If you ventured into Barnes & Noble this holiday season, you may have been asked to buy a book to be donated to foster children.   The available options are displayed on shelves behind the cashiers: mostly an array of classic picture books for small children, with a smattering of selections for older grade-schoolers.  I think this comports with the image that pops into the average person’s head when the term “foster child” is uttered.  We imagine frightened, small children who have been rescued from violent or deprived homes and placed with earnest, supportive foster parents.  Of course, we know the reality is more complicated, and that there are plenty of older kids and teenagers in foster care, and that the skills and dedication of foster parents vary considerably.  A recent piece in the New York Times shines a spotlight on another aspect of the foster care system: the children who are in the system not because they were plucked away from their parents by Child Protective Services, but because their parents voluntarily surrendered them to foster care.

The article, one in a series of profiles of persons who benefit from the NYT Neediest Cases fund appeal, gives us a snapshot view of Lydia Monserrate, a 21-year-old who recently aged out of foster care. 

One of four children, Lydia entered foster care as a teenager whose mother had filed a PINS (persons in need of supervision) petition with the court.  As a teen, Lydia skipped school, drank alcohol and shoplifted with her teen buddies, kids her mother considered a bad crowd.  When her mother couldn’t control her, Lydia ended up in foster care, living in 13 foster homes in the past 5 years.  While her behavior may not have been perfect, her tales of foster care, replete with dog bites, attacks by neighborhood girls and being locked out of houses when the foster parents were not home, are troubling.  Now, thanks to food stamps, charity, and a caseworker who has remained in the picture even though Lydia has aged out of foster care, Lydia has a one-room apartment and is working on her GED.  Lydia’s mother would not take her back, even though Lydia says “I asked my mom a thousand times if I could come back home.”

Undoubtedly, Lydia’s mom has her own side to this story, and there are certainly things we do not know about this family situation and the mother’s motives.  But we need to ask why kicking a teenager permanently out of the home is considered an option by many people.  The teenage years can be trying in even the calmest of families, but it is important to remember that rebellion is a normal part of the developmental process for teens.  Obviously, some teens rebel by sleeping late and talking back to their parents, while others engage in more serious behaviors such as drinking, drugs, truancy, or stealing.  Some parents may try the approach of telling a kid “follow my rules or you’re out of here,” but what if the teen calls the parent’s bluff?  Parents are kidding themselves if they think that throwing kids out will put those kids on a better path, because most of the time the kids end up on a much more dangerous path.  Throwaway kids are at much higher risk of being involved in criminal activities, both as victims and as perpetrators.  Since drugs and prostitution are high on the list of crimes involving throwaway youth, it is not easy to separate the victims from the perpetrators.  Victim, perpetrator, or both, it does seem that Lydia has been let down, both by her mother and by the foster care system.