7 ms·

If the problem is toxic home environments though, why aren't people suggesting that we cut out the middle man and focus on building a better foster / adoption s

If the problem is toxic home environments though, why aren't people suggesting that we cut out the middle man and focus on building a better foster / adoption system and encouraging people to use it? It seems that everyone is recognizing this is the problem, but the solutions all revolve around school, when it really doesn't have anything to do with schools. Edit: Or boarding schools.

JamesBarney 8y ago
Because it is really hard to compete with the love a parent, even a really shitty one.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jschwartzi 8y ago
  It's not even really that. Your home environment sets your barometer for what normal life looks like and for how strangers can be expected to behave. If your parents fight and assume ill intent in every mistake then you see that in every interaction. If they're constantly trying to get one over on each other then that's how you see human relationships. They don't have to love you or be particularly invested in you for you to learn some really screwed up lessons from them.
  - dsnuh 8y ago
    It is really even that. Just because it may not be logical or make sense, family bonds amd familial love are still a thing, even in families with lots of problems.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
house9-2 8y ago
> ...and focus on building a better foster / adoption system and encouraging people to use it who is going to fund that? wouldn't it be better to support the families as they are? help improve peoples lives instead of ripping families apart
- soperj 8y ago
  Same people funding these insane school programs?
  - redisman 8y ago
    Lebron James has to fix all the ills in American society? Hmm I wonder why this country can't get anything productive done...
    - soperj 8y ago
      You have people pouring money into the school system, and the OP says it's in the wrong spot, and then the next poster asks, but who will fund that? clearly take money from one, put it in the other if that's the solution.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    Who are you to say what charitable cause a private citizen spends their money on? Do you want to complain that Bill Gates spends money trying to cure malaria rather than remove trash from the ocean too?
    - soperj 8y ago
      no but i'll absolutely complain about the way the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has changed the school system in the US.
      - epicureanideal 8y ago
        I'm not familiar with their influence, but I'd love to learn about it! Please link me to more details.
redisman 8y ago
There are a lot of people working extremely hard in that field. It's just not very flashy or politically salient since it's so personal so it's very hard to rally people around it to get some more funding to these programs. Taking kids away from their parents always goes through the courts and is not in any way as simple as you make it out to be. Giving away your kids, even if you've fucked your life up is not something most people want to do voluntarily.
sbilstein 8y ago
I would have loved to attend a boarding school growing up...but living in a toxic family environment isn't so simple for the family or the kid. My mother enabled my alcoholic father, my sisters and I tried to protect each other, it would have been tragic to pull us all apart. I was out of the house as much as possible with school clubs and extra curricular like the boy scouts. Leaving my extended family, friends, etc and the shame of being a "foster" kid is a huge charge for someone in a toxic environment. Also abusive families are not black and white, there are good moments. After school programs, sports, music etc are a lifesaver for students with problems at home.
naravara 8y ago
>If the problem is toxic home environments though, why aren't people suggesting that we cut out the middle man and focus on building a better foster / adoption system and encouraging people to use it? Because the prospect of forcibly separating kids from their parents based on the decisions of aloof and poorly managed bureaucrats is a political and ethical nightmare. The solution revolves around schools because schools are considered a legitimate area of public concern while individuals' family-lives (barring some extreme circumstances) are not. Also, this program provides job training and counseling services for the parents of the kids too. Boarding schools don't work for poor communities because the kids are often relied upon to do work for the family. This can mean helping with the family enterprise or it can mean older kids taking care of younger kids, elderly family members, or just helping out around the house.
- supercheetah 8y ago
  > Because the prospect of forcibly separating kids from their parents based on the decisions of aloof and poorly managed bureaucrats is a political and ethical nightmare. That's not at all what was being suggested.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Well, yeah, it was mostly producing non-aloof and well-managed bureaucrats (and dealing with similar problems in the people to whom they hand off kids), but at that point you've created a solution that still involves forcible separation. You might as well try to address the problems motivating separation, since you you've posed a similarly difficult problem as a partial mitigation.
dsnuh 8y ago
Do you have children? The flippant way you say that we should take the children away from their families makes me think not.
- pixelcloud 8y ago
  Not all parents should be allowed to raise their children...
  - dsnuh 8y ago
    Are you sure you're not actually saying "poor parents shouldn't be allowed to raise their children"?
    - freehunter 8y ago
      Ideas like this are always presented as a "common sense" solution like "let's reduce welfare fraud" and no one would disagree with that, and then in actual implementation it ends up being "let's target poor people, people of color, and immigrant families" even if that's not what was intended from the start. I fail to see how fixing broken homes (which we don't have a ready-made solution for) is an easier solution than making school more helpful to kids (one solution to which is what this article is about), so I don't think the parent's argument is made in good faith.
      - secabeen 8y ago
        Yeah, you rarely see proponents of this considering the toxic households in Orange County or Beverly Hills for interventions.
  - dsnuh 8y ago
    What are your criteria?
drb91 8y ago
Because society is really bad at determining what is acceptable parenting. Look how popular the tiger mom bullshit is. Our foster system is also incredibly bad. It's easier to trust society in aggregate than it is to trust an individual.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> If the problem is toxic home environments though, why aren't people suggesting that we cut out the middle man and focus on building a better foster / adoption system and encouraging people to use it? Or we could just try to fix th social problems that produce the toxic home environments rather than ripping apart the families that society has already failed.
- gt_ 8y ago
  And we could stop using the word “toxic” to describe poor people.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    It's not poor people but their social environment that is described as toxic. Also, all too often accurate of their physical environment, and the two aren't completely unrelated.
    - doingmyting 8y ago
      So it's not poor people, it's the poor neighborhood they live in? You think they can just move to a better physical environment? This strikes me similar to rich people wondering why poor people don't just get rich like they are.
  - dang 8y ago
    This comment breaks the site guideline which asks: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. That's not allowed here, and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of your politics; it's destructive of what this site exists for. Please stop doing that and use HN as intended, in the spirit of intellectual curiosity and thoughtful conversation. We'd appreciate it.

