From Hell to Heaven: How Orphan Care Evolves

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Level 3: Limbo

More of this Feature

• Level 1: Hell
• Level 2: Purgatory
• Level 3: Limbo
• Level 4: Heaven's Gate
• Level 5: Heaven

• More from this Author

Related Resources

• A Young Child's Point of View on Foster Care and Adoption
• Adopting from Foster Care
• Becoming a Foster Parent
• Therapeutic Foster Care & Group Homes
• Foster Parenting

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The 5 Levels of Orphan Care
1. The Streets: Orphans living and dying in the streets, a few orphanages run by religious and non-profit groups
2. Orphanages: State-run and church-run orphanages, usually overcrowded and understaffed
3. Foster Care, Few Adoptions: State-run foster care homes and institutions, adoption is not supported or particularly encouraged by the government
4. Subsidized Adoptions: Adequately funded foster care, financially subsidized special needs adoption, government actively encourages adoption of all waiting children
5. Child-Centric Society: Very few waiting and foster children, adoption accepted, supported at all levels, and viewed as an equally valid way to build a family, all adults feel responsibility toward all kids. -R.L.

The third level of orphan care, permanent foster care, devised by man, can best be described as limbo. There is no overt suffering in limbo, no starvation, but neither is there a great deal of joy. It is mostly a place of waiting, insecurity and anticipation. In Christian history, Limbo is where the unbaptized innocents await Judgement Day so they can enter heaven. The worst part about it is being so close to heaven but having to endure the absence of the presence of God.

In the case of David and Darlene, limbo is the absence of a real mom and dad and a secure homelife. They move from foster home to foster home, sometimes because David's behavioral problems are too much, and sometimes for reasons completely outside their control. They are so close to having a real family, but they are not there yet.

Where they live, Australia, adoption is not an accepted way to build a family. Several generations before them, the government created a scandal by abducting thousands of children from indigenous tribes and educating them in boarding schools. (The USA has a tragic history of this practice, as well.) As a backlash to this policy, adoption is officially discouraged to this day as politically incorrect. Politicians rarely discuss it. Parental rights are almost never terminated even when it is clear the child cannot return home. Children who can't go home or whose parents have died, grow up in foster care. Ironically, however, international adoption is a popular option among the citizens.

David and Darlene have stuffed their belongings into plastic trash bags and moved too many times. David deals with this loss by acting out violently at school. His behavior terrifies his sister because she does not want the state to separate them and put David into a residential institution. She's lost everything and everyone that ever meant everything to her- except her brother.

A state-paid foster care system, especially one where foster parents are adequately trained and given the support they need to keep children long-term, is a far cry from the two levels before it. With this kind of system, children have that crucial family-type atmosphere, which they can model and re-create when they are grown and building their own families. But a foster home still isn't permanency, at least not in most cases. It lacks the absolutely crucial elements of providing the child with unconditional commitment and a strong sense of security, acceptance, and belonging.

Next page > Level 4: Heaven's Gate > Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

© 2002 Rita Laws, Ph.D.