Meg Reads: To The end of June

This one hit me so hard. Aaron and I have two real “rules” as foster parents. 

1) we are “all in” for every child. As long as they need us, we are theirs. 

2) we will never stop being alarmed.  We hear story after story of trauma. Every one of them is appalling. But we see a gross desensitization in caseworkers that we believe adds to the problem. Just because you’ve “seen worse” doesn’t make this story and this child matter.  We believe EVERYone should be disturbed EVERY time we hear about a child being raped, starved, assaulted, drug exposed, or shuffled through a system to be passed along as someone else’s problem. The Foster Care Crisis in the United States is EVERYONE’s Problem. We are committed to not let the ever increasing number of cases distract us from the faces and individual needs of the children behind each case number. 

Faults do not devalue effort. 

The sickness lies not in the faults, but much deeper. It lies in the denial. 

This book exposes the faults in the system and those who work for the system defend it’s faults and blindly claim the problems are not there because they don’t want to be held responsible for the problems or for not fixing them. 

Which ironically describes the dependent neglect cycle. Children are removed from biological homes every single day because their primary caregivers were unable to meet their basic needs. Sometimes there is physical abuse. Even if the abuse is not at the actual hands of the parent, the parent is held responsible for allowing the abuse to happen. 

Why are we not criminalizing the agency for allowing the faults in the system to exist, the way we criminalize parents of dependent neglect foster children? I would assume that a Department created with the sole purpose of Human Services, more specifically a sub category tasked with serving Children and Families, MIGHT be held responsible when they fail to serve humans—specifically children and families.  This permissive attitude granted toward then agency is as effective as permissive parenting to a teenager.  

The stories in this book were difficult to follow, as I expected them to be.  (Also there is some language, so be advised).  There are problems and solutions and problems without solutions, and solutions that are the problem.   As a current foster parent, I feel gagged and powerless to advocate for anyone save the children in my care—and even then I am kicking against the pricks. But I give a standing ovation to the author of this book for their courage to blow the whistle.