18 is The Scariest Age
by V. Martin 2018
Most kids can't wait to turn eighteen it's a mile stone in a persons life. Legally you're an adult, responsible for yourself but some are still in high school having turned eighteen during the school year. Imagine being put out on the street on your birthday with no place to go and no way to get there. You have no cell phone, less than $100 to your name, no job, no family to turn to, nothing. You don't even have a high school diploma or GED. When you're a child in the foster care system, everyday is scary, this doesn't happen to every child in the system but more often then not. You never know what to expect so you learn to expect the worst.
With that in mind, you're approaching your eightieth birthday finally legally an adult. Your own person with ...? You don't even have a drivers license, let alone a car. As soon as you turn eighteen, legally an adult, you no longer have a place to live. The foster home you've been able to live with for the past six months or so can't afford to support you without the state's funds. You weren't allowed to get a driver's license or work full time while in school. The job you use to work after school is no longer available since it was passed on to a younger student. You want to go to college or a trade school but that possibility fades along with everything you know. No where to go no car to get there no family to reach out to no home to even go to, you don't even have a cell phone. Odds are not in your favor, once on the street you do what you have to to survive, if you survive.
With that in mind, you're approaching your eightieth birthday finally legally an adult. Your own person with ...? You don't even have a drivers license, let alone a car. As soon as you turn eighteen, legally an adult, you no longer have a place to live. The foster home you've been able to live with for the past six months or so can't afford to support you without the state's funds. You weren't allowed to get a driver's license or work full time while in school. The job you use to work after school is no longer available since it was passed on to a younger student. You want to go to college or a trade school but that possibility fades along with everything you know. No where to go no car to get there no family to reach out to no home to even go to, you don't even have a cell phone. Odds are not in your favor, once on the street you do what you have to to survive, if you survive.
When a married couple gets a divorce and they have joint custody of their children who ever pays child support does so until they are nineteen. Why then are foster children cut off, sometimes completely, from resources like a place to live? It seems to me these kids don't stand a chance because they're not even given one. I get not letting you drive because of the liability and insurance but can't some big automobile manufactures help out with that and assist in supplying discounted vehicles? It takes a village so gather the villagers to care for these kids, collectively. In the long run it will only serve to save them money and the crime rate would probably drop. The drug epidemic would be over, society as a whole would heal. We need to be our bothers keepers but not to keep him down instead we need to lift him up, collectively. As a whole the children will be able to pick the best society has to offer be it the janitor at school or the CEO of the company that sponsors their transition from froster care to a message runner for a big Wall Street firm. No car necessary but a valid ID, social security card, and a fast bicycle will be needed for your future. At least now you have one.
Maybe we should rename the "foster care system" to the #Me3#. Because take it from me when I tell you these kids know they have a voice but believe even if they are heard no one will listen. Worse then that is the conditioning it takes to get you to believe the way you're being treated is normal. Can you imagine believing it's normal to have your foster Dad slip into your bed every night to sexually assault you. Before you can even think about telling anyone you're being called names of the worst kind, degrading you, conditioning you. The foster care system is a predators dream come true. There are people out there that don't want to abuse their own children, for obvious reason. Maybe they would have to answer to the other parent or who knows, that's were you come in. You prepped for your new role in your new family by constantly being reminded how lucky you are to have a family like theirs to take you in. How some people are so mean and even abusive in the worst possible ways. How grateful you must feel to them for everything they are doing for you as they slip some drug into your juice. You know what comes next and more and more of the same. Until you don't even know what day it is or wether it's day or night nor do you care. You stopped doing that the first night.
It happens so frequently it becomes the norm. No, not just normal but expected. So much so that any other kind of treatment makes you hurt so bad you can't even take a breath. When kindness has been absent from your life for so long any act of kindness is such a contrast from what is now normal it makes your head flip flop, your heart swallow, your throat beat, and your stomach spin. It can literally save you or kill you! It's almost like starving but not from food but from humanity and too much at once will send you over the edge.
Anyway, a year more would make all the difference in the world for these kids. A year to get a drivers license, a phone, a car, a job, or get enrolled in college or trade school. My point being is that in most cities a car in absolutely necessary to get a job and/or go to school.
Anyway, a year more would make all the difference in the world for these kids. A year to get a drivers license, a phone, a car, a job, or get enrolled in college or trade school. My point being is that in most cities a car in absolutely necessary to get a job and/or go to school.
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