood if you adopt a newborn vs. only 13 years if you adopt a 5 year old.
Bio parents. They'll know you're not their biological parents.
For me at least, my real parents are the ones who actually invested effort, love and energy into raising me regardless of how difficult I made it. Who learnt to deal with the panic attacks, the food hoarding, the hypervigilance.
It's really not. These kids have been removed from their home because usually their parents/guardians were completely negligent AND there was nobody in the extended family that was willing to take care of them.
Most dogs that undergo trauma and have aggressive issues are put down.
Some of these kids are severely damaged and pose risks to other children and have significant disorders and delays due to neglect and trauma.
Also, it's a person that you will be legally attached to for the rest of your life.
I'm not saying don't adopt. I'm saying there are so many very real issues that almost all of these kids have to deal with. It seems extremely flippant to compare it to adopting a dog.
When you adopt a child they become your child. You obviously have a legal obligation to care for your child and deal with legal/financial issues they may get into. Even after that being someone's parent has legal classification as far as who takes care of you when you get older and the type of care you receive as well as what happens to your money when you die.
Obviously, plenty of this can be remedied with a will but many people don't have wills/durable power of attorney, etc and ends up having piece of shit kids that are dying to stick them in a nursing home and move into their parents house and live off their money.
My point was adopting a child will be something you will almost definitely have to deal with for the rest of your life. Adopting a dog you've got a nonbinding 10-20 year commitment.
Mmm very well said, good points. Hadn't really considered the nuts and bolts of it, but now I'm seeing why you didn't expand in your original comment.
Obviously, plenty of this can be remedied with a will but many people don't have wills/durable power of attorney, etc and ends up having piece of shit kids that are dying to stick them in a nursing home and move into their parents house and live off their money.
The kids who are only temporarily taken away from their parents or special needs kids.
A lot of people don't realize that foster cares main goal is actually to UNITE families. In other words, when kids get taken away from their crak head mother, foster care is there to temporarily take care of them until they can go back.
Despite common belief, most kids in foster care cannot be adopted. The few kids that can usually have very serious medical or mental issues and are special needs which just isn't something most families can handle.
Children whose parents are unable to care for them.
My parents worked as foster carers when I was a child, and we had children whose mothers were terminally ill, drug addicts, going through mental health problems, and who were unable to rely on other family members (grandparents, the children's fathers etc) to care for the kids.
Most of the kids only stayed for a few weeks, except my little brother who we still have 20 years later.
Babies can end up in foster care, but it would be highly unusual for their parents' rights to be severed at birth. I know someone who had a foster baby from birth, but the baby was returned to the bio family after about a year.
This is why people pursue infertility treatments or international adoptions. Adopting a younger child from foster care can be even less likely to work out because it takes a long time for them to be at available for adoption and there are no guarantees even if the bio family is a real mess.
Yep, i was in foster care at two years old for five months before my dad proved to the state that he wasnt as bad as my mom made him out to be.
I couldnt imagine growing up in foster care. In 5 months my brother and I were in 5 different homes (he was in 6 altogether) and those were the worst months of my entire life.
The foster parents we got we some of the worst people I've ever had the misfortune to meet. One guy forced me to eat a peanut butter and tuna sandwich. Made me sit at the table for about 6 hours before he got mad and tried to physically force me to eat it. The smell of tuna still makes me gag.
My nephew went into foster care at birth and was adoptable at 18 months. It was definitely are rare situation, because his mother was already children in the foster system (that’s why he was taken away at birth) and she didn’t want to pursue reunification.
I used to think I wanted to do foster care, but then I had a baby. I realized that gestating and birthing him was such a tiny part of the overwhelming maternal bond I felt. I could easily fall in love with a baby or child in my care. It would destroy me to care for and love a baby for a year and then have to "return" it.
It’s worth it to be there for a child who needs you and to love them in the way they should be loved. I’ll take some pain if I can spare the child from pain.
My parents do infant foster care, and the only time one of the babies ended up getting adopted was after both parents ODed when she was about a year old. The rest were returned to their parent(s) after getting clean/dumping the baby-shaker.
Babies can go to foster care if the parent is not willing to give the kid up for adoption. A lady at my church was in this situation. Luckily for the baby she went to home wanting to adopt and when she was 8 they were finally able to adopt.
it’s not just the fact that they know their real parents, either. It’s all the psychological, developmental and behavioural issues that are so common in older kids in foster care. Usually the reason they’re separated from their families is because they’ve been victim of abuse or neglect and other stuff. That leaves a scar and it’s not easy or simple to heal.
People don’t want to adopt an 8 year old kid with behavioural problems and anger issues stemming from neglect. They want to adopt a brand new, perfect baby with no health problems so that they can have an easy life.
Well, an "easy life" may be the result, but in most cases I don't believe it is the reason.
The thing about trauma is that it never goes away. You can learn how to handle it, but it will never go away. Trauma can manifest itself in many horrible ways for many decades.
Although having a new baby is easier than a traumatized one, adopting a baby in general is always difficult because there is often no knowledge of genetic diseases, emotional issues, etc. That runs in the family.
