Solomon Says: A Speakout on Foster Care

HOW WOULD SOLOMON DEFUSE THE FOSTER CARE TIME BOMB IN OUR MIDST? Today’s foster children are tomorrow’s adults. They are our future—enraged, alienated, desperate young wards of a system that offers to “help” mothers by taking away their children and tells children that even the most positive foster home is “subject to change.” In this pioneering look at foster care, Louise Armstrong, author of the classic Kiss Daddy Goodnight: A Speakout on Incest, thoroughly explores a system mired in bureaucracy, mismanagement, and class, ethnic and racial bias. In these fascinating, often chilling pages, she gives voice to those who have not been heard before, and shows us the lives behind the much-headlined failure of the system. A foster mother: “After we declared our willingness to adopt the baby, they started putting a great deal of pressure on the father to take her....We knew he didn’t want her; we also thought from the way he dealt with her he couldn’t handle her....But I didn’t know at that point that he had been charged with molesting a child.” A New York family court judge: “Horrible things happen to kids who tell about sexual abuse. Horrible things. Seeing what happens if you tell, I’m not sure if I would tell.” What can we do? How can we help? In this powerful, moving work, we can begin to find the answers...