A Foster Kid's Life versus Hollywood Teen

Once again a young well-to-do teenager has mistaken his plight in life as being equal to that of foster children. While debating with his sister about their family life, Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith, was caught saying ”We have no parents all the misfits are foster kids.”

One former foster child took to writing a response. Michael Price points out that the life of foster youth is vastly different from that for their peers and world's away from the lifestyle of Hollywood kids. Michael talks about moving nine times as a foster child in less than 10 years and always with his clothes in a garbage bag.

Yet although foster children suffer greatly while in foster care, many do make it in life after they age out. Take former Miami Heat star and former foster child Alonzo Mourning, who will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame later this year. He credits his success and the man he is today to his late foster mother, Fannie Threet.

Being a foster child is really a life of opposites. Many face a life of instability, homelessness, drugs and prison once they age out of foster care. Yet some foster kids go on to achieve great success, sometimes putting them at the top of their field. I agree with Michael that when this happens, we are given a glimpse into what real courage and inner strength is all about, essentially people at their best.

Jaden will have his own struggles as he becomes a man, but it may be wise not to compare himself to foster children. He just might get upstaged.

Regards,


  Richard

Richard Villasana
Find Families In Mexico
760-690-3995

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