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Letters to the Editor

Ball: parenting has high risks, low rewards

Published Monday, May 10, 2010

I read the article about the shortage of foster parents Tuesday, and as a former

foster parent, I have a different idea about why this is happening.

Don’t get me wrong. I respect Wanda Lamb and foster parents. They are trying

valiantly to do a job that is unappreciated and overregulated, leaves you open

to great liability, has a social stigma, and has very little reward.

When you become a foster parent, you think you are going to be a part of a team

that is to do good for your community. You jump through unbelievable amounts of

red tape and go through endless, mostly useless “training.” And then, you are

all alone. Your motives, frustrations and attempts to parent are under constant

scrutiny — usually by a worker who has never raised a child and has no clue

about being a parent.

Your house is converted into an institution. No matter the age of your foster

children, your house will be baby-proofed at all times: locks on cabinets,

alarms on doors, caps on electrical outlets, fences around pools — if you are

even allowed to keep yours — medications under lock and key including vitamins

and cold medicine. And you think, “OK, I understand they want it safe,” and you

try.

But they are not finished. No, then they inform you of all the ways you cannot

discipline the children, and these children come to you from homes that have had

no structure or discipline in the first place. They are not well adjusted: They

are broken, depressed, sad children who are further traumatized with scheduled

visits where you go and wait for parents who never show up and then you go home

and hold them while they cry and wonder, “Where is mommy?”

Social Services offers pie-in-the-sky parenting techniques that do not work

unless the children are heavily medicated. They insist on being in charge of

their medical regimes, including giving antipsychotic drugs that you may feel

are not only unnecessary but harmful. They basically strip you of every decision

a real parent would make, give you no authority and make sure the children know

they don’t have to stay with you if they don’t want to.

There is no effort made to back a foster parent or to encourage a child to make

things work, so if you tell your 16-year-old that she cannot have her boyfriend

over because she did not do her homework, was disrespectful and hurt another

child, all she has to do is call her worker and say, “They are not feeding me!”

Forget that it is not true: They are picked up at school the next day and you

are faxed a list of their belongings, which is laughable because they came with

nothing.

Or maybe the child is even more vindictive and accuses you of abuse. You are

guilty until proven innocent and I know of innocent people who were wrongfully

accused. You are not part of the team, you are a necessary evil. Your neighbors

resent you. Your community thinks you are doing it for the money — what a joke!

The staff at the doctors’ offices look down at you when you present the Medi-Cal

card because you don’t look like you should be on welfare. You get less than the

welfare the mother was getting and you have to replace everything they lost or

most likely never had: clothes, toys, furniture, experiences.

You have to take them to counseling and therapy, and help them catch up in

everything because they have been neglected in every way. I know of one lovely

woman who took in a sickly child for respite care. The child collapsed and

horrifically died. She was not told that he needed puréed food. She was not told

that his organs were reversed so when she attempted CPR it was ineffective. She

called 911 and went with him to the hospital, and then he was shipped to

and she worried and agonized over this child. Several weeks later, she learned

he had choked on an apple. Then she was sued for wrongful death by a woman who

abused her child and most likely did drugs while pregnant.

So why would anyone do it? Even the most altruistic people would be crazy to

subject themselves to this. I revere current foster parents, and I fear for

them. Their lives are given over to the authority of children who are starved

for attention and don’t know how to get it in a normal way. They have no

recourse in the event of conflict, and no support. Social Services leads them to

believe that all the training is for their support: It is just CYA so that the

foster parents are liable and vulnerable.

It’s a joke to call them foster parents because they are not allowed to be

parents. But they put their hearts out there and they love these children as

much as the children will let them and they get hurt. It is a very high-risk job

with less than minimum wage pay and no benefits, huge emotional stress, great

liability and the likelihood of loss. There is your problem.

Ball, a former foster parent, lives in Redding.

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