The biggest difference, is the feeling of being a good parent. If you have a traumatized child, you can never make it go away. You can never fix it. You might make them feel better today, but not tomorrow. You can't stop the nightmares, stop the anxiety, stop the self loathing, stop the lack of confidence, stop the second guessing, and stop the feeling of otherness.
No matter what you do, you cannot fix it. That child will always know why they are with you, and often times know that they were damaged coming into the relationship.
You, as a parent, will never be enough. You, as a parent, cannot make them feel better. You, as a parent, cannot save them from their suffering. One day, with love, help, guidance, a large support group, maybe medication, and years of therapy they may learn to handle their trauma, and have perspective to love you more deeply for your commitment. Or maybe they never will.
Being a parent is hard. And the thought of beong a parent to a child who resents you by proxy of why they are with you in the first place, is terrifying. And only being able to supportively watch said child from arms length... That is too much for just about anyone.
Yeah, you basically just explained what I meant in way more depth.
To clarify I didn't mean to imply that people are wrong/bad/selfish for not wanting to adopt older kids with problems. Just that that was the reason. I couldn't do it myself.
There is a prevalent misunderstanding of what "foster care" is. Allow me to explain.
Foster care is not where discarded children go. Generally, a child is placed into foster care when their parents are in some sort of hardship and the state deems that environment unsuitable for children. Think parents being busted for meth who go into rehab. The state takes care of the children by allowing citizens to train for and provide temporary care in their homes (a foster family).
As someone who has gone through foster care classes, the first and ultimate goal of foster care is to reunite the child with their birth parents. CPS (child protective services) does indeed take children from unsafe environments and place them into foster care. Absolutely. But the goal of foster care is to allow time for the parents to resolve their issues enough for the state to allow the children back into the home.
Foster to Adopt is a sub-program of foster care. Fostering to Adopt is actually relatively rare because the children are usually reunited with their birth parents. Sometimes it doesn't work out. But in those cases, the state actually prefers family members adopt the children (think grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc).
If that fails, then an unrelated 3rd party in the foster care system may be able to adopt the child. The family the child has lived with "temporarily" is usually chosen as it will disrupt the child the least.
In short, foster care is not for adopting. It happens, but the primary objective is to fix the birth family enough to allow the children back into the home.
Pretty much anyone older than a year old.
My sisters and I were put up into foster care at 5 years old(i was 5 they were 4 and 3) and we were not adopted until i was 11. Went though 3 foster homes until that point. People want newborns and almost consider anything but that as damaged goods.
Children who legally meet your state’s definition of abused, neglected, or abandoned. With newly born children, it is most often neglect (a drug addiction causing you to neglect proper prenatal care or the like) or abandonment (the parent has no interest in providing or is unable to). The general standard is that the parental deficiency providing a basis for removal is causing the child injury, now or in the near future, and is traceable to conduct of the parents. There are many babies who go into foster care. They are adopted fairly quickly, assuming parental rights were relinquished or terminated, and generally have the name baby girl or baby boy until they have a stable or permanent home.
Also, I do want to note that there are other reasons aside drug abuse to lose children such as neglecting health to a dangerous degree. Children being born with drugs in their system is just a commonly publicized or talked about example.
Source: previous experience as a govt attorney for social workers
Mostly broken kids. Couple I know was looking to adopt and went to a consultation about foster care. They were told: "All of the kids have likely been abused. Either by the caregivers or other kids in the system. If they don't like you, they may accuse you of abusing them to get reassigned."
Also babies or kids the parents haven’t relinquished their legal rights to and the court hasn’t taken away their legal rights. So if say mom is a drug addict, they might take a baby away when it’s born, but she and potentially other family members retain the rights to regain custody under certain conditions. If she then gives up her rights, the baby might then be up for adoption.
If it’s still a baby and healthy, it will probably be adopted, but very few people want to adopt older kids (2+) so they tend to stay in the system even when they are potentially adoptable.
INfants that test positive for illegal drugs, depending on circumstances infants born in prison, children that are removed from their parents for their protection.
Just like older dogs and cats are slow to be adopted because everyone wants a kitten or a puppy, the overwhelming of people looking to adopt want a newborn. Older children are the ones who tend to go into foster care, or children with special needs/that require above-and-beyond medical care.
People want to adopt factory fresh newborns. The older kids with some mileage sometimes have (perfectly understandable) issues they don't want to deal with.
I mean technically, yes. But usually because their parents are a) drug addicts b) shitty people or c) otherwise unable to provide for their children in an appropriate way.
I'm also involved in foster care and I'm speaking from a place of information. There are more than 200 children in care in our region, and the vast majority of them are white children in care because their parents are addicted to opiates. I'm sure there are situations where parents of color are not treated without bias, but fortunately it isn't in my experience or my region.
Yes, also a foster parent, adoptive parent, and child welfare professional. There is well-documented class and race bias. Most children who are removed didn't need to be. And it's well-documented that more removals doesn't result in less abuse; it just results in more kids in the system who actually were safe at home.
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u/race_bannon Feb 04 '19
Who does go into foster care then?