JamesBarney 8y ago

Because it is really hard to compete with the love a parent, even a really shitty one.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jschwartzi 8y ago
It's not even really that. Your home environment sets your barometer for what normal life looks like and for how strangers can be expected to behave. If your parents fight and assume ill intent in every mistake then you see that in every interaction. If they're constantly trying to get one over on each other then that's how you see human relationships. They don't have to love you or be particularly invested in you for you to learn some really screwed up lessons from them.
- dsnuh 8y ago
  It is really even that. Just because it may not be logical or make sense, family bonds amd familial love are still a thing, even in families with lots of problems.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

house9-2 8y ago

> ...and focus on building a better foster / adoption system and encouraging people to use it who is going to fund that? wouldn't it be better to support the families as they are? help improve peoples lives instead of ripping families apart

soperj 8y ago
Same people funding these insane school programs?
- redisman 8y ago
  Lebron James has to fix all the ills in American society? Hmm I wonder why this country can't get anything productive done...
  - soperj 8y ago
    You have people pouring money into the school system, and the OP says it's in the wrong spot, and then the next poster asks, but who will fund that? clearly take money from one, put it in the other if that's the solution.
- freehunter 8y ago
  Who are you to say what charitable cause a private citizen spends their money on? Do you want to complain that Bill Gates spends money trying to cure malaria rather than remove trash from the ocean too?
  - soperj 8y ago
    no but i'll absolutely complain about the way the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has changed the school system in the US.
    - epicureanideal 8y ago
      I'm not familiar with their influence, but I'd love to learn about it! Please link me to more details.

redisman 8y ago

There are a lot of people working extremely hard in that field. It's just not very flashy or politically salient since it's so personal so it's very hard to rally people around it to get some more funding to these programs. Taking kids away from their parents always goes through the courts and is not in any way as simple as you make it out to be. Giving away your kids, even if you've fucked your life up is not something most people want to do voluntarily.

