What is Wrong with Foster Care in America

My biological mother is mentally handicapped and it was determined that she not able to provide for herself and therefore received/ receives social security checks. Her parents were planning to keep her at home with them throughout her life. But, she got pregnant with my older brother.

My grandparents chose to buy her and her now husband a home, furnish the home etc, so they could raise their baby. The baby was born into the toilet because my mother did not know she was in labor. So begun her journey into motherhood. Three and a half years later I was born, in a bed, she still didn’t get the concept of going to the hospital but at least this time she stayed in the bed.

My brother was taken away from my parents when he was five after a few weeks of kindergarten the neglect was so apparent that the state intervened. They left the baby, me, because there wasn’t proof of neglect.

My parents chose to sell the house and move into a two bedroom apartment. They rented out my bedroom and I shared that room with two men, both of whom had recently returned from Vietnam. One of the men, John, started paying a lot of attention to me. This was the first person in my entire life that had paid attention to me and I loved the attention. So what if he would ask me to take off all my clothes when we talked or that he would touch me in weird places. I adored his attention

Later my father took all the money from the sale of the house, he took the car too and he left me and my mom. She promptly married John and we all lived off the welfare and social security that came from having a kid and not being mentally fit enough to hold a job. Eventually John made a mistake and turned his attention toward a neighbor kid and he went to jail. My mother was so distraught. She said she didn’t know what he had been doing to me; I reminded her that he had forced me to watch the two of them having sex, but I never told on her for that. The social worker still didn’t have enough of a reason to take me away from my mother so they let John out of jail and the fact that my mother picked him up and drove him back to our home was enough to take me away from her finally. I was five.

I was placed in foster care. My foster parents raised me and adopted my older brother and myself and we all lived happily ever after, but not really.

My social worker took me to the doctor for an examination. I remember every minute of that examination as if it were yesterday. I was told to take off all my clothes. I had to get on the table and have my privates inspected. There were five adults in the room, none of whom I knew. They were all asking me questions, grilling me, did he touch you here – and the doctor would touch me there… I refused to speak to these people. The social worker was furious and told me that I had to tell the truth now or … I forget what she threatened me with. That was a moment that changed my life forever. From that moment on I decided to never tell the truth again. I was about thirty before I finally got over that. I just never allowed anyone to know me. I would lie about my favorite food, or if I like a TV show, or anything, I just never wanted to let anyone see me after what that room full of strangers did to me.

From that came my family, not having to be raised in extreme poverty, being severely neglected, and sexually abused. At the time I would have rather gone back to my family. I now realize that I am better off, I am able to be a great mom, a fabulous wife, I am able to communicate my thoughts to you here and now due to the fact that I was taken away and raised by such a good family. Yet, it seems that it could have been done better, that it really wasn’t necessary to be so cruel to me in the process. I still don’t trust doctors or teachers, foster parents or social workers, police or really anyone in a position of power.

I am telling you this now, because I wonder if all you lovely people who have never been abused or neglected, never been taken from your parents and stripped naked in front of a room full of people having your privates examined and being questioned about what you have been doing with those privates, I wonder if you understand what it is that is happening to all those children who were removed from the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas.

I also worry that not all foster care families are wonderful like mine. Hi dad. The foster care system today is so overwhelmed and under funded that there is not enough social workers to oversee the foster families and many children in the foster care program are abused and neglected by the foster families. How many of those children are being fed dinner tonight, and how many are being locked in the closet? How many are being hit or molested by the foster care system? Did we rescue those kids or are we torturing them? Did we wait too long, how many years have we as a country known about this and other polygamist sects? How long have we waited for enough proof before rescuing these children? This issue along with all the children in America who are abused and neglected is complex, very complex.

This is really the main reason I want Hillary Clinton to be our next president. She has devoted her life to advocating and improving the system to help abused and neglected children. No matter her job, no matter if she joined a committee, formed a committee, and gave abused children legal council, worked to improve the foster care program, worked with head start, worked with PBS. She has been embroiled in this fight for her entire adult life and understands the complexities. I have faith that she will continue to fight for these children as president because she always has, now matter what life throws at her, she always has found a way to improve the conditions for kids. One at a time or a nation at a time Hillary Clinton always finds a way. I think she gets it and to me helping the abused and neglected children of our country is priority number one, to me kids come first.

