In the Childs Best Interest

[Thoughts to Ponder to All Involved with Foster Care]

Is my child better off with strangers who own a Lexus, Mini Van, and Dodge Durango … because I rely on public transportation?

Is my child better off with strangers who live in a $500,000 home in the suburbs … because I live in an apartment in an inner city ghetto?

Is my child better off living with strangers in a traditional nuclear family … because I am a single mother?

Is my child better off living with strangers in a house with a stay-at-home mom … because I am a single mother who works full-time?

Is it better for my child to live with strangers who can feed him lobster … because I can only afford chicken?

Is my child better off with strangers who are college educated … because I only have a high school diploma?

Is it to my child’s advantage to live with strangers of a different race … because I am a Black woman who is forced to live with the daily burdens of racism, bigotry, and discrimination?

Is my nine year old only-child better off living in a home with two parents and 10 teenaged foster children … because our two bedroom apartment is roach infested?

Is it in my daughter’s best interest to be removed from my home due to ‘verbal abuse’ because my boyfriend and I argue too much … and placed with strangers who will rape and molest her?

Is my child who occasionally wanders away from home … safer in the luxurious suburban home of strangers with an olympic sized swimming pool or a vicious rottweiler in the backyard? http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/2001/aug%202001/8231baby.htm

Is my child better off with strangers because they can afford ballet, tap, and gymnastics classes … and I can only afford occasional lessons at the YMCA or Boys and Girls Club?

Is my child better off living with wealthy strangers who work long hours and travel frequently on business which keeps them away from home … because I earn minimum wage on both of my underpaid jobs which also keeps me away from home more than I care to be?

Is my child better off living with wealthy strangers who can afford hired help and a nanny to raise the children … because I am a single parent with no family support?

Is my son better protected from the ‘verbal abuse’ at home … now that he is placed in the home of domestic partners and susceptible to their sense of morality and vulnerable to their sexual advances? see: http://www.itv.com/news/britain_2023818.html

Am I truly an abusive and/or negligent parent just because the social workers, supervisors, department managers, regional managers at Child Protective Services, and the juvenile court judge have declared me as such? see: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060513/NEWS0104/605130392/1008/NEWS01

Is my child better off in the home of strangers because I drink forty ounce malt liquor on the weekends … even though his foster mother drinks four to five glasses of Dom. Romance Conti (1997) every day?

Is my child better off in the home of strangers with a mother who has no marketable job skills and supplements her husbands income with government issued monthly foster care payments … because I am currently receiving AFDC?

Is my child better off living in the home of her previous social worker who regularly engaged in acts of felony perjury, conspiracy, corruption, and other unconstitutional and criminal acts all under the guise of “protecting” children … because I am a stripper?

Is the forced assimilation of my little Black child into White American society to his advantage … because it will expose him to the things that I can not financially provide? Never mind the loss of cultural identity, traditional teachings, and often irreversibly damaged family bonds. Let’s not forget the advantages of forced assimilation on Native Americans who are still paying the price to this very day in high poverty rates, excessive alcohol addiction and abuse, as well as the lack of economic self sufficiency.

Is my child safer and better protected in the home of strangers because I lack stable housing and battle substance abuse … after all, the temporary care providers are able to offer stable housing and are not alcoholics? See: http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060425/BREAKING01/60425008

Is my child better off with strangers because I am in and out of treatment facilities battling my drug addiction … although his foster parent abuses prescription drugs? See: http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1145956934113500.xml&coll=1

Is it to my child’s advantage to stay in a stranger’s home that has the option to serve a seven day notice to remove the child when his behavior becomes too much to handle … Or should he already be in the home of loving extended family members who will love and care for him for the rest of his life!

Is my child better off living with strangers until the age of 18 who will then declare him “aged-out” and release him to the streets without money, shelter, or the loving support of family to whom he was forced to abandon years earlier.

Most importantly, will my government continue to turn a blind eye to the unconstitutional and often criminal behavior occurring in our juvenile courts? Will my government continue to add more money or fuel to the fire that is Foster Care … which is already burning out of control!
By doing the aforementioned, I hereby declare that my government is participating in the “legalized” kidnapping of our nations children.

TMajor

If you believe that foster care should be reserved for children that are orphaned, or have TRULY been abandoned by their parents and ALL extended family members; If you believe that children in foster care should actually be victims of abuse and/or neglect, once proven by a judge and jury NOT a social worker with a God complex; If you believe in the Constitution and civil rights for all, no matter what their economic, social, or cultural group may be – Please sign the petitions referenced at www.squidoo.com/abolishcps/ (scroll down to Get Involved!!!). Thank you in advance for your participation!