There’s a lot of disagreement in the world of orphan care and adoption, but almost everyone agrees on one thing. When possible, it is in the best interests of a child to remain with their biological family. Prevention is the best way to keep a child from being an orphan. The American foster system tries to reunify families when possible, and organizations work in other countries to allow poverty stricken families to keep their little ones. People understand that the government makes a poor parent. Or do they?
Homeschooling is not allowed in Germany. This law essentially puts government control of children above parental rights. To make matters worse Germany puts their anti-homeschooling sentiments over the well understood importance of keeping children with their families. If families try to protect their children from the enormously secular German public school system, the German government will remove the children from their parents. These children are not in abusive, neglected, impoverished, or harmful situations. They have loving, happy families.
If governments know how to raise children better than loving parents, why do so many studies reveal a decrease in brain development among institutionalized children? Why do high percentages of graduates from government care programs end up in crime, prostitution, and poverty? The statistics and studies are clear. Raising children isn’t a job for the government.
The Romeike family fled to the US after suffering persecution for homeschooling their children in Germany. They were granted asylum by US courts and settled quietly into their new lives: until members of the American government appealed the already settled case, and began attempting to throw the Romeikes out of the country. These officials almost became responsible for adding six more children to the millions of orphans in the world. Thankfully, last night we learned that the Department of Homeland security has announced that the Romeike’s can stay! This family will remain together, the way a family should.
However, there are still children being orphaned because of this issue. Children being snatched from their stable families by overbearing governments. Children being subjected to the documented trauma of being removed from their parents for no good reason. Families like the Johansson’s whose son has been in foster care for years simply because his parents homeschooled him .
These situations have been recognized as human rights cases. They’ve been recognized as parental rights cases. But they also deserve attention by people in orphan care. Across the board, people who care for orphans seek to prevent children becoming orphaned in the first place. From efforts to reunify families with children in the US foster care system to sponsoring poverty stricken families around the word to keep them unified, making sure children remain with their parents whenever it’s safe is a priority in this field.
Families whose children are being removed for no good reason need people to fight for them. Learn how you can help the Johansson’s by visiting the Johansson Resource Page and How to Help the Johansson Family.
Teens Interceding for Orphans 