A Katrina Update

Long time readers will remember my husband, Jeff's best friend Chad. Chad has come down from Virginia to the Gulf Coast in order to volunteer his time and skills as a contractor to help rebuild homes destroyed by Katrina. He is also staying in our garage off and on. Mostly off, as he stays in Pearlington, MS where he does the majority of his work.

Can you believe there are still people whose homes have not yet been fixed? Can you believe that there are still hundreds of people coming down here to help strangers. It totally amazes me.

For many families the problem is that they are stuck in a no win situation. Crippled with house payments and insurance premiums on the home which was destroyed. Unable to stop making those payments or lose the hope of ever rebuilding or recouping their losses. So these people live in FEMA trailers that have some weird toxic gas that is making them all sick. When you are sick it is hard to move forward and get a lot done.

The volunteers come here and they have no money they are just here to work. Someone has to buy the supplies to fix these houses. Many charities like the Salvation Army etc. are offering grants to people in order to buy the materials to fix there homes. Some people get the materials and fix their homes themselves and do such a poor job that the house needs to be re-fixed.

Many of the folks in these situations of overwhelming despair are not reacting well to the more than two years of hell they have endured. Many are trying to cheat the system by applying for grants at more than one place. Many are getting free supplies donated to them and selling those supplies to someone else. Many people are using their grant money at the casinos or for drugs. When the volunteers come down they see that many of the people who they have come all this way to help are less than honest people. Or so the story goes, Chad says that he has only heard these stories of thievery and dishonesty but never actually seen it with his own eyes. Many volunteers get frustrated and don't want to help those who are less than honest or are not willing to help themselves. Many people who come all this way to make a difference in the world, when they arrive are very upset to find that the people they have come to help are poor.

Mental health is also a very real part of this dynamic. Whether a persons mental health has deteriorated due to the trauma of Katrina and the resulting two years of hell or if they were struggling with it before hand, many if not most of the people who have yet to recover from Katrina are in poor mental health. They have given up or can't see past where they are today.

My thoughts run to the upcoming election, what do the fine candidates have planned for our country for our poor?

GIRLS RULE boys drool

My husband listens to a stupid radio show every morning on his way to work. There are a bunch of rednecks who discuss current events and spew their hateful bigoted opinions onto the public. This is how my husband finds out about current events and forms opinions about politics. I cannot believe I am married to someone who is so different from me. He gets a kick out of repeating this crap to me at the dinner table and we end up having a fun little debate and I end up using a lot of bad language. He then reminds me not to use bad language in front of the kids. Better to hear some bad language than to hear the evil that comes out of his mouth.

An example: Yesterday's topic was Jamie Lynn Spears, the 16 year old sister of Britney Spears who is pregnant. The boys on the radio reported that she was fired from her TV show due to her pregnancy, but after the show went up in ratings due to her pregnancy Nickelodeon decided to renew her contract and do another season of her show. The boys on the radio were outraged at the corporate greed allowing this sinner to work.

Can you really fire someone for being pregnant? How is she supposed to buy diapers? When I was in school girls who got pregnant were expelled, is that still going on? I think I should call my daughter's school and find out.

I personally don't feel that being pregnant is morally wrong. I don't feel that it will cause young girls to follow along and get pregnant themselves. My 16 year old daughter doesn't decide her morality based on the girls on TV, does yours?

The boys on the radio went on to say that any girl in Louisiana (where the Spears girls hail) who is not pregnant by 16 is thought to have something wrong with her. They then went on to say that the only reason that Jamie Lynn got pregnant was to hold on to her boyfriend who was losing interest. They wanted to impart to her the message that she is so cute she could have her pick on penises, that boys would be throwing their penises at her like Zorro swords. It only got worse from there. Maybe the humor has been lost in translation but my husband was laughing at this point in the telling of the tale. I was using bad language and talking over him so I may have missed the punch line.

