Foster Care Quotes

“She found the perfect black dress: a little too short and a little too tight. No one would suspect she was an elementary school teacher.”
― Cricket Rohman, Wanted: An Honest Man

“Sister, why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Cage the animals at night?"
"Well..." She looked up and out through the barred window before answering me."We don't want to, Jennings, but we have to. You see, the animals that are given to us we have to take care of. If we didn't cage them up in one place, we might lose them, they might get hurt or damaged. It's not the best thing, but it's the only way we have to take care of them."

"But if somebody loved one them," I asked, "wouldn't it be a good idea to let them have one? To keep, I mean?"

"Yes, it would be. But not everyone would love them and take care of them as you would. I wish I could give them all away tomorrow." She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. "But I can't. My heart would break if I saw just one of those animals lying by the wayside uncared for, unloved. No, Jennings. It's better if we keep them together.”
― Jennings Michael Burch, They Cage the Animals at Night: The True Story of an Abandoned Child's Struggle for Emotional Survival

“The entire fucking point of being born is that someone is supposed to take care of you.”
― Jennifer Longo, What I Carry

“In some instances, even when crisis intervention has been intensive and appropriate, the mother and daughter are already so deeply estranged at the time of disclosure that the bond between them seems irreparable. In this situation, no useful purpose is served by trying to separate the mother and father and keep the daughter at home. The daughter has already been emotionally expelled from her family; removing her to protective custody is simply the concrete expression of the family reality.
These are the cases which many agencies call their “tragedies.” This report of a child protective worker illustrates a case where removing the child from the home was the only reasonable course of action:

Division of Family and Children’s Services received an anonymous telephone call on Sept. 14 from a man who stated that he
overheard Tracy W., age 8, of [address] tell his daughter of a forced oral-genital assault, allegedly perpetrated against this child by her mother’s boyfriend, one Raymond S.

Two workers visited the W. home on Sept. 17. According to their report, Mrs. W. was heavily under the influence of alcohol at the time of the visit. Mrs. W. stated immediately that she was aware why the two workers wanted to see her, because Mr. S. had “hurt her little girl.” In the course of the interview, Mrs. W. acknowledged and described how Mr. S. had forced Tracy to have relations with him. Workers then interviewed Tracy and she verified what mother had stated. According to Mrs. W., Mr. S. admitted the sexual assault, claiming that he was drunk and not accountable for his actions. Mother then stated to workers that she banished Mr. S. from her home.

I had my first contact with mother and child at their home on Sept. 20 and I subsequently saw this family once a week. Mother was usually intoxicated and drinking beer when I saw her. I met Mr. S. on my second visit. Mr. S. denied having had any sexual relations with Tracy. Mother explained that she had obtained a license and planned to marry Mr. S.

On my third visit, Mrs. W. was again intoxicated and drinking despite my previous request that she not drink during my visit. Mother explained that Mr. S. had taken off to another state and she never wanted to see him again. On this visit mother demanded that Tracy tell me the details of her sexual involvement with Mr. S.
On my fourth visit, Mr. S. and Mrs. S. were present. Mother explained that they had been married the previous Saturday.
On my fifth visit, Mr. S. was not present. During our discussion, mother commented that “Bay was not the first one who had
Tracy.” After exploring this statement with mother and Tracy, it became clear that Tracy had been sexually exploited in the same manner at age six by another of Mrs. S.'s previous boyfriends.
On my sixth visit, Mrs. S. stated that she could accept Tracy’s being placed with another family as long as it did not appear to Tracy that it was her mother’s decision to give her up. Mother also commented, “I wish the fuck I never had her.”

It appears that Mrs. S. has had a number of other children all of whom have lived with other relatives or were in foster care for part of their lives. Tracy herself lived with a paternal aunt from birth to age five.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Father-Daughter Incest

“Helping a child today will help prevent a broken adult tomorrow.”
― Kathleen Paydo

“She asked me what I wanted to be whenever I grew up. I had to think about that. We went past some barns and tobacco fields with their big yellow-green leaves waving in the sad evening light. She looked over at me and said, Hey, why so glum, chum?
I told her nobody had ever asked me that question before, about growing up and what I wanted to be, so I didn't know. Mainly, still alive.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

“In this faded world, Lyric was light through a prism. All that invisible joy and curiosity met a dash of sunshine, and then she was there, in all her color.”
― Corinne Beenfield, The Ocean's Daughter :

“Watching her with the other children, it struck Helen once again that there was something that still set the girl apart, something just out of reach. Lyric was remarkable. A breathtaking horizon and endless ocean, deep and mysterious. No matter how well Helen got to know her, she always felt as though she never truly would.”
― Corinne Beenfield, The Ocean's Daughter :

“So set your goals, know your worth, and hold on to the people who care about you. Those people can be your foundation when your life is shaky. They can be role models when you aren't sure how to act. They can be the family you choose when you miss the family you lost.”
― Elizabeth Sutherland, No Ordinary Liz

“Mom's friends were worried that their son isn't talking as much as other six-year-olds. They, like many parents, were concerned with how "smart" their kid is. "Should we be reading to him more?" they asked me. I thought of how lonely I felt trying to teach myself how to read as a foster kid. "Yeah," I replied. "But not because it will expand his vocabulary. Read to him because it will remind him that you love him.”
― Rob Henderson, Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class

