US laws ban single carers

A number of US states have passed laws that will, among other things, prevent single carers from fostering.

It seems inconceivable that policy-makers would try to limit who can apply, when the most important thing should be finding these children someone to love them.

What’s behind it? The conservative movement considers that the appropriate family is a mum, a dad and the kids.

Well, that’s great. In a perfect world. But most children entering care left a perfect world far behind them, if in fact they ever knew it. Many of them have never experienced the glorious ‘nuclear family’. They wouldn’t know it if they tripped over it. So why should it be the only type of care available?

Maybe, just maybe, the best care for many of these children might be finding one person who loves them. Just one. Who really loves them. And cares about them. Perhaps that’s all it takes?

The authorities have an obligation to seek out the best for these children once they enter care. But that doesn’t mean the nuclear family is essential in all instances. And it doesn’t mean the nuclear family is possible in all circumstances.

Should these children be denied a home where one parent who loves and nurtures them might be more than they have ever had before?

We know many single carers, both foster parents and birth parents. Without exception they are very aware of what they need to supplement, for themselves and for the children, to provide a well-balanced life.

Foster children often deal with a birth family, so their concept of the perfect ‘nuclear family’ is already well extended. We suspect they are not nearly as hung up on the structure of the care they go into as the moral majority. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and often the children accept this more readily than adults.

So we are pleased to see that a number of agencies in Australia consider that sole carers, with the right support, can make excellent foster parents.

For many of these children, a stable home with one loving parent is a vast improvement on what they have experienced.

And provided the child’s education and life experience shows them all the options that make up ‘a family’, their home circumstances should be a positive thing, not a negative.

The US must be well served with carers if they can afford to be so exclusive.