Feelings on Foster Care from a Natural Mom
Authored by
Brenda Alexander
I understand that
foster parents are also in the line of fire but it's one of those things you
sort of need to take into consideration when deciding whether or not to be
foster moms and dads. While you say that your decision was because you
wanted to "do the right thing". I still think a part of ALL foster
parents' decisions is to make themselves appear to be unselfish, loving, and
kind. I also think an even larger part is due to all the money you receive
as part and parcel of taking in such children. Let's face it, most children
in the foster care system are deemed "damaged" and therefore "unwanted".
That's rarely the case. Just read any given newspaper, on any given day,
and you'll find where a foster child was horribly beaten, injured or killed
in foster care!
In North Carolina, foster parents get approximately $900 per child each
month. If you have 5 kids in your care, that's more than the average family
makes with both parents working. PLUS, you get free health care, dental
care, eye care, and food stamps to offset other expenses.
When it comes to giving foster children presents, most give them a measly $2
or $3 toy from the dollar store. IF they get anything at all. They don't
have many clothes or other luxuries children in their age range have. So
please, tell me where all this money you get for taking in these children
goes? Does it help pay your mortgage, car payment, and other personal
expenses? How does it directly benefit these children? Do you buy them
$500 worth of clothes and shoes each month? One foster child alone should
pay your house payment and car payment. So where does the rest of the money
go? Do any of your "foster" children have a pet? Do they get to go to
summer camp? Do you allow them to have sleep-overs? What exactly do you do
with $900 per child each month? How much $$$ do you have in your savings
account or your natural children's college fund? What about trust and
college funds for the foster children? Do you do that for them or is that
someone else's problem too.
I'm not attacking you personally. For all I know you are God's chosen angel
come to earth to save these poor, wretched children that God CHOSE to give
to these "biological only" parents. I just really, really, really want to
know what you do with all this money. You knew the risks when signing up
for this job. I think it's truly awful if you're accused of abusing and/or
neglecting a foster child but another question is this, if they're lying
about YOU then for that reason alone, you shouldn't believe them if they say
their natural parents abused them. To some kids if you tell them
that they can't date at 13, that's being horribly abusive. The saddest
part, some judges and social workers would agree that's horrible and unfair
punishment.
Foster families, as a rule, are as dangerous, if not more so, to natural
parents than social workers, judges, and the court system in general. If
you get that perfect, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, WHITE foster child, and
decide you want him/her, by God you will get your way! It's all well, fine,
and good if the bios WANT to let you adopt, but that is rarely the case.
You go behind their backs, lie, exaggerate, and twist their words all so you
don't have to get off your lazy ass and go to work. You want this money and
there's just too much of it to work for it. Where else are you going to
work and get $900 a month for doing as little as possible? Oh, yeah, I
know! I just remembered. You get a freaking job working in some capacity
for the government. What difference does it make if the child wants to go
home and the parents love and want this child more than life itself? You
don't give a damn because you don't want to do what's right, you want to do
what's easy.
Now, I'm using the word "you" because it gets tiresome writing and saying
"foster mom or dad, or parent. So I am not accusing YOU personally of
anything. If you are all noble and righteous, fine. That's what you are!
I don't care if I get kicked off the group either. I'm going to say what
I've been wanting to say all along. I do have that right as far as I know.
Yes, I have strong opinions about foster parents. To date, I haven't talked
to one single person that has anything nice to say about the "fosters"
(watch I Am Sam).
Again, this isn't a personal attack against you, but you have to understand
OUR side sees you as the enemy. You are as much of the problem as DSS, if
not more so. When you go to bed with the devil, don't be all surprised when
he gores you with his horns. These children are not objects. They should
not be sold to the highest bidder. They should not be placed in homes that
are in direct opposition of how the bios were raising their children. For
example, you shouldn't put a Jewish child in a Christian church and vise
versa. The same is true for same-sex couples. While I have nothing
personal against gays and lesbians, to some people it is a sin and do not
want to instill those values in their children. That's their God-given
right!
