To The End Of June

To The End Of June

You wanna know something that's changed? Welfare? Back in 1911
it was set as "Mothers' Pension Programs" so widows could have the
means to take good care of their children. Then potential recipients
had to get references from people like clergy. So it was a badge of
respectability. Now it's seen as anything but. The stereotype is
that of a dependent woman cranking out kids fathered by random studs
to get the money to lie around and watch tv.
You wanna know what hasn't changed in all that time? The poorer
you are and the darker your skin, the more likely you are to have your
children taken away. Back in the day they went into orphanages or
rode the orphan trains out west. Today they get shunted into a
complex and convoluted foster care system courtesy of child protective
services.
Chris Beam's To The End Of June: The Intimate Life of American
Foster Care gives an in depth, no holds barred look at this system and
its effects on children and families. Beam was one of those kids who
was a neglected, endangered child who was not visited or taken out of
her home by child protective services. She became a foster parent
when a high school student she was teaching was in danger of being put
in juvie for lack of better options. She put in five years of
research to write this book because she saw the interconnectedness
between foster care and many other aspects of life. "A lawyer who has
done litigation in foster care for decades once told me that foster
kids are our country's canaries in the coal mine, and he's probably
right: they're the most vulnerable members of society, and they
reflect society's spikes in poverty and violence. If we were looking
at foster care and foster kids, we could learn a lot."
Feeling that a broad overview would be, by necessity, too
shallow in scope to do much good, Beam decided to take a more in depth
approach. She gives intimate longitudinal portraits of families she
was involved with for years. The Greens are an example. When they
were parenting three birth children they were called on to take in
nephews who had been removed from their home. This led to parenting
classes and licensing which opened the door to fostering a lot of
kids. At first they were confident that protective strictness,
security, and enrichment would enable their charges to grow to
productive adulthood. That belief was to be tested sorely. In fact
the title of the book comes from one of their wards who went from
wanting, at the age of 16, to write about her journey through 21 homes
to, three years later, deciding it's a pointless venture.
If you aren't willing to write foster kids off as someone else's
problem, if you want to understand the trials and challenges they go
through, if you believe that society can and must do better by them,
To The End Of June is a must read. I highly recommend it to teachers,
guidance counselors, pediatricians, and anyone else in a vocation that
involves working with children.
On a personal note, here in Maine you can tell autumn is right around
the corner. Trees have started to change color. Days are sadly
getting shorter. It is decidedly nippy in the morning. This gives me
less reading time in my outdoor swing BUT more reading time with a
purring Joey cat on my lap.
A great big shout out goes out to the leaf peepers who are going to
drop some change in this lovely state as they admire nature's beauty.
Julia Emily Hathaway


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