Teenagers in the Foster Care System

They sit.
In institutions.
In children's homes.
In ranches.

Many of them are not aggressive.
They do not have mental illnesses.
Their behaviors are under control.

But their birth parents can't care for them.
No foster parents sign up for teenage boys.
And nobody will adopt kids straight from an institution.

And so they sit.
Their social worker comes once a month.
Nobody else calls.
Nobody else visits.
Nobody else writes.

They plan their futures.
Maybe job corp,
or the military.
Or try going back to the birth parents that abused or neglected them,
because they are the only family they have.

And they sit.
Around TVs in dark cottage lounges.
On porches of long buildings.
On the grass or a park bench outside the institution.

And they have friends,
other kids like them,
that society has abandoned.
And they talk with those friends,
about how life will be different,
"when they get out."

But who will be there for them
"when they get out?"
A new social worker
with a transition program
and a couple hundred bucks.

But even as adults they will have no one.
Nobody at their high school graduation.
Nobody to brag to if they get into college.
Nobody to write home to from Iraq,
or some other country where they don't belong.
Nobody to attend their wedding.
Nobody to be grandparents to their children.

And yet we say things like,
"It would be HARD to adopt a teen."
"What about my other children?"
"I've finished raising children."
"I've done my part."

And we wonder why our prisons are filled.
And there are so many street kids.
And why teenage girls get pregnant.

Because we think
if something would be hard
we can't, shouldn't, don't have to
do it.


Statistics say that 75%
of kids who age out without a family
end up in prison,
or homeless,
or DEAD
in ten years.

Someone should be screaming
DO SOMETHING
and yet the people who know these kids
think it is too much to ask,
to invite someone to start parenting
a kid when he's a teenager.

Someone should be saying
YES, YOU!
Even if it is the hardest thing
you'll ever do,
YOU SHOULD DO IT.

really, you should do it.

if we want to make the future
different than today
if we want to change society
we can not do it with programs
we can not do it with politics
we have to do it with people,
ordinary people willing to do extraordinary things,
who will take a chance
on one kid
for a life time.

And if enough of us
will commit to that one kid
for a life time
then all those kids
would have someone.

and sometimes
someone
is all they need.