Another thing, once "fosters" get it in their minds they're NOT giving up
all this federal money, reunification efforts stop. You should never, ever,
ever benefit in any way, shape, form or fashion by being a foster parent..
Free medical and eye care for the children is fine, but if you cannot afford
to feed them without help from the government, then what the f*** are you
doing fostering in the first place? I mean that's the reason many a social
worker claims as reasons to remove a child from their home. If it's okay
for YOU not to be able to afford them then why can't they simply help the
biological parent get the food stamps and educate them on how to properly
budget for food?
I apologize if this offends anyone on the group. Like I said, this isn't a
personal attack on you but rather on the foster care system as a whole. You
just got caught up in the crosshairs, just like natural parents get every
single day of their lives while fighting CPS. You and only you know whether
or not you abused this little girl. Accidents happen to even the best of
families. However, abuse is 10 times more likely in foster care than at
home so I'm going to do like everybody else does when natural parents lose
their children to CPS, I'm going to say that there just has to be more to
the story. They don't just "accuse" you or "take your children" without due
cause. Sound familiar??? I bet it does. So, you know in your heart what
really happened, just like all of us natural parents. The big difference
is, we actually believe you. We have no doubts in our mind that what you
said happened, happened. We KNOW firsthand that neglect/abuse allegations
are almost always a bunch of BS. We KNOW because we LIVED that nightmare
and no matter what the end result is, even ONE day without our children is
ONE day too long. We'll never get that time back.
Please, foster parents, do what you can to support and help the natural
parents. If money is an issue, surely you could take some of that money
you're making off of our kids and help us get set up into a nice place or
make sure we have proper food, take parenting classes OUTSIDE of CPS so that
we can be better parents. These are not your kids. No matter how much you
love them, no matter how much you want them, they don't belong to you nor
will they ever truly belong to you. You wouldn't steal your neighbor's dog
and then stop him from going home, would you? If so, that tells me a lot
about your character. But if you wouldn't do that to a dog, why do it to a
child? Please, I hope you have the courage to respond to me with
satisfactory answers to my questions. They're genuine and while sarcastic,
it doesn't mean I don't mean them. Answer me by
email, if you'd like. Just click on my name. Sorry if I was offensive.
Kick me off if that's what you want to do, but I am NOT sorry for anything
I've said.
Brenda Alexander
All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to
do nothing.
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Visit My Website- http://stolenbythestate.ning.com/
Join Our Group- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Stolen_by_the_State/join
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Related Link-- http://www.LegallyKidnapped.blogspot.com
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Forgive me if I repeat something that someone may have already covered, but
I've been off group for so long and there have been so many posts, that if
I even made the time to read every post, I'd probably still end up being
behind, lol. (This will not be there, since Your
story is Your Story and NOT a Repeat)
I wanted to give my perspective of foster parent vs biological parent, from
the biological parent perspective.
treated better than they would have 100 years ago or so. When children were
first being put into "the system" they were sent to group homes and/or
orphanages where they didn't get the love and attention
My personal experience with foster care is one that I don't think I will
EVER forget, as there are constant reminders (too many to mention). I think
my children and husband are having an easier time getting past the past than
I am. My children will occasionally mention their former foster
parents, the other cities they lived in, the different schools they attended
or they will show a gift received while in foster care to friends, new
acquaintances, etc and I cringe wondering how they are going to explain (or
how we are going to explain). The pain and humiliation hits me all over
again. My children were fortunate enough to have foster homes where they
were not abused, and I thank God for that, but there are some things that I
wish my children's foster parents had done differently.
