Post # 2

1. Molloy, Diane. “Ordinary people doing extraordinary work”, St. John’s Telegram, October 8, 2006.

In this article, the author describes the important roles of foster families for children, most of which have experienced some degree of emotional turmoil in their lives. The author describes what some foster families experience with a foster child, why people decide to be foster parents, and the kinds of things that foster families do. Through interviews, the author depicted the lives of a foster family as well as their reasons, outcome, and experience being foster parents. The author does not, however, delve specifically into the lives of the interviewees, does not provide quotes, and provides a very narrow perspective in describing foster families; there are no negative details in portraying foster families. The author seems to support and commend foster families and celebrate foster family week, thus, is missing various factors in describing the lives of foster families.

2. Benjoe, Kerry. “Foster Family Campaign a Success”. The Leader-Post., November 9, 2006.

By interviewing the program consultant for foster care- Eva Carpenter, the author states that there is a shortage of foster families occurring nationally and briefly describes some aspects in becoming approved to be a foster family such as it generally takes about three months, ,there are no age limitations except of legal age, and has be physically well and able to care for children. Further, the author interviewed foster parents- the Erskines- who received the Montgomery Award for excellence in fostering and provides some personal quotes as well as some general information about their experience as foster parents. There are several facts about the interviewees that can be easily proven to evaluate the quality of the research in this article. This article as well is in support of foster families and does not delve into negative aspects of foster families.

3. Savidge, Mariella. “Take Cues from the Child You’re Adopting to Build a Founation of Mutual Trust”. A.M Magazine; The Family Project, January 8, 2007.

The author addresses a question presumably from a reader who is about adopt and initiate trust with a 6 year old boy that has been in a foster home for two years and developed a good relationship with the foster family. The author answers this question by accumulating the advice and quotes from parenting experts and guest panelists and incorporating their views on the issue. Some of the advice is that there will be a hard transition stage from the move away from the foster home and that it will take time for the child to adjust to living with the new adopting parents. The experts also state that the adopting parents should keep in touch with the foster parents, gain as much knowledge about the child that the foster parents can offer, consider the foster family’s tradition/habit of doing certain things with the child. Further, the author lists the names and occupations of those who participated in giving the advice as well as other resources and facts to help prospective adopting parents initiate trust with children from foster homes. The article is very information based and the author seems very passionate, yet cautious, in addressing this topic.

4. Peter, Libby. “Foster Families Always in Need Locally”. Shoreline Beacon News; pg 7., January 2, 2007.

The author states that the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) is seeking foster families and describes some of the qualifications that CAS looks for in foster families, negative aspects and risks of becoming a foster home, and general facts about foster care from Maria Riggin, a resources supervisor. The article states that foster hoes for teens, sibling groups, and difficult to manage children is typically high while homes for babies and toddlers are harder to find. Further, the author writes that it may be emotionally risky for families, because the child may end up leaving the foster home to go back to their own family. Riggin states that CAS likes to have a variety of families, that lots of families have different strengths and abilities, and that foster families can include married heterosexual couples, gay couples, single individuals, and those with or without children of their own. It is important that foster families have god care-giving skills, no crimes on record, be medically and emotionally care for children, and after they are accepted CAS provides a schedule of training including a pre-training session, home-study process, and a worker to help and support them along the way.

5. Garrett, Robert T., “Judge Sees Crisis in Foster Care: He Panel Suggests Group Homes, More Control for CPS Workers”. The Dallas Morning News., October 17, 2006.

