foster child

[Fos-ter chayld]

Noun, plural foster children

1. An adolescent owned by the government and passed from caretaker to caretaker
2. A piece of paperwork
3. An unwanted child with nothing but a trash bug full of clothes to their name

Related Adjectives

1. Unwanted
2. Unloved
3. Misunderstood
4. Protected from abuse

According to The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 415,129 children were in foster care on September 30, 2014. Foster care has always had a bad reputation – the homes are bad and the kids they produce are even worse. It’s a flawed system that no one seems to know how to fix. The kids are often irreparable.

Foster kids have a higher chance of dropping out of school than normal children, and there’s a good reason for that. When kids move constantly, they also switch schools. I remember going to five different schools my third grade year, and how much work it took to catch up to my peers when I finally settled at the home that would eventually adopt me. Most teachers give lessons on important subjects at different times in the school year, so I never learned, through instruction, how to multiply. I taught myself when I was younger. I remember looking at the calculator as a kid, knowing how to ‘times’ but not to ‘multiply.’ I thought multiplication was what that little M button at the top was for. When I told this to the teacher she laughed and explained it to me. I didn’t have to switch schools so much because I had found my ‘forever home.’ For some children, however, they don’t find their home. They may spend their entire lives in foster care, switching schools constantly.

While switching schools does affect education, it has even worse effects on mental health. Constantly having to make new friends and fit in at a new place is a scary concept to most of us – imagine having to do that every month, which is a reality for some kids. Most foster kids eventually learn to trust something that is concrete, constant; they trust something that won’t change, that will always be there no matter how often they move. Some kids learn to channel themselves through positive mediums, such as music or sports. Other children use drugs or alcohol to make them feel safe, just to know they can always turn to something when things get tough. This damages a child’s ability to communicate with people and to make friends. Most of these children regress when faced with conflict and this regression can ruin a child’s mental and emotional stability for the rest of their life.

It's unfortunate because foster kids often believe the stereotypes they’ve heard about themselves. They know they’re not loved. They know they’re bound to become a statistic: another teen pregnancy, overdose, murder, drunk driving crash, high-school dropout or homeless bum.

But what can we do to fix it? Is there a solution? Foster care is nothing more than a band-aid fix. When will we learn that we need to address the problem? Why do we take children from their biological families and what can we do to fix those problems? A lot of foster kids come from drug-addicted parents. Why don’t we place more emphasis on getting these parents the resources they need to break their addiction? A lot of teen-born babies end up in the foster care system eventually. Why don’t we raise awareness of protected sex and the prevention of teen pregnancy? Foster care doesn’t fix anything – it just gives the same problem a different name. It’s a never – ending cycle.

Don’t get me wrong, when a biological family isn’t safe for a child, the child needs to be removed. What if, instead of waiting for a child to be abused, we found a way to prevent the abuse in the first place? There are survivors, I survived and was adopted into a loving family. Unfortunately, not every story has a happy ending. More often than not, a grown foster child will just continue the cycle of foster care. Can we make a change, or are we willing to stand and watch? Children are moved from one abusive home to another – whether that abuse is neglect, mental, or physical. Often, foster homes are just as bad as the homes we take children from in the first place. I experienced many homes that I would definitely classify as abusive. Cruel punishment, cramped quarters, beatings, little food were just a few of the things I suffered from.

Personally, I remember lying to my teachers about where my bruises really came from. I lived with 13 kids in a double wide trailer and we were lucky if we got bread for dinner. I suffered through spankings from a hot frying pan, running laps in 100 degree weather as punishment for throwing up after being forced to eat something I couldn’t, and extreme starvation and emotional neglect. I was called every name in the book. I believed every lie about myself, and instead of becoming angry, I was depressed. I’ve learned to overcome my problems with a pair of loving parents, but lots of people in my shoes will never experience that kind of help. I was one of the lucky ones.

So the question for the rest of you is: will you choose to live in ignorance? Will you acknowledge that there is a problem out there that needs to be fixed immediately? Will you love the kids who have never been loved? Will you reach out? As Anne Frank once said, “How wonderful is it that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” We can be the change we wish to see in the world. The question is left – are you willing to make a change?