Foster Care, Ethics and Motivation

This is a scattershot link post to some recent interesting discussions on ethics and motivation in foster care and foster care adoption.

Yondalla: If You Want to Adopt You Should... and Foster Care and Moral Obligation and Another Paradox: Motivation and Obligation

Amanda: What's My Motivation?

The posts reminded me of my year-old post, Adoption from Foster Care and Saving a Child. I revisited it and found I still basically agree with what I wrote.

This is a difficult but important topic. I think many of us are sick of the standard-issue arguments and commonplace sayings surrounding foster care. Foster carers are simultaneously sainted and demonized in mass media and within the adoption sphere. Pushing them to the extremes like that doesn't do any good at all for any kind of reform effort. But it's easier than actually listening to their complex, sometimes conflicting viewpoints... or the even more complex viewpoints of adults who were raised in the system.

Here's a comment I left at Yondalla's that expresses some of my frustration about this.

Hear, hear. I strongly believe in adoption reform in all areas but that particular argument -- "why don't you just adopt from foster care" -- is really irritating. I feel like saying... unless you have some experience with the foster care system already, in some capacity, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. YOU REALLY DON'T. DON'T PRETEND YOU DO. Don't use children in foster care as props in your arguments without real regard for them.