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Originally Posted by embuck
"If someone is doing straight foster, they do not have the personal agenda of wanting to build their family.
It's not a judgement about who is a better person, it is just a statement of fact."
I do agree that parents who want to adopt have a "personal agenda". But you word it like you are wanting these people to admit something they are doing is wrong. Yes they may have a goal to adopt as a primary BUT those people are needed too. If everyone fostered there would be no forever families made. We all work together and there is nothing wrong with it. I think straight foster people also have some sort of "agenda" to be doing what they are doing day in and day out. I am not saying this "agenda" is a bad thing but never the less people have reasons for the things they do. I just don't understand your point I guess. I have met alot of people doing straight adoption in the agency I am working with and all of their "agendas" are to build their family WITH children that need that forever family and love in their lives. There is more than one "agenda" and all of them are good.
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Yes, people have agendas. Not all of them are good. When your personal agenda gets in the way of the child's right to be raised by family, and I have made it clear that I do NOT mean DNA, then that is a conflict with the role of foster parenting.
My point is that we all need to remember that these foster children have families. Maybe the children remember the family, maybe not.
At all times, the family remembers the child, even if the bmother gives up the child at birth and never takes the baby home.
My issue is foster parents who "fall in love" with the child or X number of calendar pages have been turned, and that is why they feel they should be allowed to keep the child. Yes, of course you bonded, that is healthy and desirable. Our species would die out without that instinct to bond with our young. Just please remember the children have rights, too.
Foster children have the right to grow up with people, with their family, that know their background.
No one on this site advocates children to go back to unsafe homes. No one supports bparents who cannot do what they need to do to get their children back. And no one disputes that foster families are needed, and foster adoptions are reasons to celebrate.
But there are cases where relatives were unfairly blocked by the system and by foster families. Even once is too much, it is a violation of the CHILD'S rights. Most relatives do not have the personal agenda of wanting more children--in my case, my other two sons are 29 and 26 and I will spend the rest of my life being called "grandma" by everyone who meets us for the first time. In our case, the foster family told me in almost every phone call and every personal contact "you, know, we can't have children of our own". Hard not to assume they were thinking of themselves in wanting this child. And they are not alone, many, many infertile couples look to foster-adopt to offer loving homes to children.
I am sorry to know how painful it is to lose the child you are caring for, and I know our country needs you all.
Just leave room in your hearts for the children's family, their whole family, which includes you, IMO.