[psynister]

It's disheartening to see such drastic disparities between foster kids and their peers in terms of both education and incarceration rates. It really highlights just how important having a stable home life is to shaping the future outcomes for kids and how big of a disadvantage it is for those who don't have this privilege. Sad that we live in a society where we can't provide a healthy, stable environment so many kids.

[Sevii]

The way foster care works children will be placed with foster parents for a few years, then be returned to their parents, then be placed back in foster care with a different family, over and over again. The system is not setup to prioritize a stable environment. The reality is that to provide a healthy stable environment for these kids, we would have to effectively eliminate their parents from their lives. We'd basically have to say, "It's great you are off drugs and have a house and job now, but you don't get to have your kids back ever because they need stability". In general we prioritize getting kids back with their families over a healthy or stable environment.

[em-bee]

the problem is that children need both. a stable environment and a good relationship to their parents. therefore, if the parents are the cause of the instability, it's actually the parents who need help, therapy and what not. the failure in the current system is not providing that help.

so what we really need is a system where parents can develop a good relationship with their children, while having the support to build that stable environment.

i have seen an example in germany where the parents and kids live together in a form of supervised housing, where the family is not on their own but where multiple families live together with one or more socialworkers supporting them, making sure that things do not go out of hand and the parents can learn what a stable environment is (because most likely they didn't have a stable environment when they grew up themselves, so they have no experience to draw on)

[g-b-r]

That's dangerous though, there have been cases of widespread unjustified foster care placements

[sokoloff]

It's not inaccurate to categorize them as "foster kids", but I think it risks putting too much emphasis on the wrong part of the root of the problem, just like thinking of people as "level 1 trauma center patients" rather than "car crash victims", "shooting victims", or "workplace accident victims".

When we see poor outcomes from trauma centers, we don't exclusively focus on better trauma medicine to improve per-patient outcomes; we also take steps aimed at reducing the number of patients created to improve society-wide outcomes.

Underlying every foster kid is some kind of failed original/default family situation. Improving the outcomes of the set of all children may have less to do with improving the foster machine and more to do with changing the dynamics that feed so many children into the gears of that machine in the first place.

[pizzafeelsright]

I am curious where people cannot provide a healthy and stable environment.

I grew up poor, somewhat stable. My children are going to be growing up in a stable and healthy environment because of my choices. This is course has a cost. The wife doesn't have a full time job. Income is limited to one earner. Vacations aren't as extravagant.

I am in the middle of becoming a foster family. Loads more sacrifices and paperwork. The families that lose their children are really screwed up. There's neglect, abuse, and no blood related that are available to help.

The State is not any better at parenting because their interest doesn't align with the child's best interest. The State essentially contracts out parenting. The problem is parenting is essentially its own religion. Naturally that means the State will be in conflict with the Parenting.

Foster children are protected by the State so disciplining methods aren't always accepted. A child of any age without effective discipline will be subject to natural consequences which are often more severe that a loving parent with patience, grace, understanding, and attention to desired outcome.

[underlipton]

Spitballin': I imagine that chaos in the parents' own lives is a major factor. The nature of labor in the US makes employment, for certain classes of workers, highly unstable. The nature of housing markets and law makes housing, for certain classes of workers, highly unstable. The nature of health care (including addiction care) increases vulnerability in mental and physical health. The nature of transportation infrastructure and services make many aspects of life unnecessarily precarious. On and on.

"The measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members," isn't a platitude, it's a wake-up call, to pay attention to how bad things can get. If you're going to lose the health insurance that covers your asthmatic kid, because you're about to lose your job, because you can't afford to fix your (planned obsolescent) broken-down car, because you spent your fix fund on rent that increased 20% year-over-year... well, then, it's going to be difficult to be a good parent.

I fully expect the "personal responsibility" people to go in on me.

[paulryanrogers]

> Foster children are protected by the State so disciplining methods aren't always accepted.

Curious what effective methods the state considers unacceptable?

[harimau777]

Some parents choose not to provide a healthy and stable environment. It's not uncommon for LGBTQ kids to simply be disowned and kicked out.

[meiraleal]

> It really highlights just how important having a stable home life is to shaping the future outcomes for kids

It also highlights the lack of investment to support those kids having a better future. It is just a matter of priority and resource allocation, after all.

[rayiner]

This is not a problem you can fix with bureaucracy. Bangladeshi villages manage to raise stable kids that don’t commit crimes at the rate of the average American, much less the rate of Americans in the foster system. That should give you a hint about how important “investment” and “resource allocation” is in this problem versus other factors.

[majormajor]

I don't agree in general, but I wonder why you blame it on sexualization of culture and the effect of that on women instead of hyper-masculization/glorification of scams/violence in culture and the effect of that on men? All those "risk-taking macho [men]" you refer to could be easily blamed on a mass media system that glorifies such behavior, yet you focus your comment on sexualization and women, who seem to be less of the principal actors in your story compared to the men taking risks and leaving people in the lurch.

[KittenInABox]

> Women in their early age are attracted to the risk-taking macho who lives on the edge and pleases her.

This isn't really broadly true. Women in their early age are just as varied as the rest of us. I know women who were raised in a setting where they were expected to be parents (cleaning, cooking, looking after the younger siblings) and so naturally never learned healthy boundaries, and thought looking after a manchild was normal. I know women who were raised in a setting where abusive men were also normal and so they accepted romantic abuse. I know women who were simply alone and didn't have support systems to help them through the isolation and financial constraints that is entering an abusive relationship by men who promised traditional breadwinning homelives.

It's dismissive to wave off an entire gender this way and not consider all the ways we already dismiss women. Of course, if women are constantly exposed to men lambasting them for being 20 year old sluts as a category, how do they enter healthy sexual relationships with men?

[robocat]

> Women in their early age are attracted to the risk-taking macho

Many middle-aged women I know remain attracted to the same type of men. It often works out poorly for them, but they still don't seem to learn new preferences.

I know of far too many arsehole guys that never lack for a girlfriend.

Smart, attractive, caring women that don't seem to be able to choose a worthwhile guy. And I know of too many women that can't extricate themselves after they are entrapped by some arsehole.

I don't have much of a theory of why, but one pattern is often a taking guy and a giving woman.

I don't know enough gay men or women to have noticed similar patterns within my gay acquantances.

The other odd thing is that I have some caring male friends who would make fabulous husbands (and fathers), however they are not snapped up by women. It appears to me that their positives are not valued - and perhaps they are judged too harshly by their flaws (goofy, overweight, bad teeth, crappy job, whatever).

It isn't just young women. Women in their 30's, 40's, 50's still often make the same choices. They seem to remain attracted to the same type of guy, but may avoid entrapment through a variety of mental gymnastics (or plain celibacy).

(Re-edited for clarity).

[giraffe_lady]

This is straightforward victim blaming. Plenty of boring men neglect and abuse their families too.

[dawatchusay]

You should not make such blanket statements about groups of people. And then especially blame it on culture when it is in fact your opinion/experience.

[foofie]

> Women in their early age are attracted to the risk-taking macho who (...) pleases her. (...) In case they find a boring man (...) they (...) divorce him.

Perhaps you should start off by assuming women are people with free will, and afterwards take a long hard look at why people tend to prefer partners that "please" them over those who instead have nothing to offer and try to use economic stability as leverage.