The Physics of Foster Care.

There are certain "truths" in the universe that can not be changed. If you throw a coin off of a building, it will fall to the ground. If you push a stroller, it will go in the direction you push it. If you fill a container with water, the water will stay level no matter what slope the container is on. All of these truths are physics. I am coming to the realization that foster care has certain physics associated with it as well.

Almost as sure as the sun is going to rise tomorrow, there will be children put into foster care today. Some of the kids will be born to drug addicted parents who only want to take care of getting themselves drugs. Some of the kids will be abused sexually, physically, or emotionally. Some of the kids will unfortunately have parents pass away or become too sick to care for them. And lastly, some of the kids will just have parents who are complete and total IDIOTS! (S) falls in that category. Nothing can change any of that, it is physics.

There are foster parents who truly care about the children they are fostering and many hope to adopt the children some day. Unfortunately there is a small minority of foster parents who really don't care about the children and treat them horribly. Some are just in it to take the money from the state for themselves and provide nothing for the children. It has been this way for years, and apparently nothing will ever change that either. It is physics.

There are social workers at the county/state offices that are overworked, underpaid, and while when they first took their job they felt good about what they were doing to help the children and many still do, a number of them have become very cynical and no longer really care about the children. They just want to get through the day as easy as possible because there just isn't enough time in the day to do everything that is expected of them. I don't think any of these things will change either. It is physics

I like to think that eventually everything will change. That there will be fewer parents who are unable to care for their children. That all foster parents will be fostering just to help out the children, and that social workers will not be overworked and underpaid, but given a fair days pay for doing a good job helping out the children that need their help. Unfortunately, none of that will ever happen. Its physics, and you can't change physics.

MOMMY

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Today (S) referred to DW by her first name as she always has, but added "mommy" to the end of it. She has never said anything like that before. She calls everyone by their first name. She is so confused. The more things that occur, the more angry I get with her parents. The ones who apparently just don't care any more. I think each child is just another 400 or 500 dollars a month in assistance. Sicne they had 5 of them, thats close to $30,000 per year TAX FREE!!

My daughter is a teacher and doesn't make that much money and what she does make, she has to pay taxes on.

We make it too easy for people to get assistance. Illegal aliens get better health care than many hard working people and parents like (S)'s get all sorts of services from the state and do absolutely nothing. Oh, wait......you won't believe this one. I don't know if I should tell you here as you might think I am making this up, but I assure you this is the truth...........The state has been paying for bio-dad to go to school and get an education. In and of itself, not a bad thing until you find out what he is studying.........................He wants to be a social worker.......No kidding....its the truth.....I swear on a stack of bibles.....How stupid can the state be?

Well, I got off the subject. Anyway, as I said, (S) referred to DW using "mommy". I don't know what that means other than she is confused, but why now? She has been here for 15 months and never once used that term and tonight it comes from out of the blue. I wish she could tell us what is going on in her head, but I guess it isn't really important. We will continue to treat her like she was our own child and hope that in the end everything works out for the best. Whether for the best or not however, we have no control over that. That is up to a higher power than us.

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