How Can We Help the Children?

            Children, communities, and nations suffer when parents are not parenting. It is no secret that children often suffer because of adult choices and behavior, but it is even worse when the delinquent adult is the parent of the child or children. When government gets involved, it often becomes worse. Case in point is the number of children now entering the foster care system because of parental drug use. Jackson Elliott writes about this problem affecting children.

America’s children in need of adoption now suffer because of their parents’ opioid addictions….

[The nation’s adoption and foster care system] faces many challenges…. One factor is that the number of children entering foster care because of parental drug use has doubled since the year 2000….

Today, over 100,000 children currently eligible for adoption wait in America’s foster care system….

            Behind much of the problem with the adoption and foster care agency are policies and rules made by the Obama administration. Specifically, some children are waiting to be adopted because faith-based adoption agencies were cut out of the equation. It is fair to say that these decisions hurt “tens of thousands of children.” When faith-based adoption agencies would not violate their religious views, such placing children with same-sex couples, the government withheld grant money.


            More than 20,000 youth “age out of the foster system without ever being adopted.” When they aren’t adopted, their future is bleak. “About 20% become homeless at age 18 after leaving the system, and 97% never go to college” according to one source. However, there are changes being made that will help the children.

On Nov 1, the Trump administration announced it would rescind the Obama-era rules. The Department of Health and Human Services said the federal government no longer would withhold federal grant money from faith-based adoption providers based on their traditional religious beliefs.

            Elliott’s article includes other problems affecting children, but they all boil down to the fact that parents are not parenting their child or children. When adults are not willing to accept the responsibilities of parenting, the children and youth suffer. We need parents to care for their children in order to have strong families, communities, and nations.