Read "Forever Young" by Nell Bernstein.

Ten years ago I turned 18 and it was time to leave my foster home. I had been in the system in one capacity or another since I was 11 years old and now my time was up. It was a terrible, scary time where my options were limited and the threats of a homeless shelter were made very real to me.

I was one of the lucky ones. I had a friend whose family offered to take me in when I had nowhere to go and because of that break I am the successful adult I am today. Today I am an adult who is doing my part to make sure that this does not happen to another foster kid. I've worked with a number of professionals and there is no doubt in my mind that they want to see these young adults succeed, but they are looking at the situation from the viewpoint of an emotionally healthy adult, not a stunted child.

Education and independent living skills were certainly emphasized when I was a teenager. I went to the special classes offered to foster children and I went to high school like all the normal kids, but I was not a normal kid. Foster kids are not just in the system because it seems like a nice alternative to living with the biological family. They are in care because their lives were so traumatized and threatened that staying at home was not an option. Balancing a checkbook and calculating pi seem trivial compared to the bigger issues of why your parents betrayed you so fundamentally.

It is not a wonder to me that Ms. Throneberry remained a teenager throughout her 20s, for that is what she was. Her teen years were suspended until she could fight her demons. Emotionally, she picked up where her age left off and at 30 she was indeed ready to enter adulthood. Unfortunately, there is no cost-effective way to handle cases like this one. And public sympathy will never be on their side.

-- Heather Ward

Nell Bernstein's article regarding foster kids who don't w ant to grow up begins with the story of Treva Throneberry, a Texas native who has traveled the country under various names, claming to be 16, attending high school and living with family after family who open their home to her. However, there are two major flaws in her using Treva as the poster child for foster care:

1) Treva did not go into foster care until age 16. She grew up, in fact, with her parents and genetic siblings. Only after she accused her father of rape (though it was really her uncle who molested her) when she was 16 did the state intervene.

2) Treva went from state to state but rarely if ever worked through state agencies (i.e., foster care). Mostly she joined churches and religious organizations that found families for her. Treva's story is more about abuse, its psychological effects and the denial of that abuse, not foster care. It was abuse, not the system, that caused her to believe she was perenially 18. Bernstein, do your homework!

-- Denise Goluboff

If the Christian right refuses to accede to gay adoptions, perhaps they would rather these foster kids be placed in an orphanage where they'll get some of the Catholic priesthood's TLC.

-- Steven Stone

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