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I feel bad for all of the kids who were raised very poorly. Who were raised and lived in bad circumstances and got swept up in gangs or took a bad path of crime or violence. Much of it is not their fault but is the fault of their upbringing and circumstances.
Yes, I feel very badly for most of them.
It is very easy to see the end product of this process -- a hardened violent criminal causing terrible problems for us -- and forget that in a lot of cases, these people were born as children under terrible circumstances and never had a real chance to be an upstanding citizen.
So yes, I feel very badly for them these days. It is not completely their fault. Not by a long shot.
That does not mean we give them a pass. They still have to suffer the same punishments and be kept from harming the public as a child raised right with all the advantages, who simply chooses crime and goes off the path of lawfulness. In both cases, they have to pay the price and we need to provide disincentives for criminals.
But yes, I very much feel badly for a lot of criminals who had terrible upbringings in dismal circumstances. A nice young kid of Mexican descent living in an upscale suburb doesn't just wake up one morning and think, "Gee, I really need to join MS13. That looks like fun". They are harsly recruited at a young age, given no choice but to join, and then groomed for violence.
Criminals often come from extreme poverty with incompetent parenting because the parents themselves were raised by incompetent parents, due to a vicious cycle.
Yes, I feel badly for all of them, but we still can't give them a pass.
This is the part the Pro-Lifers never want to admit to, they act like every child in the system will be adopted and have a great life. Reality show that there are too many who are shuffled from home to home and never have any kind of "mentoring", parenting, stability. Join the military is a great line except in this case he has no high school diploma and the military won't take him.
Its one thing to be on your own at 20 when you've have been raised, taught and guided in preparation, its another thing where survival is the only skill you have learned before being thrown out.
This guy has been “in the system” since he was 7 days old.
According to this there are about 424,000 in foster care. The median age is 6.5.
20,000 age out between age 18-21, depending on the state.
But according to the Pro-Lifers there are people out there who want to adopt these unwanted children a woman doesn't need to terminate her unwanted pregnancy, yeah right. Healthy white babies no shortage of parents, mixed heritage, health or developmental issues well someone else can adopt them.
Being an orphan is not a crime, society failing to provide for that child so they have a chance is. As for the guy in the story he speaks well and seems to be trying so I hope someone seeing it will be able to give him a chance.
Yes life experiences and hard knocks make a person appreciate what they accomplish in life but the failure to provide for a child and raise them so they have the skills they need to go out in life is a failure of the society they are in. Were not in a Dickens novel but having Scrooge be the one to determine who is worthy of aid is not the answer either. If you are going to stop a "welfare state" we can also stop, farm subsidies, business subsidies and protections, and lets not forget all those state that are on the top 10 for receiving Federal Aid.
After all aren't we going to "robs people of their will, determination, dignity, pride, economic opportunities" with that Federal Aid??
I have employed many over the years and all with varying backgrounds. Is this supposed to be a “gotcha”?
Not a “gotcha”.
The earliest documentation of children being raised in what we now know as foster care, are found in the Old Testament and Talmud.
There have always been masses of orphan children in the US. Between the 1850’s-1920’s, well off businessmen on the East Coast ( immigration gateways) used orphan trains to transport masses of unwanted children from east coast cities to the Midwest, often to be farm hands where the children were expected to earn their keep.
In some instances/ places, farmers would bid on children. There were no background checks and placements were generally unsupervised.
The movement ceased with the onset of the Great Depression. When the private sector exits, the state and Federal governments tend to step in to fill a void.
My point is that the challenges associated with unwanted children were not created by the US government.
While this data is 5 years old, it demonstrates how the demand for state group homes and foster placement is on the rise in several states. Montana, of all states, is way up there. Much of this seems to be attributed to the opioid crisis and lack of state funding.
I attended 8 th grade at a public school. The local student population was boosted with kids from 2 private group homes. Most were white and either had been in group homes their entire lives or had been removed from homes due to parental neglect- usually drug related.
They were stigmatized and often had challenges with socializing with their peers and authority, inside and outside their group homes. Many were well on their way to a life of crime. A few of the 8 th grade girls became pregnant as the year wore on. Their offspring would be placed into the public system. Some of the boys were into stealing cars. Many smoked and sold pot.
They were throwaways.
Those private group homes all closed due to lack of funding.
I’ve worked for foster care agencies, although it was quite a few years ago.
Turns out many of the kids in the system end up getting jobs for foster care agencies. There is a path to work your way up within the foster care system. If you manage a facility, the pay can be quite good.
The service is a good next step for many aging out. The reality is that many individuals are on psychiatric medications that disqualify them from the armed forces.
They have the option of leaving at 18 but can stay until 22 (I think). We try to encourage them to stay and house them in a step down facility where they can learn more life skills in a lightly supervised environment. All kids in foster care are entitled to free college tuition - community college is encouraged. Many just want to get out as soon as possible.
