A Little Light Reading

The Lost Children Of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care, by Nina Bernstein, Vintage Books, pub.

Nina Bernstein is a reporter for the New York Times.  In 1994, she started researching material for a series of articles about foster care in New York City and in particular, the landmark Wilder case for New York Newsday. 

This series of articles was eventually expanded into a book and was a National Book Award Finalist.

In 1973, a brash young ACLU attorney named Marcia Lowry filed a controversial class action lawsuit that challenged NYC's foster care system on the basis of First Amendment Rights (the separation of church and state) and Fourteenth Amendment Rights ( the guarantee of equal protection). 

For well over a hundred years, NYC had contracted out their foster care for children to private, mostly religious agencies.  These agencies had control of nearly all of the available foster care beds and accepted children based on race and religion, rather than on the ability of the facility or the foster care parents to serve the children's needs.  Jewish and Catholic agencies dominated the foster care industry and gave preference to their own kind.  Only grudgingly did they accept children outside their parameters and it took a lot of browbeating and threats to get them to accept children they had the ability to help.  Black Protestant children were the lowest on the rung and sometimes waited months in squalid city owned shelters meant to be used short term.  Keep in mind, most of these religious agencies were not charitable organizations.  They were for-profit and indeed did very well with the payment arrangements from the city.

Ms. Lowry chose Shirley Wilder as the "face" for her class action lawsuit.  Shirley first came into care as a motherless black girl, twelve years old, with a neglectful abusive common law stepmother and a largely indifferent alcoholic father.  She had a history of running away. She had a history of acting out.  Shirley went through many placements in institutions that were more like reform schools, less like therapeutic settings.  She never received the treatments she needed to address her issues of abandonment.  She had been sexually molested, neglected, abused and thrown out like so much trash.  At fourteen, she became pregnant, giving birth to a son.  Since there were no facilities available to a poor black girl in foster care to care for her own son, her son entered the same system.  Her son Lamont, was placed with a foster family and arrangements were made for Shirley to maintain visits with him.  This was a bit difficult, since Lamont was in NYC and Shirley was living in a facility 100 miles up the Hudson River.  It should be noted that Lamont's long time foster parents were never offered an opportunity to adopt him.  His foster mother was Puetro Rican, his foster father Haitian, descended from a long line of light-skinned mulattos who had long dominated the impoverished Haitian Islands. In the nearly four years Lamont was in their care and a part of their family, adoption was never discussed, even though his foster parents were more than willing to adopt him and he viewed them as his parents.  Why?  Because of race.

The Lost Children Of Wilder traces this two and half decade old lawsuit as well as Shirley and Lamont's eventual outcomes. 

I am astounded to realize that as recently as the mid 70s, foster care placement was based on religion and race and not the needs of a child.  So many children were ruined by this clear violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.  Shirley and her son Lamont were both victims of this system.

This was also the time frame when transracial adoptions were rare and discouraged. The reasoning behind this eludes me.  So, it's better to leave a child in foster care limbo or in an institutional setting because of the color of their skin?  And no adoptive parents of the same ethnic background were actively recruited?  Stunning.  Nearly all of the children in foster care at that time were never offered for adoption.  Equally stunning.  At 18, when they timed out of the system, many of them were just shown the door and ended up on the street.  Homeless.  Without family or job skills.

I commend Marica Lowry, that young idealistic ACLU attorney for taking on this case and putting a face to the nameless children who were lost in this horrible bigoted shuffle.  She sued and subsequently pissed off every child care official in the city of New York.  It took over 25 years, but changes were made.

Sadly, they were not made soon enough to save Shirley or her son Lamont from their future.

Excellent writing by Nina Bernstein.  Not for readers who want fluff.  This is a dense, no- holds-barred look at a seriously flawed system that flourished for decades.

Bottom line?  All about the money.  Not about the children who so desperately needed help nor the reunification of families or building new forever families.  These private agencies were paid a lot of money by NYC and made a tidy profit on the backs of these abandoned children.

Reading this makes me think once again, I should have taken an MSW (master's in social work) or become an attorney just so I could fight for the rights of children, who have so few people on their side when they enter the foster care system.

Excellent book.

Comments

[Holly]

I'm very interested in reading that book. I've been giving foster care a lot of thought lately. Might not be something we can do soon..but someday I think.

[dragonlady474]

Because of all the required reading I have to do I rarely read books anymore. It kind of sucks because I used to love to read.

[kez]

One of the State Govts in Australia tried to stop transracial fostering & adoption about 5 years ago citing loss of cultural heritage as the reason. There was such a huge outcry that they ended up backing down. There were large numbers of Aboriginal children that were left in institutions as there were a lack of aboriginal families that could take them. So sad and needless.
I'm glad that there are people who step up to the plate. You'd make a great advocate Lisa, in any route you choose to take.