When I was a kid, my parents used to take in foster children. They felt that we had a lot of resources (my step dad is a doctor) and it was our responsibility to share them with children in need. It was a wonderful experience for me growing up. I learned so much about the suffering that was out there in the world, and also about the bigotry that I had not realized lived so nearby in our own neighborhood, but most of all, I also learned how to love unselfishly - such a gift. Being a foster sister was definitely one of the defining experiences of my life.
As a foster family, there were rules we had to follow that we might not have chosen to follow with the children born into our family. You could not, for example, leave a foster child with a teen-aged babysitter and go out for the evening. Foster children were not allowed to share bedrooms with adults after a year of age. Those were rules that we did not particularly like having to follow as our household did not roll that way, but we understood that, as wards of the state, foster children had to be carefully protected, so we complied. Other rules were rather obvious - no locking a foster child in a room, no corporal punishment - well, of course. You could not subject an abused child to that. Foster parents have no way of knowing exactly what a foster child has gone through in their lives, other than that it was really bad. You don't know what horrible traumas you may remind them of - so of course, you do not discipline them in ways that could remind them of the trauma and re-traumatize them.
I have known plenty of foster parents in Texas who very unfortunately and unwisely believe in corporal punishment, but even they understand that it is not appropriate for foster children. The Texas Republicans apparently do not, however. Here is what their 2012 Texas Republican Party Platform has to say about the matter:
"We support eliminating bureaucratic prohibitions on corporal discipline and home schooling in foster homes."
Unbelievable.
Even the home schooling part is ridiculous, although that would probably not be apparent to people living in states with different rules about homeschooling. In many states, home schooled students are required to meet the same standards as are students in the public schools, so they learn differently but still most of the same material and could, if moved around a lot, adjust to the next school in which they were placed. In Texas, there are no such rules or standards for home-schooled students. Parents are required to have a curriculum of some sort, but there are no guidelines at all as to what it should be. It could be daily Bible reading and that is all and that would be perfectly legal. While I support parents being able to have that freedom over their own children's education (even if I do not always think it works out well as in the example mentioned), it is different for foster children. Foster children probably will not be staying in their foster family and will likely have to manage in the public school system again. They need to be learning the state curriculum so they can manage when they move, as some of them will do a lot of moving. The Texas homeschooling system, while having many strengths, is not right for their situation.
The sort of Republicans who would advocate for corporal punishment for foster children are the sorts of Republicans who should not have foster children - they certainly should not make the rules for them.
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