Just something that I was pondering last night...

Andy and I were talking about foster children last night and some stuff that has been happening that I've read about. I told him that it's sad to hear some of these stories go in front of juries and the juries feel sorry for the parents and so they send the child back home where the child is later seriously hurt again or dies.

I asked "when does it become that the child is put first and that the child's feelings and actions to them are put before the parents? It's sad to me that 2 people can be married, one abuses the other and the abused person can walk away and get divorced...they can think for themselves." Yet, some people think that no matter what happened to the child, that the child is better off going back to his/her bio family. Would that abused spouse like it if someone said "oh, I'm sorry...we feel sorry for your spouse if you leave him so we're going to send you right back." I'm not saying that every child doesn't deserve the chance to be reunified with their birth family...but some of these cases that I've been hearing about lately where severe abuse has happened or the child's life has been threatened and stuff like that...I just have a hard time thinking that the families deserve a 2nd chance to get those children back. Then again, I have a hard time hearing about how this child and that child keep getting sent home only to come back into care again too. I think if the first reunification isn't successful, they need to figure something else out to give the child permanency.

I don't know, just some things that I have been pondering lately.