Praise For All The Aunties
What I learned about family and systemic inequalities when I was brave enough to be curious.
I distinctly remember the first time my husband and I sat through in-person classes to become foster parents. We were the only White couple. This took me by surprise because at the time I only knew foster parents who were White. And the only foster parents I saw on social media were White too.
The training room was full of Black and Brown folks; most of whom were single and over the age of 50. I worked up the courage to ask the trainer, “What percentage of foster parents are White?” (I was genuinely curious. To know me is to know I ask lots of questions.) She had already shared about how racism impacts the child welfare system and explained the disproportionate number of Black and Brown children who are in care. Sadly, none of that surprised me. Her answer to my question about foster parents though: over 80% of the agency’s foster parents are Black. With that, my limited perception of who was doing the work of fostering was proved inaccurate.
It wasn’t until I experienced it for myself that I fully grasped the information shared on that first day of class…
During our four years of being foster parents in Chicago, 16 out of 16 children who came into our care all happened to be Black. We never received a call for a White child. I thought it was odd, but told myself it was probably just the part of Chicago we lived in. My theory didn’t last long as I saw why kids came into care. Most of these parents weren’t intentionally neglectful or abusive. Poverty (generational poverty, to be more precise) was at the root, and could very easily be tied back to the systemic racism they’ve faced for centuries.
In all things, but especially in this conversation, it’s important to leave room for nuance. This is not an argument that no child should ever be in care. There are cases where removal is necessary. I’m just not sure the majority of families need to endure separation when they could receive help to heal while staying intact.
I wondered why — if poverty was at the root of their hardships — the state couldn’t redirect the monthly stipend that we, foster parents, receive to care for the child(ren) to their parents instead.
I’ve done this work long enough to know that throwing money at people won’t solve everything. I’m not naive. (Please think broadly with me for a moment.) What if we overhauled the system in an effort to achieve the goal we all most of us want: to see more families reunified. Providing funds to families whose neglect was rooted in financial and food scarcity, for example, would need to come with wrap-around services that include therapy, education, and accountability.
Many will argue that this still would never work for various reasons.
But is the system “working” right now?
…or is it doing what it was designed to do?
I’ve had a front row seat to lots of things in foster care that aren’t working:
Many kids are in limbo without permanency or stability for five years or longer.
Older youth voice their preferences, but are silenced and then put into psychiatric hospitals when their behavior speaks so they cannot be ignored.
Children are put in juvenile detention centers, shelters, and group homes because there aren’t enough people opening up their homes to foster.
Foster parents endure false allegations and some who are caught inflicting abuse on the children they were supposed to protect.
Some people become foster parents for the wrong reasons… often viewing a child they receive as an answer to their prayer rather than a traumatic, devastating time.
Roughly half of youth in foster care never graduate high school, one in five will experience homelessness, and one in four will become involved with the criminal justice system within just two years after foster care.
The system is so obviously broken, and I haven’t even taken racism into account. There are many examples I could share if we sat down face to face — which would be my preference in having these conversations, but one of the most blatant real-life moments I saw racism in care so obviously:
When a Black mother lost custody of her children and was incarcerated for the same thing a White mother was put into a rehabilitation center with her children.
The latter has a much higher success rate and far less trauma on everyone involved. I believe it also costs the government less, but have not been able to find credible research to back it at this time.
Discrepancies like this are all around us. As my eyes were opened, I grew increasingly perplexed that it was allowed… maybe even perpetuated.
As we raised Black children, befriended their parents and relatives, and got more involved with the community of foster parents through our agency, I learned so many things.
Black folks have been fostering far longer than the actual system has existed.
An acquaintance once said very directly, “Manda, we foster. We just don’t document it on social media. That’s why people think it’s all White folks doing the work. But we do the work and have for a long time. We just don’t do it for show.”
Initially, I felt a twinge of hurt (my own fragility, if I’m honest). I documented our foster journey, but I had posted my life publicly long before becoming a foster parent. I justified my way of showing up online because unlike those foster parents, I didn’t just start posting daily for the world once I gained someone else’s kid. But the truth is: I wasn't any less guilty of what she said.
We were getting all of the credit for raising these kids (who, of course, were Black) when so many others were doing the same thing— just without an audience, applause, or monthly stipend.
In fact, a lot of the foster parents I got to know during our time in Chicago were Black women who were organically fostering outside of the legal system and only got their foster license because the monthly stipend made it sustainable to feed and clothe more bodies.
My reason for becoming a foster parent was to provide a safe, stable, and loving environment for kids who temporarily needed it. Their reason was the same, except the kids weren’t strangers. These were their cousin’s kids, their neighbor’s kids, and kids they bumped into at the corner store on the regular.
Informal adoption in African American families refers to an informal social service network that has been an integral part of the community since the days of slavery. It began as, and still is, a practice in African American families to informally adopt the children of relatives and friends and take care of them when their parents are unable to provide for their needs.
Source: Littlejohn-Blake, Sheila M., and Carol Anderson Darling. “Understanding the Strengths of African American Families.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 23, no. 4, 1993, pp. 460–71. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2784380. Accessed 13 Jan. 2023.
If we don’t connect the dots between racism and poverty to the child welfare system, we’re too far from it.
Scoot up close and there is no denying that they are intrinsically connected.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
I don’t think you can change a system you aren’t a part of, so that’s one reason I remain involved regardless of whether or not I agree with every decision made in real time and even when a child isn't in our care.
There’s so much to learn from Black culture, but perhaps one of the richest, most overlooked characteristics is the practice of caring for each other at any cost without prerequisites or praise.
Foster parenting and adoption aren’t the only way to participate in Longer Table Living. Voting, volunteering, and inviting are other ways too. We’ll dig into each of these more. Every Tuesday I share thoughts on an angle related to building longer tables rather than higher fences. I hope you’ll stick around and engage in the comments to make this a two-way conversation.
May we take whatever inspiration we feel and put it to action through one small step,
Manda
Continue reading on the subject of racism, foster care, Black culture and more:
No Place like Home: The US Foster Care System is Broken
Black People Support Family and Friends More Than Other Groups
Wow, this is profound and honest. Good work!
Really appreciated this, manda!