Last year the American taxpayers spent twenty-two billion dollars on foster care programs (ABC News 1). It’s a slightly sizeable amount, but it is put to shame when compared to the 600 billion dollars spent on the US Military last year (National Priorities Project 1) . Regardless, I have a solution for this seemingly excessively unnecessary spending. Even Wade Horn, the highest ranking federal official in charge of foster care says the foster care system is a giant mess and should just be blown up (ABC News 1). Why don’t we do just that? I propose that we release all the children from the prison that is the foster care system. I can see how there might be some concern for these very important contributors to society, but I assure you it is for their own good. How many times have people said that their generation is lazy? Well, they will be lazy no more. They will learn independence, survival, and other important skills that they would otherwise rely on hardworking taxpayers to provide for them like food and shelter. With their newfound freedom, they can get jobs and provide these things for themselves. Making it so these children are no longer the responsibility of the federal government will increase adoption rates, boost the economy, and lower crime rates. The fact of the matter is that some kids simply don’t want to be adopted. It is not a good use of our time or money to try to force them into homes where they will just be unhappy and probably run away. There are also a lot of kids in the foster system who truly want to be adopted and feel like there is nothing they can do to speed up the process. We can make all of these children happy by letting them go off and live their life in the way they want to. Children who want to be adopted can seek out possible parents and decide if they like the candidates or not. This makes children more proactive, and we won’t have to pay them for their efforts like we do with the current employees. This will make everyone happy. One thing about the current system we have in place is that the employees aren’t always concerned with the wellbeing of the children in question. Some employees are all about placement and moving on. They don’t take into account the children’s needs or the parents’ capabilities. There are also corrupt foster parents who are only in it for the $700 a month (Larson 1). Sometimes these foster parents don’t even put that money towards the kids and just pocket the check. We could eliminate all this corruption and greed by eliminating the system all together. There is also a great deal of abuse that goes on in the foster care system.
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Many children are placed in unsafe homes where their foster parents either physically, mentally, or sexualy abuse them or just completely ignore and neglect them. A recent inquiry into the Trenton, New Jersey foster care system found that up to one in five children were abused while in foster homes(Malka 1). Some might argue that it is character-strengthening abuse, but “Children who experience child abuse and neglect are 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28% more likely to be arrested as an adult, and 30% more likely to commit a violent crime” (Helping Hand 2). It is obvious that children are not safe in foster care, and just about anywhere would be safer for them, which is why we need to extract them from their horrid conditions. Most children would be overjoyed to be free of their abusers, so it would really be doing them a service by nullifying the system. Some people might say that it is impossible for children to support themselves, which is true. We would obviously still need foster services for children two and under, but that would only require a fraction of the price to support them. There is also a higher demand for young children than there is for older children. Statistics show that the older a child is, the longer it will take for them to be adopted (Helping Hands 1). Sixty-Two percent of all children who have been adopted were adopted before they were one
Many children are placed in unsafe homes where their foster parents either physically, mentally, or sexualy abuse them or just completely ignore and neglect them. A recent inquiry into the Trenton, New Jersey foster care system found that up to one in five children were abused while in foster homes(Malka 1). Some might argue that it is character-strengthening abuse, but “Children who experience child abuse and neglect are 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28% more likely to be arrested as an adult, and 30% more likely to commit a violent crime” (Helping Hand 2). It is obvious that children are not safe in foster care, and just about anywhere would be safer for them, which is why we need to extract them from their horrid conditions. Most children would be overjoyed to be free of their abusers, so it would really be doing them a service by nullifying the system. Some people might say that it is impossible for children to support themselves, which is true. We would obviously still need foster services for children two and under, but that would only require a fraction of the price to support them. There is also a higher demand for young children than there is for older children. Statistics show that the older a child is, the longer it will take for them to be adopted (Helping Hands 1). Sixty-Two percent of all children who have been adopted were adopted before they were one