Living History by Unknown (the lemonade war series txt) 📗

My hope was that, through new legislation, we could speed up the process and remove arbitrary barriers that prevented many caring families from being able to adopt.

Deanna Mopin, a teenager from Kansas who was placed in foster care at age five after being abused in her own home, was one of the lead speakers at a White House celebration of National Adoption Month in 1995. Shy and ill-at-ease, she described what it was like to live with nine other foster children under one roof, unable to go to the movies or buy school clothes without permission from her “house parents” and two social workers.

The next time I saw Deanna she had been adopted and had blossomed into a confident, happy young woman.

My domestic policy staff had worked tirelessly with Administration officials and congressional staffers to craft the new legislation, which included financial incentives to states, efforts to keep families together in appropriate circumstances and faster time frames for making permanent placement decisions and for terminating parental rights in cases of abuse and neglect. Passing this important legislation was instructive. We were learning that in working with a recalcitrant Congress, we could often move more expeditiously on a targeted issue, rather than on a broad initiative such as health care or welfare reform.

The sweeping changes in federal adoption law would speed up the placement of thousands of foster children like Deanna into safe and permanent homes. “The legislation represents a fundamental shift in the philosophy of child welfare, from a presumption that the chief consideration ought to be returning a child to his biological parents, to one in which the health and safety of the child is paramount,” The Washington Post said. One of the most surprising and satisfying aspects of this legislative success was the opportunity to work with Tom Delay, perhaps the most partisan and effective leader of the extreme conservatives in the House. But on this issue, he was steadfast in his support. He and his wife have cared for foster children, and after I became a Senator, we continued to work together.

Within five years of the signing of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, the number of children adopted more than doubled, exceeding the goals of the legislation. I realized, however, that approximately 20,000 young people “age out” of the foster care system when they turn eighteen, without ever having been placed in a family home. Just as they confront the critical transition to independence, they become ineligible for federal financial support, and a disproportionate number of them become homeless, living without health insurance or other crucial assistance. On a trip to Berkeley, I met with a remarkable group of young people from the California Youth Connection, a support and advocacy organization for older children in foster care and those who had recently aged out.

They stressed the difficulty of entering adulthood without any of the emotional, social and financial support that families often provide. Joy Warren, a beautiful blond college graduate, spent most of her teen years in temporary foster homes, but managed to focus on her studies and was admitted to U.C. Berkeley and then Yale Law School. Joy had two younger sisters, one of whom was still in foster care, which intensified the pressure she felt to assume adult responsibilities at an early age. She became an intern in my White House office, assisting my staff in developing new legislation to address the needs of young people aging out of the foster care system. I worked with Republican Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island and Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia on what became the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, which provides young people aging out of foster care with access to health care, educational opportunities, job training, housing assistance, counseling and other support and services.

I turned fifty in October, and though the rule books say that this is a difficult passage, it felt insignificant compared to living without Chelsea. My days and nights were crammed with meetings and events leading up to the holidays, but 1 was surprised by how barren the White House seemed without the sound of Chelsea’s music coming from her bedroom or the giggles of her friends as they gossiped and ate pizza in the Solarium. I missed watching her pirouette down the long center hallway. Sometimes I’d catch Bill just sitting in Chelsea’s bedroom, looking around wistfully. I had to admit that my husband and I were caught up in a generational cliché, a milestone in life that only members of our selfconscious age group would define as a syndrome. We were now empty nesters. While we felt more freedom to go out at night and socialize with friends, coming home to a quiet house was jarring. Our nest needed refilling: it was time to get a dog.

We hadn’t had a canine companion since our cocker spaniel, Zeke, died in 1990. We had loved that dog, and it was hard to imagine finding another to take his place. Shortly after we buried Zeke, Chelsea brought home a black-and-white kitten she named Socks, who moved with us to the White House, where he clearly preferred to be an only cat.

But after Bill was elected to a second term and we knew Chelsea would be leaving for college, we started thinking about getting another dog. We got a book about dogs, and Bill, Chelsea and I spent a lot of time looking at all the different pictures and reading about different breeds. Chelsea wanted a teeny-tiny dog she could carry around with her, and Bill wanted a big dog he could run with. We worked through that and finally decided that a Labrador would be just the right size and temperament for our family and the White House.

I wanted to give the dog to Bill as a Christmas present, so I set out to locate the perfect puppy. In early December, a bouncing three-month-old chocolate Lab met the President for the