“Love, feelings, all that mushy stuff—if it was ever real, it never goes away.”
― Bianca Viola, Dreaming of Hiraeth

“Making a human always takes the same three ingredients—an egg cell, a sperm cell, and a uterus. But just how the ingredients come
together is a fascinating tale. With discoveries in science and medicine, we
have insemination and IVF, along with sex, to bring babies into the world. Sometimes the ingredients that created us come from the same people who are raising us. Other times, we don’t share genetics with the people responsible for our care, such as when we are raised by stepparents, adoptive parents, or foster parents. This is also often true when donors and surrogates are involved.”
― Rachel HS Ginocchio, Roads to Family: All the Ways We Come to Be

“Making a human always takes the same three ingredients—an egg cell, a sperm cell, and a uterus. But just how the ingredients come together is a fascinating tale. Sometimes the ingredients that created us come from the same people who are raising us. Other times, we don’t share genetics with the people responsible for our care, such as when we are raised by stepparents, adoptive parents, or foster parents. This is also often true when donors and surrogates are involved.”
― Rachel HS Ginocchio

“Axel’s eyes are hazelnut and shift with the light and his mood. It makes him seem elusive and slippery, almost complicated. He’s not. He just has to be fed, kept busy, and reminded to wipe himself.”
― Wayne Ng, The Family Code (206)

“The things that come naturally to me are getting by (yes, that’s debatable), getting out when the shit’s hitting the fan, and getting the first punch in (unless I’ve been suckered). I’m good at those. References are available if you don’t believe me.”
― Wayne Ng, The Family Code (206)

“The CAS sent me to a therapist. He actually wasn’t half bad at first—real young, kinda cute, a bit stuck up with degrees in fancy IKEA frames all over his concrete walls and new-agey music playing. I mean, what kind of therapist has background music? Like was he going to massage my feet too? No doubt, he was making good money, though. To be honest, if he had made a move on me, I might have been okay with it.”
― Wayne Ng, The Family Code (206)

“Seemed to me a child snatched from her mother and dropped in a stranger’s home was already living outside her comfort zone but who was I to argue?”
― Christina Estes, Off the Air

“My newest novel, Tiny House of God is now available as an audiobook through Audible! It was so much fun (and work) to record.”
― Sara Zavacki-Moore

“When we place children to fill beds, we are creating a system of temporary housing rather than a long-term solution of finding children their forever, safe, and loving families.”
― Tori Hope Petersen, Fostered: One Woman’s Powerful Story of Finding Faith and Family through Foster Care

“Too many people throw money and goods at vulnerable youth when they need time, basic skills, and long-term relationships.”
― Tori Hope Petersen, Fostered: One Woman’s Powerful Story of Finding Faith and Family through Foster Care

“I didn't want to be treated like charity. I wanted to be invested in. If we want to see our foster youth empowered, we must grant them responsibility. I want vulnerable youth to have what they need for today, but more than that, I want vulnerable youth to obtain the skills they need for their families tomorrow.”
― Tori Hope Petersen, Fostered: One Woman’s Powerful Story of Finding Faith and Family through Foster Care

“The foster care system should not be used solely to house children but should be used to help them heal.”
― Tori Hope Petersen, Fostered: One Woman’s Powerful Story of Finding Faith and Family through Foster Care

“As a kid in foster homes, she had a nightly dilemma. Night wasn't always the safest time. Should she sleep with the lights off so she was harder to find in the dark? Or should she sleep with the lights on so she could see who was coming to get her? Some families forced her to shut the lights off to save electricity. Before she got older and learned better, that would send her into a tailspin of wondering, late into the night, where and how electricity was saved. You can't see electricity. Except for lightning. So just where and how was it saved? She imagined giant metal storage bins somewhere in the country filled with shooting lightning bolts.”
― Marcie R. Rendon, Girl Gone Missing

“There was no formal arrangement in place for our care; things were too chaotic. These were family friends offering a hand, not foster carers sanctioned by government bureaucracy.”
― Amra Pajalic

“In fact, about 75 percent of child welfare cases involve not abuse but neglect, which can often be caused by or confused with poverty.”
― Roxanna Asgarian, We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America

“Ain't nobody want to adopt me,' he says. 'I thought if I did good, they would let me get back with my brothers, but when they didnt' I said fuck it.”
― Roxanna Asgarian, We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America

“Unlike kids in family homes, kids in foster care today rely on a separate state agency, Residential Child Care Investigations, to look into reports of suspected abuse or neglect. That agency has a tendency to downgrade abuse reports without ever investigating them. During four months in 2019, the agency ruled out nearly half of the more than nine hundred abuse reports it received- with no investigation whatsoever.”
― Roxanna Asgarian, We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America

“Some kids, when they grown, come back and say, 'Why didn't you fight for us?' And I swear I did. We all did.”
― Roxanna Asgarian, We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America

“If you come from privilege,' she explained, 'and you respect money and power, and the people in your court don't have any of that- it's unconcious and sometimes concious racism and classism.”
― Roxanna Asgarian, We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America

“Kalton Harris says it's pretty common for young men like Dontay to drop out of programs designed to help them. All the barriers to good jobs, and all the other barriers that exist out in the world outside the program, are part of the reason, he says, but there is another: they have been deeply hurt at a young age, and they don't know how to deal with it.”
― Roxanna Asgarian, We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America