A five-year study on children in a Romanian orphanage, and the changes they experience when transferred to foster care, concludes that lack of a loving family can lead to stunted growth, substantially lower IQs and more behavioural and psychological problems than children who experienced better care. (Thanks to Blogging Baby for the sighting.) Studies from the U. S. (PDF) support these findings, saying “youth in foster care have poor academic outcomes compared to non-foster youth . . . are at higher risk of unemployment, have long-term dependency on public assistance, and have increased rates of incarceration.” This becomes an economic as well as a social burden.
Let’s review:
- 568,000 kids are in foster care nationwide.
- 117,000 of them are waiting to be adopted.
- 46,000 are adopted from public child welfare agencies yearly.
- They had spent a median of 38 continuous months in foster care.
- 33% have spent over three years in continuous foster care.
- 27% had spent over five years continuously in foster care.
- Each year, roughly 25,000 kids leave the foster care system not because they find permanent homes, but because they “age out” of the system on their 18th birthday.
(Statistics from Let Him Stay, part of the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project.)
Here’s the kicker: 16 states have now taken action to pass laws or create November ballot initiatives to ban adoptions by same-sex couples. Yet same-sex couples are raising between 6 and 10 million children in 96% of the counties across the U. S., and that’s probably an undercount.
Luckily, President Bush has asserted that “We want every young American to be surrounded by caring adults who provide love, advice, encouragement, and who can serve as good role models for children.” Presumably he also doesn’t want Florida, where his brother Jeb is governor, to have lower “No Child Left Behind” test averages because foster care is damaging children’s intelligence and the state won’t place them with loving, willing, same-sex parents.
So what’s the problem?
