Foster care is a farking cash-cow.

I thought that too, until I became one.

They should make the foster parents eat the dead realtive. That might teach them.

This story left me with many unanswered questions, I can only hope for a "Follow Up" when they get arrainged in court.

/pokes the corpse with a stick "Yup, he's dead all right"

Another glaring reason for public caning.

I don't get it. They were just teaching her to respect and help her elders. They are good parents raising the next generation. (generation z?)

Did the couple make the pointy-hairded little girl carry the plates?

What about the cats? Surely there were cats involved. Lots of cats. And cat poop.

We did foster care for about 7 years.

Don't do it for the money.

The system doesn't work. So don't expect to fix any kids.

Do it so the kids get a break from their asshat parents or the group home for a while. And try to show the kids that normal people exist.

End of sermon.

And now for something relevant:

Oh yea, foster care.


I got bout 9 of foster care kids running round my place. If I can get about 3 more, my wife thinks I be able to retire.


It's great, they mow the lawn, do the laundry, cook and clean and the state pays me for each one. Man, I'm making about $300 a head each month.


/fulla shiat.

I spent the years between 3rd and 11th grade in five foster homes. Here is a quick breakdown:

Home 1: Good, sincere people who pretty quickly realized that they were over their heads (they took all six kids in my family...we got parceled out after that).

Home 2: Alcoholic truck driver and disturbed wife. Lock on the fridge and cabinets, lots of whippings, and a massive amount of house/yard work (4 hours a day during school, all day the rest of the time). They never understood why I wasn't grateful.

Home 3: Psycho right-wing religous fanatics. Father got one foster girl pregnant (not one of my siblings), sexual abuse on some young kids, lots of whippings and a lot of praying to God.

Home 4: Right-wing nut job with guns and a Nazi flag in the garage. Didn't stay long as I was now old enough to know when to get out of Dodge (11 years old).

Home 5: Sincere, religous people who always had a dream of opening a boy's camp in the Sierra for the downtrodden youth. Six months later they got the dream to be artists and sent us back to the pound.

Some Observations:
Although five is a small sample, it seemed pretty representative of what other kids in the shelter home were experiencing (recognizing that there is an oversampling of disfunctional homes/kids in the return bin).

You can make money doing foster care. You just need to get enough of them and not spend anything on them. It's minimum wage money, but for some of the folks that is all they were looking for.

And yes, my siblings and I turned out fine for the most part. Lots of graduate degrees (I got a couple myself), no one is in jail. And I actually would describe my childhood as more or less happy. Although the whole bunch of us are somewhat hypersceptical of religion, politics, people who say they are helping and housework.

weaselnuts Very touching post, glad you have a sense of humor about it all.

weaselnuts:

Thanks for your insight. My very limited understanding of the foster home "system" in this country is that it's run differently in different places. Some cities have great programs where they keep a close eye on what happens - and some cities don't. Who supervised your foster parents? It seems to me that there should be some kind of screening process to weed out those that are just trying to use the kids for extra income.

He's not dead! He has gas! He's had a gas attack!

I'm going to throw my .02 in and defend some socialworkers. The girl I'm dating is a foster care therapist for a non-profit organization. She went to school for this and is very dedicated to her kids. She hears stuff from these kids that will make your skin crawl. She knows the system is not perfect, but her agency is doing the best it can for as many of those kids as possible. I say blame the State for not checking out that home and couple out completely. Letting those kids go to that home is just a crime.

hmmmm, would you like another helping of....DIE!!

ebell:

Good points. I was in the Oakland, California area and needless to say that particular social system was (and is) seriously overloaded. We would get a visit about once a year from the social worker if there were no major incidents, and it was pre-announced. And, of course, the foster parents were there in the room for the visit (it may have changed since). The problem is that the demand for services outstripped the supply, and lots of hard choices had to be made. I also suspect that since I didn't have a host of problems (compared to many of the kids in the system) I was probably placed in the more marginal homes.

Texas Chainsaw Masacre was actually based on a real dude from Wisconsin...http://www.weird-wi.com/ghouls/index.htm
Ed Guine, there is a movie all about him too, he kept his Mother in his house and all sorts of really bizzare and messed up stuff. The movie is freaky all by its self, then you realize there was nothing added for dramatic effect, it is more like a documenary. Messed up!

I say we drag these two sickos out into the street & shoot them betwixt the eyes with a rather large bullet.

Who's with me?

Just kidding. But they really are the suck.