People wonder why women vote for Clinton. The male reporters who refer to every political candidate from the beginning of time by that person's last name, and all call Hillary by her first name. They all speculated about the NH victory say that the only reason anyone voted for Clinton is because she cried. She didn't cry by the way that is the grossest exaggeration I have ever heard. I believe the female bashing is only going to get worse. My friend Lorelei believes I am overreacting and that my perception of how the reporters are discussing HILLARY is way off. My husband totally agrees with Lorelei.

Are you prepared to file an insurance claim?

I don't really know all that much about insurance. Except how to pay the bill. I have never in my life had to file an insurance claim. We pay out more per month in insurance than we do to the bank for our house. Sucks. Watching all the coverage of the anniversary of Katrina here in the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, I learned a couple things about insurance that I thought I would share with you.

The Big Mistake

When you sign up for your insurance policy, for home owners or renters. The insurance company will ask you to estimate the value of your belongings. How much would is cost to replace your belongings? You estimate and the rate you pay is based on this estimation. I was under the impression that if all my stuff is destroyed, this is the amount my insurance company would give to me and I would go replace my things at my discretion. Not the case, according to the people here who are still battling the insurance companies for their money.

You Need Proof

If your things are destroyed that amount that you estimated is the very most your insurance company will give you for the replacement of your belongings. The insurance company will require you to provide for them some sort of proof of the things you owned and proof of the value of those items. If you don't have proof, you don't get any money. If you don't have proof you might as well stop paying for your insurance because they aren't going to get any money from them.

Making A List

Create a list of all your belongings. Make sure you have a picture of each item on the list, not a separate picture of each item you can do a lot of items in each picture. Make sure you include: brand name, model number, the year you bought it, the price you paid, etc. Keep a file that has this list along with a picture of each item along with a scanned copy of the receipt. Now you have a digital record of all your stuff. Anything not on this list will not be replaced. Add up the value on this list, that is all the money you will get, so don't pay for 100 thousand dollars worth of insurance for your belongings when your list only ads up to 10 thousand like mine.

Secure Your List

Now if your house is destroyed by fire, flood, or meteor; you have to make sure your list is somewhere safe that will not be destroyed as well. Some suggestions are: a memory stick on your key chain with an encrypted password, online storage-password protected, your grandma's attic. Having the info on your computer is not going to be helpful if your home is destroyed.

Have you any insurance company experience? I believe that better regulation of the insurance industry is the single most important factor in this upcoming election. The health insurance, home owners insurance, auto insurance, etc. If you take a look at the Forbes list of most profitable companies these all top the lists, they are raping us and then not doing the job they are designed to do. People who get sick, people who lose their homes, they are not being helped. They have so much money and so much power that their is no regulation. The majority of the people harmed the most are the poor. It is shameful. I think it is time for an alternative, in the meantime make a list of all your stuff. You would think if they wanted verification of what you owned they would seek that verification before they entered into a contract with you to insure you for said amount, before they take your money which seems to me to be a contract of good faith that they will insure you for the replacement value of your belongings. Of course as you can see I am not a lawyer and have absolutely no knowledge of how insurance works.

LiveStrong Presidential Forum- The Democrats

I just got done watching the two hour long LiveStrong Presidential Forum over at MSNBC.COM. I jotted down some notes. The Republicans will have their own separate forum tomorrow, each of the candidates who participated was given three minutes for opening comments and then sat down with Lance Armstrong and Chris Mathews to answer questions. While I am not an expert in politics by any means, cancer research and health care are primary concerns of mine. These issues will definitely impact how I vote. This is what I gleaned from this forum and I welcome your thoughts. To me politics is about discussion, I believe that we all want the same end result, world peace, no poverty, etc. How we achieve this is up for discussion, at least to me, but if you do not like to discuss politics I wont be mad if you take a pass on commenting today.

Senator Hilary Clinton, John Edwards, Governor Bill Richardson, and Congressman Dennis Kucinich were the participants.

The topic of Universal Health care was prevalent throughout the entire discussion. Each of the candidates are in favor of universal health care, of access to health coverage to all Americans. Their individual definition of what this really means to them differs greatly and was very difficult to pin down in some cases, this is what I learned.

