New York: The Besieged Children

This article on foster children in the New York Review of Books is best if you’re not wearing mascara, or eyeliner, or a white shirt that becomes transparent when wet:

Shylah’s experience in foster care was relatively benign because Nicole had managed to have her placed with close friends and, unlike most parents whose children are removed, she was allowed daily visits. But Nicole hadn’t realized how traumatized Shylah had been when she was first dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and taken away. At the time, the child protection officers did nothing to reassure the girl that she and her mother would be OK. It wasn’t what they did that troubled Nicole — she admits she needed help — it was their SWAT team tactics. “It really shook her world,” Nicole says now. “She was confused and frightened, and thought it was all her fault. She really thought I didn’t want her anymore.”

You should also skip it if you have the potential to become a violent vigilante:

A national study conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services in 1994 found that black children were more likely to be taken from their homes than white children, even when the type and severity of the alleged abuse were the same. For example, among families in which a report of abuse or neglect turned out to have been unsubstantiated by a court, 43 percent of black children but only 15 percent of white children had been removed from their homes.

Although this piece does a great job of pointing out the manner in which impoverished parents can face unfair scrutiny by the city’s authorities, there are obviously many, many children for whom foster care is life-saving and transformational, a fact which isn’t denied by the authors.