I worked as a counselor accepting referrals from Child Protective Services for 8 years. Prior to that I spent a year as a counselor in an abortion clinic. I witnessed generational poverty and its effects in both settings.
Some of my CPS clients had diagnosed mental illnesses.
Some were on disability, getting what they — not I — call a “crazy check.” When diagnosed with a mental illness considered debilitating, they applied for social security and lived primarily on that and welfare.
Their children were removed from the home for a variety of reasons, including neglect and abuse, but whatever the reason, many were having difficulty supporting their children. And yet, when I asked one particularly high-functioning person why she didn’t get a part-time job she said she couldn’t.
Another would have worked, but while her schizophrenia was under control enough to stay home with her children, any job she could hold wouldn’t pay enough to cover child-care or after school care.
When off her medication, she had fantasized killing her husband and children. Her husband also had a mental illness, so when she confessed her fantasy, the children were removed.
Some were homeless.
I had one family who were homeless. Mom and dad were camping under a freeway in tents with their dog. That’s where they were found with their children. The children were placed in foster homes and the parents were sent for counseling. The parents were still homeless.
There weren’t drugs involved. There may have been some psychotic episodes, although not while I was seeing them. Both father and mother believed their former home was haunted, so perhaps there was mental illness. Definitely there was abject poverty.
Some were able to get it together, and were still deprived of their children.
One of the saddest stories was the young mother of three, one of who had disabilities. Her life had been very hard, as the father had been abusive to her and then abandoned them. The children were placed in foster care.
She attended counseling and actually did the work, whereas some clients only attended as part of the requirements by CPS to get their children returned. She got a job and did well working. She acquired beds for all three children, while she slept on a mattress on the floor. Her mother came to stay with her to help in hopes of having the children returned.
She began dating a man who was a white-collar professional, and he loaned her a car to get to work and to counseling sessions. Her life was on track.
However, the foster family wanted to adopt the children and CPS agreed.
When I appeared in court on her behalf, my testimony was apparently discounted.
The CPS lawyer was shocked when they asked me about her boyfriend and I said he was a professional. I’d done the research and CPS had not. They wanted to paint her as someone with Dependent Personality Disorder, who “needed” a man. She wasn’t. I was her therapist, and testified to that effect.
CPS testified that when they visited her home, her bed was a mattress on the floor and there were dishes in the sink.
Even had it led to a Contempt of Court charge, I wish I’d had the presence of mind to say,
I didn’t think of it until later.
After the testimony, I still thought she would have her children returned. The CPS case seemed weak, and my testimony as the therapist should have held more weight.
The judge ruled in favor of the foster/adoptive parents.
Why this generational poverty and injustice will get worse.
It’s probable some of the CPS clients I worked with had considered abortion. They certainly had not considered adoption, and frequently fought in the courts against it.
However, even of the ones who had considered abortion, most were too poor to afford the procedure. With current laws, by the time someone who is struggling financially saves the money for an abortion, they will be past 6 weeks pregnant — the time frame for getting an abortion in Texas.
Since 1977, the Hyde Amendment has required states to use Medicaid funds to pay for abortions of pregnancies cause by rape or incest, or in situations where the pregnant person’s life is endangered. Conservatives are now hoping to circumvent the amendment by having state’s pass laws otherwise. Whether they can find a way to do so is unlikely, but so was the reversal of Roe v Wade.
The Hyde Amendment would have only clearly helped one CPS parent that I was aware of, and she didn’t seek an abortion. She was a child when her father began molesting her, and a teen when he got her pregnant and insisted she have the baby. He kept her from having an abortion.
The reversal of Roe v Wade eliminates one option for women to climb out of generational poverty. If the Supreme Court takes on contraception next, there will be no options for poverty stricken pregnant people.
Foster care and adoption isn’t the answer to abortion bans.
In addition to hearing about the appalling conditions some CPS parents lived in, I also witnessed the foster care system up close.
Many foster care families are good people. Not all. Some are in it only for the money. I had one family bring their foster children for counseling who requested quite strenuously that I classify two of the children at the highest level of disfunction and difficulty. If I had, they would get more money.
There is a dearth of foster families in general. The ones there are house 424,000 children annually in the U.S.
CPS is allowed a full year to bring cases to court for the judge to decide whether to return the children to their homes or make them wards of the state. Five percent of the children who become wards of the state stay 5 years or more in foster care. Many of those “age out” — meaning they have to leave the foster care system when they become 18. More than a few of those become homeless.
One way generational poverty is perpetuated is when homeless teens become pregnant and are forced to have the child, which is inevitable with abortion bans.
Adoption isn’t the answer. The young woman I counseled who lost her children to the foster family was fortunate in one respect, or the children were. They were at least adopted.
While they wanted to stay with their mother and she wanted them and worked to get them back, once parents’ rights are terminated most children who aren’t infants do not get adopted. Finding someone willing to adopt or foster three or more siblings is even less common.
I stopped working with that population over 10 years ago.
Nothing has changed, other than abortion bans, attacks on education, and a scuttling of government programs to help the homeless and those living in poverty. While these injustices persist, generational poverty persists.
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This post was previously published on New Choices.
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