The State Should Stop Placing Foster Children In the Homes of Singles or Unmarried Couples

Two informative news reports have emerged in the past month that should call our attention to some desperately needed reforms in the state’s foster system. In late June, a man caught soliciting sex from underage children had footage confiscated of him molesting a boy in his home. I was shocked to discover that this man was a single foster parent who had custody of five foster children in the past.

Does anyone else see the folly of the state granting custody of children to single foster parents? Almost every negative cultural ill – child abuse, poverty, psychological illness, substance abuse, poor school performance, suicide - has higher rates in single parent homes (Family Research Council). Surely there are many loving single parent homes, but even nature teaches us that this is not the ideal and that the complimentary roles of a mother and a father are part of God’s plan for the nurturing and training of children.

The rebuttal comes, “But if we disallow singles and unmarried couples from fostering children, we’ll have less foster homes available for children in need.” I respond with the findings of another surprising article that very week by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that reported that foster children developed better under the care of their natural parents who were investigated for abuse or neglect than in foster care. Foster kids were more likely to drop out of school, commit crimes, abuse drugs, or become teen parents, than if they had stayed with their natural parents. This held true even when compared with other disadvantaged youth.

Is it common sense that God designed that children have a home with a mother and a father? If a crime has been committed against the child, then for God’s sakes, prosecute; but if no prosecutable crime has been committed, leave the kids with their parents. It is the State that commits a crime when it places a troubled child in the home of a sodomite. If a foster home is necessary, place the child in a loving home with a married man and woman. But the state should not be placing parents in the homes of single foster parents or unmarried couples.