I worked with Foster kids for 20 years. The horror that they go through as children would likely make your skin crawl. Some children manage to deal with that trauma better than others. Some foster children are just moved from the trauma at home to more trauma at terrible foster placements. Yes, I feel bad. You probably would too if you knew what many of them have lived through.
I should have been more specific. I meant to say... do you feel bad that this 22-year-old, who is no longer a kid and has a job, will soon lose the 1000$/month that he gets from the government for being a foster kid, which I think was the main point of the NBC piece? I don't. Ending those payments when foster kids become adults is the correct policy.
I should have been more specific. I meant to say... do you feel bad that this 22-year-old, who is no longer a kid and has a job, will soon lose the 1000$/month that he gets from the government for being a foster kid, which I think was the main point of the NBC piece? I don't. Ending those payments when foster kids become adults is the correct policy.
I think I would need to meet him to answer your question.
I have met many like him and I do have tremendous sympathy.
It usually takes a lot of support to be successful after growing up in the foster care system.
I hope still he has a good case worker.
Also, the home invasion and assault may involve a foster family situation.
There are foster parents who are angels in disguise. Wonderful, loving, caring people who devote their lives to giving children a respite from the world, a chance to experience what family is like.
There are others with bunkbeds in the back bedrooms. They are in it for the income.
This can't be said enough.
For 3 years, I dated a man who went into the foster care system as a child due to abuse from his mother (munchausen's by proxy - and he was the proxy) and drug addiction from his father. He was split up from his two younger sisters and was in more than 15 foster homes and 3 group homes between the ages of 8 and 18. He was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused multiple times. He once pointed out a house and told me that the family there "kept" 4-6 foster kids at a time. They were housed in bunk beds with at least 3-4 to a room, and were fed something different than the family's biological children. The family took no interest in the kids, and mostly kept the kids in their cramped rooms. There is such a shortage of foster homes in the US that this is not abnormal.
By the time he was made available for adoption (when he was 12 after walking in on his father ODed during a visitation), he was too old. Very, very few kids find permanent placements after the age of 5, and even fewer after the age of 8. When he aged out, he and his best friend (a disabled foster kid) ended up homeless on the streets of Boston because there were no wheelchair friendly placements for him to go to and my ex didn't want him to be alone. My understanding was their other option was staying in the group home they shared, but since they had both been sexually abused there, being on the streets felt like a better option. They lived in homeless shelters or, in nicer weather, on the streets for almost 2 years until his best friend got into accessible housing.
When they aged out, no one talked to them about college even though there are options for kids in the system. My ex was a true genius - he could hear any song and play it by ear on his guitar and he had a photographic memory. It was never cultivated. His best friend probably could have done something, but will be on assistance until the day he dies because his medical costs and PCA (plus the spare bedroom to house a PCA) are more than the average salary alone. The best friend was put up for adoption on the day he was born, but as a brown infant with moderate-severe cerebral palsy, he was never adopted. The options he might have had with appropriate therapies and support are heartbreaking because he is the friendliest, wittiest person you could ever hope to meet but never had an ounce of hope placed upon him for his future. Can you imagine? No one ever talking to you about how you might like to be president or a doctor or a firefighter when you grew up?
His life was - and still is - a mess and I blame the lack of emotional stability and preparedness that the foster care system left him with. His attitude toward others was what could he get out of them - he learned young not to trust anyone and to get what he could out of them before they invariably threw him away in his mind. He's 40, his one long-term relationship was me more than 6 years ago, and he still works menial jobs that waste his talent and he doesn't take seriously. Last I heard, he had to move to a really rough neighborhood
Could he and other kids who aged out of the foster care system made better choices? Maybe. But it's not bad choices that result in only 3% graduating from college and half ending up in the criminal justice system or a parent within 18 months of aging out. Of his 3 siblings, my ex is the only one who didn't fall into that category.
I am structuring my life so that I can be a foster parent to older kids. I'm not there yet as a full time caregiver, but mentoring teenagers in the system has been a big part of my volunteer priorities. The stories they have to share would make even the strongest person tear up.
Last edited by charolastra00; 12-24-2021 at 11:21 PM..
dysfunctional people have dysfunctional children who then go on to have dysfunctional children. the whole situation is tragic, but unfortunately repeats itself over and over. so what is the solution? our friends on the left think more tax payer funds will help (it never does). conservatives think just ignore it and either hope people just figure it out on their own or let the prisons sort it out. sadly, many like Dimitri will end up in prison regardless.
That is why I believe that public assistance should be linked to mandatory Depo Provera Shots or other proven birth control. Prevent the hopeless/hapless from having endless children.
It is the only legal way to limit the overwhelming number of criminals and shiftless being born in this country.
Last edited by Futuremauian; 12-25-2021 at 12:06 AM..
Reason: Added a fact
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