Layaway Kids

This is what happens for too many kinship care givers. The topic in Kids At Risk.

(Author unknown)

Parents: are you tired of taking care of your children? Do you have better things to do than to sit home and care for your children's needs? Do you want to party? Do you need a break? Do you have better things to do with your money than spend it on boring things like good food and clothing for children?

Well help is here now! Just put your kids on layaway!

Its FREE and easy. Just drop them off at your parents' house. Grandma and grandpa will spend the time, money and love to see that your kids have the best of everything. They will change stinky diapers, wash dirty bottles, and rock screaming babies, clean up their messes and do anything that needs to be done.

On the Layaway Plan, you never have to worry about your children! Grandparents will buy them what they need and take them where they need to go. Never again will they be late for school because you were too tired to get up and get them ready after that party last night. You can buy that new car, fashionable clothes or just spend your money on junk food and CDs. Your money is yours to do with as you wish. The Grandparents of your layaway children will buy the shoes, school clothes, and toys. They pay for dancing lessons, tutors, braces, and doctors visits. If you have a bad day you can just kick back and relax. No more thinking of feelings other than your own! With your children on layaway you have no one to think about but yourself. No one there to bother you! If your kids have a bad day its not your problem. Grandma and Grandpa will be there to wipe their tears, calm their fears, and give them cookies and milk. If they are sick, Grandma and Grandpa will gently wipe their fevered brow, hold their head, and help them to take their medicine, and walk the floor with them all night.

Grandma and Grandpa will go to all the dance recitals, soccer games, school conferences, doctors and dentist appointments, and other activities your child is involved in. This leaves you free to pursue your own interests.

You are Young! You need the freedom to live your life and be all that you can be. You need to find yourself. Its OK your parents are old. They have lived their lives and have nothing better to do than to care for children. If they have not found themselves by now they never will.

The best part of the Layaway Plan is your property is always there for you. Unlike most store layaway plans you can visit your property any time you like. You can take the children out any time you like, play with them and then bring them back whenever you feel like it. Children can be fun at times like Christmas and Birthday parties. You can dress them up and show them off and take credit for how cute and well behaved they are. After all you brought them into the world. If they make a mistake or behave badly you can explain to others it is because of the bad influence of the grandparents who have been caring for them. When you are done sowing your oats, when the party is over or becomes boring, your children will be there waiting.

Anytime you like you can cancel the Layaway Plan and reclaim your children. By law they are your property and the grandparents have to give them back. By virtue of your ability to create a child you reign supreme in the courts of this land. It does not matter if you have abused them, abandoned and neglected them for years. All you have to do is go into a courtroom and show them that you want your children back and might be able to parent them. Your rights as a parent supersede those of your children and their grandparents.

The Layaway Plan is free, easy and best of all legal. Every court in the land supports it. You are the parent and you have your rights!

Children are not property. They deserve a safe and stable life. They should not be put on layaway indefinitely. The Children and the Grandparents and Special Others who provide kinship care for the children should not be kept in limbo forever. Absent, irresponsible and unreliable parents must be held accountable for their inaction.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act signed into law by President Clinton sets firm time limits on how long a child may stay in foster care before being freed for adoption. It states that if a child has been in foster care for 15 out of the most recent 22 months the state must file a petition to terminate the parents rights, find and approve adoptive homes for these children.  This law excludes children that are being cared for by relatives and are not in the foster care system. The reason for this exclusion is that sometimes the relatives caring for the children are not in a position to adopt and would lose custody of the child forever if it were to apply to them. This is a good law and it has helped many children have safe and permanent homes.

There ought to be another law! 5.5 million children are being raised in grandparent headed families. One third of those children live in homes with no parent present. These children fall through the cracks and live in limbo without the security that comes with having a permanent home. Forever is a promise that kinship care givers are afraid to give to the children in their care. They know that no matter how many years a parent has been absent and unreliable, that parent can come back, prove only minimal competence to reclaim their children from what in most cases is the only stable home they ever knew.

New laws covering the rights of children whom neither live with their parents nor are under the umbrella of the foster care system is needed. We need a law that will protect the rights of children being well cared for by relatives who are not able to adopt them while enabling the grandparents and other relatives to adopt if they choose and are qualified to adopt. Children being cared for by relatives should be accorded the same rights as foster children. If a grandparent or other relative wishes to and  is qualified to adopt, the same time limits should apply. If the parents fail to rehabilitate themselves within a reasonable amount of time the rights of those parents must be terminated and allow a qualified grandparent or other relative who have been caring for the children in their absence to adopt those children. Only then can children, grandparents and the special others who are caring for the children depend on the promise of FOREVER.