Aging Out

My life is so good. I am thankful to God every day for all the blessings He has bestowed upon me and my family. As I think of all the terrible things that could have happened to me, I have to stop and pause for a minute, because I know that I was spared so much more pain and hurt. When I was eleven, I came to live with my family. Before then, I spent time in foster care and with my bio mother, who put drugs, alcohol and men before her children. Even through all the horrible things that did happen to me, I know that God always had a plan for my life. With that said, it breaks my heart to think about all the kids who don't make it out of the system. I wonder what it feels like not to have a mom to call when exciting things happen, or somewhere to go for Thanksgiving dinner. So many kids age out of the foster care system, without so much as a leg to stand on. They truly have nobody. How do we allow that to happen? As a society, we hardly allow abandoned pets to go without shelter and love. It breaks our hearts to see mistreated animals (and it should), but my question is, where is all the outpouring of concern for those kids who have spent their entire lives wishing they had just one person reach out to them? I think allowing children to age out of the foster care system is one of the tragedies of our time. We put them out to die. Perhaps not a physical death (although I suspect those numbers are high), but an emotional one. Of course these kids end up on the welfare or prison rolls, they have to eat. How do kids stay in foster care for ten years? That's just wrong, no matter which way you slice it. Again, it's all about the parent's rights to finish their caseplan. What about the children's rights????? Shouldn't they at least get a chance to see if another family is willing to adopt them? It just really bothers me. We treat children like they don't matter, and then we spend millions of dollars doing studies on why the newer generations are messed up. Uh, I can tell you...we don't invest in them nearly as much as we do our cars, pets, homes, or even our lawns. I beleive that God weeps over the way we treat the world's children. And I believe that the time will come when our country will have to answer for the pitiful way our kids are tossed around and mistreated.