Wanted: Stable families for foster children

Stability is the most important thing for a child. 

I’ve moved around a bit. Well, a lot. For me, answering the question of where I’m from is a conversation that typically goes along these lines: 

“Where are you from?” someone asks.

“Originally?” I inquire. Prompted by their nodding head, I reply with “Eritrea.” Which, of course, leads to a conversation on Eritrea’s location, culture, etc.

At some point, they deduce that, because I am no longer in Eritrea, I must have come to the U.S. at an earlier point. Smiling knowingly, they continue with, “And then you came to the U.S.?” 

“Well, no. First, we went to Sweden.” 

Partly to save myself from further impromptu deductions, and, to a greater degree, save myself from a drawn-out conversation, I launch into a rushed narrative. 

“Then we went to San Diego, Sunnyvale, Tennessee, back to San Diego, back to Sunnyvale, North Carolina, back to Sunnyvale, and now I live here — here, currently, being Pittsburgh.”

I went to three different elementary schools, three different middle schools and three different high schools. A considerable number of moves left me standing awkwardly next to a teacher during introductions to a room full of adolescent strangers. Is it surprising that I was a very shy child?

Suffice to say, I didn’t have the most consistent living situation while growing up. Still, I prefer the inconsistency of my upbringing to that of the many children placed in foster care.

Amidst all of that instability, there was one thing that was consistently stable: my family. If it hadn’t been for their support, love and eternal linkage, I wouldn’t have turned out half as competent as I hope to seem.

But that’s the unfortunate case with children stuck in the foster care system: a life of instability with nothing to serve as a constant anchor except, arguably, the government and the system itself — an absolutely impersonal, inefficient alternative.

Currently, 402,378 children are in foster care, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Over the past year alone, 254,904 children were placed in foster care. While 238,280 children also left the system over the past year, they did so by a variety of means. 

Fifty-one percent were reunited with parents or primary caretakers. Twenty-one percent were adopted. Ten percent were emancipated, meaning they had turned 18 before being placed in a permanent home. The rest of the discharges resulted in placement with a relative, guardianship, transfer to alternate agencies, runaways or deaths. 

The foster care system, while certainly working to the best of its means, is obviously not the best option for child development. It is, after all, meant to be a temporary situation. Ideally, children would return to their parents and, ultimately, about half of the cases do.

However, a significant number of foster children are unable to return to their parents and are placed, instead, into personal homes, group homes or institutions.

According to a University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics report, foster care has a lot of negative impacts on children. Outside of the emotional pain carried from whatever situation resulted in their placement within the system and, at times, treatment to abusive conditions within the system, foster children often bear severe developmental issues. 

These issues can manifest in lapses in physical health, cognition, academic functioning and social well-being. Studies have also linked the degree of placement instability to the severity of negative developmental outcomes. 

What’s disheartening about these realizations is that there are many stable adults eager to start families, but unable to do so through conventional means. Rather than consider looking into adopting children who desperately need stable, loving homes, these families choose to pour money, energy and emotion into fertility treatments to produce genetic offspring.

Recently, Wired published an opinion piece in response to a new IVF procedure meant to prevent the passing of mitochondrial disease from mother to child by using a third surrogate embryo. Travis Rieder, author of the piece, opposed the treatment, calling, instead, for parents desiring to start a family to adopt. His opinion was grounded on the rebukement of our cultural fetishism with genetic relationships. 

Rieder’s concept about our cultural fetishism with genetic relationships is something that has often troubled me. 

A genetic relationship does not a relationship make. My love for my parents does not come from our genetic bond, but, rather, from the effort they poured into that relationship over the years. 

When that effort isn’t made, as is often the case with foster care, the relational lapse shows. 

Like Rieder, I believe that parents desperate to start genetic families ought to seek out adoption instead, especially within the foster care system. For a foster child, placement within a stable home is not only beneficial — it is vital for proper development. 

When people ask me now about my moving experience, I always reply that it’s one of those experiences that you hate at the moment, but later realize what a profound impact it has had on your worldview. 

Moving put me into contact with a number of people, a number of cultures, a number of lifestyles and it made me a better, more tolerant person.

But it also left me with major issues with attachment, along with, of course, acute shyness. 

So, I’m not going to lie, I absolutely hated it. And I’m not alone in that sentiment. 

Bethel primarily writes about social issues and current events for The Pitt News. 

Write to Bethel at beh56@pitt.edu.