I met with my mentee for tea this afternoon, and she’s finally moved out of her foster parents’ house into her new dorm in Queens to start her third year of college. Despite having moved out, her foster parents haven’t made a single attempt to call or speak with her in a week. They haven’t even texted or emailed. So, it’s been zero communication since she told them she was going to move out of their house. She told me that her foster mom cried and told her she didn’t want her to leave, but when she finally did leave, she said nothing to her. Her foster mom is going through a depressive bout, and her foster dad, who has never been that involved other than to leave money on the table for her, hasn’t said a word to her in months.

I have no idea what the screening process is like to become a foster parent, but if this is at all representative of what it actually is like for other children who have been in the foster care system in New York City, much less the rest of this country, I’m extremely disheartened. The whole point of being put into foster care is because your own parents could not give you the love, care, and support you needed, so you are then placed with another family that is equipped to provide you these things. This is obviously not happening in this current situation, which infuriates me to no end every time I meet with my mentee and she shares these horror stories with me. She thinks something is wrong with her as a result; it’s nothing wrong with her. It’s what’s wrong with the world and the stupid system she has to deal with.