The author describes the views of Carole Clark, a judge and a CPS worker, who convened a group of child-welfare workers to completely rethink the entire foster care system. Clark suggests different approaches to foster care such as creating homes like orphanages, limiting how many foster children one family can take on, and giving local CPS workers more control. Clark states that the system is out of date and that there aren’t enough traditional nuclear families to accommodate a nuclear number of children removed from their families and is uneasy about the fact that jobless couples take in children for monetary reasons. Some possible pilot programs and ideas are not to use the word orphanage often, caps on foster family size, ban sibling splits, allow local CPS officials can decide on what happens to children. The author provides the names and occupations of those involved in trying to change the foster care system, but the author does not seem to have a particular set of beliefs guiding the articles since he depicts what Clark and others find the problems with in the foster care system.
Some main debates would include the question as to whether or not the overall idea of foster homes is beneficial to the children since there are various negative possibilities of foster care and the psychological, emotional problems that the children may have leaving the foster home they are attached to. Further, there can be many controversies dealing with what can make foster homes better for both children and their foster families. I think the authors’ positions in these debates affected the presentation of the facts and their conclusions, because their positionality will affect they perceive the problems and benefits to foster care. The first three articles do not state anything negative about foster families and the problems that may arise and the authors seem very much in favor of foster care. The last articles are more critical and portray the issue of foster care in a more unbiased viewpoint, including certain negative aspects and possible problems addressing foster families. I can conclude that the information about foster families presented in the popular press, because most of the articles are from local newspapers and derive information on foster families and foster care through local interviews and news. I think the press sources that are based on a larger media scale would be more objective than others. I think the coverage of such family issues in the media affects our knowledge of foster families, because it portrays the different types of foster families and raises knowledge of the experience that foster families go through.

Questions:Explain the debate surrounding the contemporary changes in American families (밃merican Family Decline?debate). According to Popenoe, what indicates that American family is in decline? What are the Stacey뭩 and Cowan뭩 critiques of his argument? What position would you take in this debate and why?

The three articles by Popenoe, Stacey, and Cowan theorize on the changing dynamics of the institution of the contemporary American family and whether or not it is failing to meet its expectations. Popenoe by analyzing the changes of the modern family such as the rising rates of divorce, decreasing number of children, increasing average age of marriage, more working mothers, etc is arguing that the contemporary institution of the family is in decline. In order to analyze certain aspects of the family, Popenoe refers to the family as a domestic group of kin consisting of at least one adult and one dependent. Popenoe argues that there is evidence for family decline demographically, institutionally, and culturally and that the two functions of the family- childbearing and provision of affection and companionship to its members- are not being fulfilled. Further, because more individuals are focused upon bettering themselves, the institution of family has lost power and authority.

Stacey, with a broader notion and definition of the family, argues that the changing dynamics of family and the rising rates of divorce (a.k.a single parenting) is not detrimental to the raising of children. Instead of blaming the family changes as the problem, Stacey states that Popenoe errors in regards to three points; firstly, the family is not the only social institution in society, that his historical framework in which he provides his argument is flawed, and finally, his assessment of the decline of the family. Stacey contends that Popenoe's definition of the family is too narrow. However, Stacey agrees with Popenoe that the growing independence of women has been a major factor of rising rates of divorce and single parenting, marriage has become less obligatory, and there are grim prospects for the children. Stacey suggests there should be "legal, economic, and social policy reforms" to aid familial responsibilities.

Cowan critiques Popenoe that he does not take into further consideration other social and psychological factors that go beyond the immediate focus on the family such as violence, mental illness, etc. Cowan states that there are more important questions than whether or not the family is declining like what are the causes of the problems Popenoe addresses, are the changes harmful to family members, and what can be done to reduce the distress within the family and help aid in the adaptation of modern families. Cowan argues that there are more complex factors that need to be considered about the consequences of the changes within the family. He states that various factors should be kept in mind when studying research about the institution of family: within the accounts of families there are implied values of the researcher's preconceived notion of family, our definitions of the family should be considered, more sophisticated models of the family should be developed, newer differentiated family models should be researched, and that the role of the genders are changing and are affecting the inside and outside the family.

In this debate on the declining of the institution of family I agree with Cowan in that researchers should consider various contingent factors in deciding the consequences of the changes within the modern family.