Senator Clinton: Wants to work within the system we already have by implementing regulation of the HMO's, drug companies etc, these regulation would ensure that every American has health insurance, no one is denied based on pre-existing conditions, that all health coverage provides screening and preventative medicine. Her concern is that we keep the high standard of medicine that the rich people in our country currently enjoy but pass along this to the rest of our citizens as well.

John Edwards: Does not want to work with the HMO's, Lobbyists, drug companies wants govt to be separate watchdog over these companies who are the enemy and the reason our health care system is in crisis. He wants to give every American the choice between their current health care provider and govt insurance. The govt insurance would be paid for by getting rid of the tax cuts enacted by the Bush admin, he calls the govt insurance Medicare plus.

Bill Richardson: His ideas on universal health care were hard for me to pin down, his main theme was preventative medicine, personal accountability, healthier lifestyles, junk food in school, mandatory PE, smoking bans etc. His plans seems similar to Senator Clinton in working with insurance companies to give access to preventative medicine to everyone in the country. He was quite vague on this issue.

Dennis Kucinich: Not at all vague. His plan is no more for profit medicine in America at all. Completely eliminate health insurance industry, all monies for health care goes to medicine and none to doctors. We all pay into a national plan, plus what the govt currently give will be enough to give great medicine to everyone. No paperwork, no worries, doctors decide what medicine and treatments patients should receive and the government pays for it out of the big ole pot. The amount of money all collected together that we as Americans pay out toward health care and health insurance is enough to give the best care available to every American. He did not have an answer for the concern that this will diminish the competition aspect of our health care system which currently results in the best medicine in the world, if only for the rich.

The next big topic was research: Senator Clinton wants to double the budget for research, John Edwards wants to pay whatever it takes to find a cure even if it is billions of dollars - he feels that spending the money on cancer research now will save us money in the long run, Governor Richardson wants to increase the research budget by 206%, and Dennis Kucinich was incredibly vague in this answer. They were all in favor of stem cell research, Senator Clinton mentioned "ethical stem cell research", Edwards was pointedly asked if he supported creating embryos for the sole purpose of research and he said, he needed to hear more but his initial response was no. None of the others was asked about stem cell research specifically although they all made a point of mentioning that they favored it. Both Edwards and Clinton spoke about clinical trials, both want more people to have access to being able to have access to experimental drugs and treatments if the patients have informed consent. Leaving more consent in the hands of the patient and doctors.

The war. Each candidate talked about how the war was sucking up our budget and needed to be ended and those monies needed to be spent at home on things like universal health care, this was a very standard response.

Both Senator Clinton and John Edwards favor electronic medical records, none of the others were asked or spoke of this topic. Senator Clinton feels that not only would this help people like those displaced by Katrina but also would help in selecting patients for clinical trials based on their patient history and not based on who you know.

Some memorable moments were when Clinton said she wanted to end Bushes war on Science and enable the scientific community to reclaim their voice. Edwards said that every American needs to have the same access to quality health coverage that his wife has had. Richardson said, no one in his family has ever had cancer due to their healthy lifestyle choices and he wants that for the rest of the country (OK can you tell he rubs me the wrong way, I never said this was going to be unbiased reporting). Kucinich said he was a Vegan, the diet has a strong bearing on the our health and the way we feel, that he is 60 and his wife is 39 or 29 I forget and you do the math, then he held up his two fingers in the peace sign. He feels that food needs to be better labeled, that all the other candidates are in the pockets of big industry but not him, no pesticides, no genetic engineer food, no HMO's he says he wont take their money and he is all about us and not them.

I am still voting for Senator Clinton, but Edwards and Kucinich now have more of my attention. I believe that taking on the insurance industry in a frontal war like assault of Kucinich and Edwards in Naive. First, they have a lot of power and taking all that money away from all those really rich people would be a long and hard battle. Regulating them would have immediate consequences to the people who are in need of better health services. Slowly improving the system we have in my opinion would be the most savvy approach toward improving health care in America.

Don't miss tomorrows Republican LiveStrong Forum which can be seen at MSNBC.com live at 10AM central time.