Americas lost kids

My step daughter does foster care over in Washington state. It's something she has been doing for almost two years now so I have been able to get a glimpse of the system. In all honesty , the kids that land in her care are lucky. They have a safe loving home to live in and she actually cares , and likes kids. I don't think that is the case for all foster parents. To some, the kids are just a means to earn an income and that is the basis of why they do it. Like everything else, there is good and bad foster parents. Just as there are good and bad social workers. The most critical component in the mix is that there are good and bad parents that unfortunately sometimes find their kids taken by the state. The reasons kids are taken by the government varies but the most common reasons seem to be abuse - either physical or extreme mental, and neglect - where kids are not being cared for , protected and fed.

It's a sad state of affairs and I think taking someones kids should only be done as a last resort. The thing that has amazed me while looking at the process from the small micro sample that is my step-daughters experience is how little some of the parent do to correct the situation so that they can get their kids back. I find this astounding that they wouldn't do what ever it took to get their kids back into their care! The things the state is asking is not unreasonable. How hard is it to pass a drug test for 2-3 months in a row. The state will even pay for rehab but many of these people would rather do drugs then have their kids! Two kids she had ,one parent gave up his rights and the mother kept testing positive for marijuana - a substance that is non narcotic (meaning not physically addictive). How damned hard is it to stop getting high for three months to get the most precious thing in your life back! The state offers these parents treatment and counseling, paid public transportation, in many cases housing assistance. Some of the parents don't even bother to visit the kids! Some just treat it like sending the kid off to camp or a nanny service... Hey let them raise the kid , I can party!

I'm sorry , but what the fuck are they thinking????? If I had kids , and for some reason the state took them I would do whatever it took to get them back as quickly as possible. I just don't understand the mentality of some of the parents. One woman who had her kids taken had three kids in the system and was cranking out another one a year after the state had seized her last infant. Her kids were being born with drugs and alcohol in their systems causing health issues that were going to affect them their whole lives. The woman was in her early twenties , unemployed and having the state pay for all her medical and living expenses. I don't advocate forced birth control by any means, but sometimes you have to shake your head and wonder where you draw the line. Because of irresponsible parents the state of Washington has got to be spending millions of tax dollars on medical and care for the kids who's parents just don't give a shit! The biggest victims of this travesty is the kids, who's parents claim to love them even though they can't seem to get their heads extracted from their asses long enough to see the reality of the situation they are creating.

If you ever listen to the Alex Jones show you hear him go on about the pedophiles that infiltrate the foster system and that the state is out to seize your kids for whatever reason they can. I don't know about that, but I know that the ones in my step daughters home at least are loved , fed , and safe from abuse. I know the main reason the parents have not got them back is because the parents have failed to pull their act together. The state is not holding a pipe to the parents mouth or making them stay with a violent boyfriend. I see good kids , put in bad situations by their own parents who are to self centered to do whats right and sacrifice for the kids sake. I see people willing to let the state raise their kids so they can party and drink and do drugs. The scary thing is the problem is increasing. Many of these people dumping the kids into the system were foster kids themselves. This is a cycle that need to be broke! In the movie "Idiocracy" - the premise was that the stupid people bred at a fast rate while the smart responsible people bred slowly threw family planning. After time the world was populated by nothing but ignoramuses because the stupid people overtook the smart people with sheer numbers. The family structure has been under attack for a long time, so long that it is now imploding at a greater and greater rate. It's something we need to figure out how to stop.

The only real solution is for people to take better responsibility for their own actions. We have a moral crisis in this country and in the world actually. It's time for the men of this world to man up and be the dads the kids need. It's time for the women of the world to be the mothers the kids need them to be. What happened to parental instinct that so many seem to lack these days? I believe there are more good people in the world then bad by far, but will it stay that way if we don't find our way back to a course guided by a sound moral compass. I'm sure that there is cases where parents are having a hard time getting there kids back from social services when they should by all rights have them. From what I have seen though, the state really doesn't want to raise your kids for you. They expect the parents to do that. Taking a kid from a home should be a last resort, but if a child is being abused, starved or neglected to a detramental level or just abandoned, somebody has to do something about the situation for the sake of the child.

Until Next Time
LascoX