sbilstein 8y ago

I would have loved to attend a boarding school growing up...but living in a toxic family environment isn't so simple for the family or the kid. My mother enabled my alcoholic father, my sisters and I tried to protect each other, it would have been tragic to pull us all apart. I was out of the house as much as possible with school clubs and extra curricular like the boy scouts. Leaving my extended family, friends, etc and the shame of being a "foster" kid is a huge charge for someone in a toxic environment. Also abusive families are not black and white, there are good moments. After school programs, sports, music etc are a lifesaver for students with problems at home.

naravara 8y ago

>If the problem is toxic home environments though, why aren't people suggesting that we cut out the middle man and focus on building a better foster / adoption system and encouraging people to use it? Because the prospect of forcibly separating kids from their parents based on the decisions of aloof and poorly managed bureaucrats is a political and ethical nightmare. The solution revolves around schools because schools are considered a legitimate area of public concern while individuals' family-lives (barring some extreme circumstances) are not. Also, this program provides job training and counseling services for the parents of the kids too. Boarding schools don't work for poor communities because the kids are often relied upon to do work for the family. This can mean helping with the family enterprise or it can mean older kids taking care of younger kids, elderly family members, or just helping out around the house.

supercheetah 8y ago
> Because the prospect of forcibly separating kids from their parents based on the decisions of aloof and poorly managed bureaucrats is a political and ethical nightmare. That's not at all what was being suggested.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Well, yeah, it was mostly producing non-aloof and well-managed bureaucrats (and dealing with similar problems in the people to whom they hand off kids), but at that point you've created a solution that still involves forcible separation. You might as well try to address the problems motivating separation, since you you've posed a similarly difficult problem as a partial mitigation.

dsnuh 8y ago

Do you have children? The flippant way you say that we should take the children away from their families makes me think not.

pixelcloud 8y ago
Not all parents should be allowed to raise their children...
- dsnuh 8y ago
  Are you sure you're not actually saying "poor parents shouldn't be allowed to raise their children"?
  - freehunter 8y ago
    Ideas like this are always presented as a "common sense" solution like "let's reduce welfare fraud" and no one would disagree with that, and then in actual implementation it ends up being "let's target poor people, people of color, and immigrant families" even if that's not what was intended from the start. I fail to see how fixing broken homes (which we don't have a ready-made solution for) is an easier solution than making school more helpful to kids (one solution to which is what this article is about), so I don't think the parent's argument is made in good faith.
    - secabeen 8y ago
      Yeah, you rarely see proponents of this considering the toxic households in Orange County or Beverly Hills for interventions.
- dsnuh 8y ago
  What are your criteria?

drb91 8y ago

Because society is really bad at determining what is acceptable parenting. Look how popular the tiger mom bullshit is. Our foster system is also incredibly bad. It's easier to trust society in aggregate than it is to trust an individual.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> If the problem is toxic home environments though, why aren't people suggesting that we cut out the middle man and focus on building a better foster / adoption system and encouraging people to use it? Or we could just try to fix th social problems that produce the toxic home environments rather than ripping apart the families that society has already failed.

gt_ 8y ago
And we could stop using the word “toxic” to describe poor people.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  It's not poor people but their social environment that is described as toxic. Also, all too often accurate of their physical environment, and the two aren't completely unrelated.
  - doingmyting 8y ago
    So it's not poor people, it's the poor neighborhood they live in? You think they can just move to a better physical environment? This strikes me similar to rich people wondering why poor people don't just get rich like they are.
- dang 8y ago
  This comment breaks the site guideline which asks: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. That's not allowed here, and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of your politics; it's destructive of what this site exists for. Please stop doing that and use HN as intended, in the spirit of intellectual curiosity and thoughtful conversation. We'd appreciate it.