One of the foster moms told my two youngest girls that ramen noodles and
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches weren't healthy for them (interesting
considering the school system offers PB & J sandwiches as part of their
lunch program), so when my two girls came home from foster care, they
informed us of what their foster mom had said. At times we have to buy what
we can afford to feed our family & these two items are items that
we occasionally have as a meal or as part of a meal. Even if all we could
afford was ramen noodles and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, those would
be better than no food at all. Our children eagerly attended church twice a
week while in our home (Sunday school & Church and Wednesday night youth
group) but did not attend church or youth group while in the foster home
because the foster dad was a trucker and the foster mom rarely left her
home. I'm not saying that the foster parents should have been made to start
attending church, but they should have tried to maintain the
girls spiritual
relationship interrupted enough that you lose some (or even much) of your
parental authority and the child gains control over you and how you parent.
The other foster mom asked us to limit how much we talked to our other two
children because all they had were cell phones and the state didn't
reimburse them for their cell phone bill. She eventually changed her plan
so that our number wouldn't cost her minutes, but we missed out on many
phone visitations with our children because we didn't want to upset the
foster parents. She also wasn't very approachable and I later found out
that she had made some judgments about my husband and I based on what she
was told by CPS and my oldest daughter. It wasn't until my daughter started
acting out in their home the same way she did in ours, that they were ready
to send her home. My daughter ended up with 7 weeks of grounding, one week
for every offense (7). We ended up receiving an apology from the foster dad
(the foster mom never apologized) for judging us and he admitted that they
had been "buffaloed" by my daughter. We could have chosen to
end her grounding when she came back into our home, but it was important for
us to show consistency and to teach her that choices have consequences,
This probably doesn't apply to those of you on the group who have
experienced the Nightmare first hand, but I guess what I am asking of those
foster parent untouched by the Nightmare, is please don't judge a parent or
their circumstances unless you know everything that is going on from every
side. We all know that CPS lies and we all know that angry teenagers lie
with no thought of what the aftermath will bring. When a child is removed
for "neglect" you need to question whether the parent is poor and is doing
the best they can to provide for their child/ren because they can't get
services, or if the parent has a substance abuse problem and cares more
about their drugs/alcohol, than providing for their children. When a
teenager comes into your home and starts telling you how horrible or
overbearing their parents are, you need to listen to everything they are
saying and see if it seems credible. Judge Judy says she has "a built in BS
detector" and I believe all of us also have that "built in BS detector" if
we are truly paying attention to what we are being told. When a child is
removed for "abuse" you need to question who's definition of "abuse" was
used and who might have made the allegations. Is it an an angry neighbor
who's trying to get back at the children's parent/s, an ex spouse/partner
who is trying to get custody of the children from the other parent, or a
credible witness reporting a child that is actually being abused and/or
neglected? Also, if you have a personal opinion about something that is
different in the bio-parent's home than it is in yours, just tell the child
"I'm sorry, but this is how we do it in my home. When you get back home you
can do it the way mommy and/or daddy wants you to do it. " That way you are
enforcing what you need to enforce in your home, but you are not undermining
the child/ren's parents and what they do in their home. We
all need to keep in mind that when we say something negative to a child
about one or both of their parents, we are telling them that half of them is
not okay. Many of you have already said that you do what you can as foster
parents to maintain the child/parent bond and that many of you have gone
above and beyond for parents, including ones who may not seem to deserve
it. You need to remember to treat the parents as you would want to be
treated if you were in their shoes, which I believe all (if not most) of you
on this group have done/are doing.
Despite what some people may think, I believe foster parents and biological
parents CAN unite to fight CPS and the corruption, as long as they are
willing to let it happen. Many years ago I told my step-children that my
dream was for their mom, their dad and I to all get along the same way
my dad, my mom and my step-dad did. My oldest step-daughter
Gina
Family Justice Advocate
Parents for Justice and Equality
Advocate
Foster Parents Legal Solutions
National Foster Parent Coalition for Allegation Reform (NFPCAR)
DISCLAIMER: I am not an attorney and cannot give legal advice. I am a
citizen and parent who has experienced our broken system, and I have done
extensive research on that broken system. I am here to share what I know and
have learned from my own personal experience. Anything I share with anyone
within this group, or outside of this group is for educational purposes
only, and not to be understood nor taken as legal advice.
Christmas Thoughts From a Foster Care Giver for 43 Years
12/17/2009