From Hell to Heaven: How Orphan Care Evolves
Level 4: Heaven's Gate America did not always have a system that can only be likened to Heaven's Gate. Formal legalized adoption came about slowly, colony by colony, and then state by state. There was a great deal of prejudice surrounding adoption, based largely on fear of the "bad seed" and a religious and cultural reluctance to take in a child born to unmarried parents. There was a time in this country when the birth certificates of children born outside wedlock were stamped with the word, "Bastard." And trans-racial adoption, even in the land of multi-racial immigrants, was unheard of.
Orphanages were the rule well into the twentieth century. My own mother spent time in a US orphanage in the Southwest as a little girl in the 1930's because there were no foster homes available. Her parents were separated. Her father lived far away and was doing all he could to raise her brothers during the Great Depression, with unemployment at an all time high. When my grandmother could not earn enough money to feed her daughter, she took her to an orphanage. My mother was desperately lonely and months passed like decades, but eventually, her mother returned for her.
¹Foster care, as a more humane means of caring for children, really blossomed after World War II. In the sixties, the belief that adoption should always be in the child's "best interests," a U.S.-born idea, took legal root and is commonplace in many countries now. More progressive states instituted the idea of family-like care for all children, and other states slowly followed suit as the federal government subsidized costs. Adoptions grew in number, and experiments in the seventies with subsidized adoptions were a huge success. The federal government discovered that many foster parents could and did adopt their foster children when the foster care board payment and medical insurance followed the child into adoption. This minimal financial assistance was extended to more children with special needs and adoption rates started to climb.
Starting with President Carter in the seventies, each US president has strongly encouraged the adoption of children in foster care who need adoptive homes. President Clinton and the current Congress have worked especially hard and the results are impressive. When the government actively promotes special needs adoption, and funds programs that make it affordable for the average citizen, people respond. Records are being set every year now for the number of children leaving foster care for forever families.
George is a beneficiary of the current US system. Born with
Fetal Alcohol Exposure (FAE) and removed from an abusive environment in infancy, he spent two years in a foster home while the state and the courts decided the best course of action for his future.
Once parental rights were terminated, he was quickly adopted by a family his foster mother found for him - her own next-door neighbors - who had already grown to know and love him. An adoption assistance contract addressed George's expensive medical and educational needs. Today, with his adoption finalized, George lives with his new parents but runs next door whenever he smells something good cooking. George has what is the birthright of every human child: a loving permanent home.
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