Blog Post #11

                At first, I expected this reading to be similar to the other sections which emphasized the racial aspects of the foster care system.  I was surprised Roberts took a slightly different angle by proposing the metaphor of the system being a pendulum either toward the parental rights or the child’s rights.  This allowed her to present a different angle on the problems within foster care.  What I found most interesting was the conflicting goals of the child welfare system.  Roberts cites Richard Gelles in support of this argument.  He proclaims, “the basic flaw of the child protection system is that it has two inherently contradictory goals: protecting children and preserving families” (107).  I partially agree with this claim in situation where the child should not be returned home.  However if a child were better at home, this would both protect the home and preserve families.  His statement seems to imply that in order to protect children they must be separated from their families. 

Also, I found it interesting the high incentives the government rewards agencies who have a certain number of children adopted.  This is reminiscent of the Nelson article in which she emphasized children in adoption as a commodity.  There are serious ethical issues because the child’s well-being may be compromised for the agency’s profit.  In addition, this gives the agency motivation to not reunite the family even if it is the better option.  I can see this shift toward having children being adopted cause an even greater overload in the foster care system.  There are only so many people who are willing to adopt in the U.S. and even less that are willing to adopt from foster care.  These children may just become lost in the system rather than being returned to homes in which they are greatly wanted.

Lastly, I was surprised that simply being in the foster care system for a certain amount of time was reason enough to terminate parental rights.  The list of ridiculous tasks seems to show agencies placing irrational standards on parents.  I wonder what Minnesota’s time frame is for termination of parental rights.  A good discussion question based on this issue is:

Is it ethical for parental rights to be terminated based solely on the time their child is in the foster care system?

Reanna N.