Category Archives: altruism

adoption, altruism, Child care, family impact, Uncategorized

MD Adoption Rates Continued…

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Given the data from my last post, I guess one should expect the number of adoptions in MD to shrink.  It’s just I would never have expected the numbers to be so dire. Seven hundred seventy-three children were adopted in 2009 from out of home placements.  In the last twelve months, only  three hundred fifty such children have been adopted in MD.  In just a five-year span, we have cut our adoption rate by fifty-five percent.  Note, this five-year span is after the economic collapse in 2008 which never hit MD as hard as other states thanks in large part to the number of federally employed residents.  So what is our excuse?

Well, maybe five years is simply a bad point in time from which to start.  Maybe it is the outlier for what ever reason be it recession putting more kids in care or the general feeling of needing to take care of kids in hard times of war/military deployments and monetary crunching.  We should save the kids in such times right?

Maybe that good will fades some with better economic times, and we should look at 2011.  This would be right before the MD legislature passed legislation to reduce the amount of money foster parents would receive if they adopt.  Keep in mind foster parents adopt roughly 60 percent of the foster kids lucky enough to be adopted.  In 2011, five hundred forty-two kids were adopted by families in MD.  Still, that would mean we are adopting thirty-five percent fewer children now than we did just three years ago.  (All of the data above can be found at Maryland Department of Human Resources)

I suspect a simple truth for why we are adopting fewer children is the new laws or MD interpretation of federal laws has made it harder for families who foster to adopt multiple children.  The real question is why?  If the goal is to save money, the state did manage to save 2.8% of what it was paying for foster care services, but the cost was drastically reducing the adoption rate.  My guess is these savings are short-term as well because with less kids adopted, the state continues to incur administrative costs for more kids in foster care from increased case loads for social workers to increased legal fees to …  One might even note the costs are already projected to rise for the next fiscal year.

Data from SUMMARY OF OPERATING BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS for each of the years listed on the chart.
Data from SUMMARY OF OPERATING BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS for each of the years listed on the chart.

Maybe the real reason for the change in interpretation was simply a mistaken belief the state could save money by making sure nobody raised adopted children as a profession.  To my mind, this raises the question,  “Is raising children in a loving home a terrible profession?”  It certainly does not pay well as I have mentioned to my wife many times.  After all, we could both work at the golden arches for more  per hour than we make taking care of a medically fragile child, and that is at a foster care rate.

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altruism, chronic conditions, medically fragile, Micheal, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, why foster kids

The Case for Altruism

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My wife passed me this topic knowing my fascination with how the brain works as she relayed a conversation she had with A’s neurologist.  It seems scientists and medical researchers don’t know from which part of the brain altruism originates.  They have some idea the frontal lobes control impulse control, but altruism?  What makes people help others when they seem to have nothing to gain from their efforts?

The first step to understanding altruism is to note acts of altruism occur in nature all the time.  When parents die, the young are often adopted by other families or packs.  As humans, we think it’s cute when animals nurture the young of other species, even species who would normally be right above or below them on the food chain.  Why do we assume the family gains nothing for taking in another?

I have shared many times how much strength I get from my kids.  My MS is nothing compared to what they have been through, and it was my daughter covering my eye to show me how to get through double vision which gave me the confidence I could deal with whatever MS had in store for me.  Taking in another “sick” person gave me another vantage to see myself, and every day they give me a reason to get out of bed no matter how I feel. 

Even if the monetary reward for time spent is paltry, I would argue there is also another way society rewards those who forgo money to do something thought to be good and needed.  I can’t tell you the number of people who have helped us through the years whether it’s friends visiting our kids in the hospital to give us a break or Hopkins delivering Christmas presents.  The help is and has been incredibly important, and I’m not sure all parents get it.  Still, this is just altruism in the form of foster care.  It goes beyond this.

It goes for feeding the homeless and countless other acts.  I have come to realize the biggest reason for altruism is a sense of worthwhile self, and society reinforces this view constantly.  We all want to be able to like the person we see in the mirror.  For me altruism is the only way I can justify all I have been given when I look in the mirror.  As I read about people with various chronic conditions, those who find a way to help others are the ones who seem to live happiest.  So many chronic diseases are cruel shots at our ego, like when I pissed myself in my driveway walking the kids back from the lake.  There is nothing like being told by a 4 year old trying to be potty trained, “It’s OK.  We all do that sometimes.”  I’ve thought it a cruel irony how many discover this value of helping the sick by being sick and needing some help themselves.  It’s similar to youth being wasted on the young.

 A while ago, I wrote about Michael, and his simplistic view of the world, and his is one I have thought about many times.  He reminds me all for which I have to be thankful.  At first I thought his story was sad as he seemed to have no idea what to hope would be in his future.  Michael

Still, as time has passed, I have come to recognize a certain comforting vision from him.  His world was good because he believed it so.

Altruism allows the world I live in to seem good to me because I know I offer it something of value.  In a way, altruism gives me back a sense of me as I want to be.  Since I benefit, perhaps there is some logic behind the argument there is no truly pure altruism.  There is always personal gain/loss from all we chose to do. 

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