WHAT EVERY CHILD NEEDS

Last week's column about the 6-year-old Michigan boy who killed his
first-grade classmate brought several letters, including a rip-roaring
response from the Maryland Eastern Shore. "Just listening to your whining,
'It's not my/our fault, whity [sic] did it, the social workers failed,
etc.' is so degrading. ... You apologise [sic] and claim excuses for
abhorrent behavior by the black populace-in-general nearly every day,"
wrote Val Sanders of Easton.

Moi? Making excuses? I don't think so. But I admit to seething at the way
vulnerable little kids are treated in this land of plenty where children
are supposed to live well. And as much as I'd like to address the
mistreatment of kids by giving their mommas and daddies a swift kick in the
rear accompanied by a lecture to "straighten up and fly right," I know
there are situations such as the Michigan boy's--and thousands of
others--where children just can't live safely at home.

Admittedly, sometimes one of the alternatives--placing children at the
mercy of an overwhelmed child welfare bureaucracy--isn't much better. But
consider what happens when we do nothing.

Let's go back to Mount Morris Township, Mich.

The 6-year-old boy's father, Dedric Owens, wants custody of his son. "I'm
not a bad father," he said.

Hello?

Daddy's in the county jail for a parole violation. And Daddy knows jail.
He's a thrice-convicted felon, having been jailed for dealing crack,
burglarizing a home and auto theft, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Daddy knows fatherhood too.

In addition to the 6-year-old, Daddy's begotten five other children with
the help of more than one other woman. And the 6-year-old's mother, Tamarla
Owens, doesn't think Pop's such a great provider. She's sued him for child
support for their three kids. So have the other women.

Well, maybe Grandma could lend a hand?

Sorry, but paternal grandmother Loys Owens won't make the cut. She and her
son--the 6-year-old's father--got busted during the same crack raid in
1997. Mom was buying the stuff, and son Dedric was cutting it into rocks.

How about Dedric's sister, Angela?

Sorry, Aunt Angela's out too. Well, actually, she's in--in jail--following
her recent arrest in Mount Morris Township on cocaine and marijuana dealing
charges and weapons violations.

Press reports say Angela ran a crack house not far from where the
6-year-old lived in a gun- and drug-littered house with an uncle, Sir
Marcus Winfrey, and his friend, Jamelle James--both wanted on fugitive
warrants.

The boy's mother also comes up short as a primary caregiver. She was
"involved in drugs," a social worker wrote. And the Michigan Children's
Protective Services concluded last year that the boy's older brother--now
eight--had been abused by his mother.

And still the government didn't intervene in behalf of those children.

But we don't have to go to Michigan to find children whose lives have gone
haywire. This portrait of family dysfunction can be found all over America,
including here in the nation's capital.

Last Saturday's Post contained a story about "pandemonium" in the
District's child welfare system brought on by the death of Brianna
Blackmond, the 23-month-old foster child who was killed after being
returned to her mother. The story focused on the record number of children
who were being removed from potentially dangerous homes and the resulting
space crisis in the D.C. foster care system.

What caught my eye, however, was the reason D.C. authorities took 17 of the
children--10 from one family, seven from another--from their homes: Their
mothers were arrested in drug raids.

Consider those children. They're being traumatized at every turn. One
moment they're living in unhealthy and maybe dangerous homes; the next,
they're separated from their mothers and put in a foster care system so
beleaguered that social workers don't have time to make site visits, let
alone see whether the children are getting the services they need.

Either way, children who didn't request entry into this vale of tears end
up the losers.

And that's simply wrong.

Joyce Conrad, a reader in St. Leonard, Md., weighed in with a thoughtful
observation: "This country places so little value on teachers and social
workers that they are the poorest paid professionals of all. Let's put
families at the center of our social order and place high value on those
who work with families and children! Instead of putting children in the
most run-down, dilapidated buildings in our communities, let's build
schools that we can be proud of in every neighborhood. Let's not leave it
up to the poor people who live in poor neighborhoods--and then blame them
for not taking better care of their children! It takes caring AND money,"
she wrote.

Another letter hit my desk from a parent of two kids who is preparing to
adopt a child out of the foster care system. She and her husband are white;
the child is black.

The mother delved into the pros and cons, so she knows what she's getting
into. "I remember terms like 'cultural genocide' being hurled about, as if
white adoptive parents were out to rid [black] children forever of the
tastes, sounds and sensibilities of African Americans." She recalls the
references to slavery, as if white adoptive parents were similar to slave
buyers.

She knows she's in for some ribbing if the kid's hair is done weird;
ridicule, if her knowledge about black history, experience and culture
isn't encyclopedic; and some heat from her own family and friends.

She's also no stranger to African Americans. She currently works in a
predominantly black institution and attended a historically black college.
She wants black leaders to revisit the interracial adoption issue.

"Why is interracial adoption still considered a last resort for black
children, after family reunification, anger management, drug rehab, foster
care, group homes, welfare-to-work, school-based day care, etc., etc.? Are
we really worse than all that?" she asked.

"Maybe the kid who shot Kayla wouldn't have done so had he been in a home
with two loving, drug-free, child-centered and, dare I say it, Caucasian
parents," she wrote. "Not that black parents aren't preferable, all things
being equal, but," she asked, "won't we do?"

I'll speak for myself.

I want kids to feel safe and secure whether they are at home or in the
government's care. I want, as child expert Marty Beyer put it in her list
of a child's needs, a kid to know that "a trusted adult will put him to bed
at night and be there in the morning." I want kids to have love and
supervision, not on a part-time basis but around the clock. And I don't
want kids to have to live around unruly grown-ups who are always
threatening and behaving violently toward each other.

And I couldn't care less what those parents look like as long as they are
strong in themselves and are giving that kid the sense of security,
belonging and love that every child on this earth needs.