Foster Care and Adoption

My husband and I have adopted 14 children from state foster care (in addition to the 5 biological children we have).  We began adopting over 13 years ago.  Because of this decision we have had many heartbreaks and many challenges.  We have had social services turn on us and investigate us because of things the children have done and then tried to blame on us by lying.  We have had to remove children because of extremely harmful behavior.  After living with these children and their heartache, we had come to realize a few things about the foster/adoption system in this country-mainly it doesn't work.

Here are my thoughts on this:

1.  Children are removed far too much.  Many of the children in my home were removed because their parents were drug addicts and bad/neglectful parents but they were not physically harming the children.  They should have been left alone.  The parents should have been prosecuted for the drugs but other that the kids should have remained.  Yes, their lives would have been hard and they would probably pick up some really bad habits.  However, no where is there a guarantee against bad parents (aren't we all from time to time).  These kids fared worse being pulled out and then at an older age expected to assume a whole new identity and be happy about it.  If you were taken from your home and put in another one and then were told this is your new family and that you had to like it- would you?  No, you would rebel which is what all these kids have done.  Further, after having been put through the social services nightmare and realizing that the only way we could win was by hiring a big, bully lawyer we understand how these parents get their kids taken, even if they try to clean up their act.  If you don't have money to fight them, you cannot win once they have it in their heads to destroy you.  Social services answers to no-one and they are way too powerful.

2.  If a child is physicallly being harmed, remove them to a safe place (ie foster care) and allow them to remain until the situation is no longer harmful or until they reach adulthood.  Do not expect them to take on a new identity-even if they are very young.  Dont expect them to call you Mom and Dad but let them understand that you are protecting them until such time as they can hopefully return home.  In addition, the parents must be prosecuted and jailed if they are harming their child.  This will send a message to others that harming a child is a crime!!

3.  In the best situation, the church and community should step in to care for children being harmed so a child does not have to move from their own geographical location.

4.  The only children who should be adopted are true orphans - children who have been either abandoned by their biological parents or whose parents have died and there is no extended family who can take them in.

These are of course my opinions, however, almost all adoptive families I know are living lives of extreme difficulty because they tried to help a child, usually a child that just wanted to stay with their own families, despite the parents bad behavior.  The system is broken and children and the families that attempt to help them continue to be damaged because of it.  Their is so much more to write about this subject and i hope to do so in the future...