Suffer The Children Of Social Inequality

Police Rescue Malnourished Girl From Closet in Kansas City

This story is a tragedy that defies explanation. The mother is most assuredly mentally ill and the abused little girl will suffer mental scars for the rest of her life. The other 2 children involved will probably be placed in the foster care system which is a spin of the ole wheel of fortune, as to whether they will wind up in a safe and loving environment or suffer more abuse from within this, yet another, broken system involving children of the poor. It's a very sad tale that should not be swept under the carpet. We live in a time of social inequality where the top 1 percent of Americans now own 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. How much does the bottom 80 percent own? Only 7 percent, (Read more here: HOW UNEQUAL ARE WE http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/03/334156/top-five-wealthiest-one-percent/ ) these statistics are appalling and result in the mass suffering of our little children. If I were part of the 1 percent living in this New Gilded Age, I don't think I could ever show my face in public let alone run for President of the USA. ( “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” --Mitt Romney--) thinkingblue

PS: Some sad statistics about Foster Care: According to national statistics, 40 to 50 percent of those children will never complete high school. Sixty-six percent of them will be homeless, go to jail or die within one year of leaving the foster care system at 18.

80 percent of the prison population once was in foster care, and that girls in foster care are 600 percent more likely than the general population to become pregnant before the age of 21. More Here: Statistics suggest bleak futures for children who grow up in foster care
http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2012-06-24/what-comes-next

Police Rescue Malnourished Girl From Closet in Kansas City

A Kansas City, Mo., mother is behind bars, accused of keeping her 10-year-old daughter locked in a closet, not letting her come out to eat, sleep or even go to the bathroom.

The girl weighed just 32 pounds, and hospital records indicated that she has only gained 6 pounds since she was 4 or 5 years old, according to a police probable cause statement. The girl also suffers from "multiple healing skin injuries and failure to thrive," the statement said.

"She weighed a little over a third of what a 10-year-old should weigh," Kansas City Police Capt. Steve Young said. "We don't know how long or how frequently she's been in there [the closet], but it's clear she'd spent a significant amount of time in there."

Kansas City police met Missouri Children's Division workers outside the apartment building Friday morning after the division received a hotline call about a girl who was locked up and unable to eat or use the restroom.

When a division worker told two women outside the apartment that three children lived in the apartment, the neighbors said they had never seen the third child even though they'd lived there for "several years."

"We never knew of her the whole three years we've been down here," Kimberly Kelley, another neighbor, told ABC's affiliate in Kansas City, KMBC-TV. "She told us she only had two kids." MORE HERE: http://news.yahoo.com/police-rescue-malnourished-girl-closet-kansas-city-161117342--abc-news-topstories.html

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An unequal society
By Robert B. Reich

THE 5 percent of Americans with the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumer purchases, according to the latest research from Moody’s Analytics. That should come as no surprise. Our society has become more and more unequal.

When so much income goes to the top, the middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without sinking ever more deeply into debt — which, as we’ve seen, ends badly. An economy so dependent on the spending of a few is also prone to great booms and busts. The rich splurge and speculate when their savings are doing well. But when the values of their assets tumble, they pull back. That can lead to wild gyrations. Sound familiar? http://room4truth.com/2011/09/04/an-unequal-society/
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Life as a Foster Child

A throw away kid...
This is my story as a foster child. I hope it helps someone understand us, especially the foster parent. I hope it makes the case workers really listen to us. I hope it changes the system, but I'm afraid it won't.

Don't let me mislead you, I am not a child now, but I remember everything. I remember thoughts and feelings, I remember the looks and attitudes of those around me. I was a watcher, a silent, withdrawn watcher. In a way, I still am.

I was taken from a stay in the hospital to the social worker's office. There I met my younger siblings, ( I was the oldest). I didn't know what was happening, but I don't think I cared at the time. I was already broken at this point. I had already shut down emotionally, a child in a box, detatched, going through the motions. I was 7 years old, and very small for my age.

I had no memory of the particular incident that put me in the hospital. It had just happened, and my mind protected me from the memory, it still does to this day.

Yes, we should have been taken.
Don't get me wrong, child services were right in getting us out of that home. It was horrible there. After my mother divorced my dad she married a psycho. No, really, he was clinically psycho. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and even his parents warned my mother to stay away from him. She didn't listen. She moved in with her very young 5 children. I remember so many horrible moments with that monster. So when I finally ended up in the hospital, it was good that we were immediately taken out of the home, but then came foster care.

How can you expect us to be grateful?
This is to all of the foster parents, we don't like you. You have to earn that right. You have to earn our trust, what little we have left, and it won't be easy. Oh, and something else. Don't expect us to be grateful for what you are doing for us. What do we have to be grateful for, anyway? We were ripped from everything and everyone we know. We were thrown to you, and you want us to be grateful? We didn't choose you, and we know you will probably never love us. You are strangers, you are dangerous, you are another set of adults we have to listen to, another set of adults who can hurt us. You have power over us, and we are helpless. Our life lays in pieces around us. We are shattered, damaged, broken. How can you expect us to be grateful? MORE HERE: http://www.squidoo.com/lifeasafosterchild

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Also Read: Are Foster Children Overmedicated? Government Seeks Improved Guidelines - http://www.opednews.com/articles/Are-Foster-Children-Overme-by-Martha-Rosenberg-120623-261.html

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Foster Care News

Statistics suggest bleak futures for children who grow up in foster care

Statistics show the future bodes poorly for many of the children in the foster care ... Arrow, an international child-placement agency, claims the statistics describe a national foster care crisis. ...