Gotta say, as someone who has been a foster parent in Texas for the last three years... shit is fucked up, yo. The policies of the state have absolutely nothing to do with the welfare of the kids. They're routinely removed from homes, shuffled around between foster families, and then deposited right back where they started with little rhyme or reason. The turnover rate of the state workforce is obscene - the average agent has been on the job for 9 months - and the workload is absurd - 60+ hr weeks are standard - beside a meager $10-20/hr salary. The folks who thrive in this system tend to be ones who attach themselves to the governor's current favorite nominees and focus their energies entirely on minimizing the cost per child.

There's a rich body of people who genuinely want to participate in the system and help children, but the burnout on our end is ugly as well. Having some bureaucrat deposit an infant on your doorstep and snarl at you if it looks like you're getting attached is galling. Getting calls at odd hours announcing that the baby is going to be moved - actually she's not, no actually she is! - rubs nerves raw. Having people pick through your house, making arbitrary demands about safety and care and best practices (we were required to post a list of the child's rights in the bedroom of an illiterate 3-year-old, then chewed out for giving her a hair cut), then wisking the kid off to a single parent living in a rented trailer at the end of it...

Good on Bale for at least getting his hands in on this mess and sparing someone. But it all just feels like Schindler's List. Knowing you provide everything you have to give to a handful of people while a river of suffering flows just outside your front door is... disheartening.

I can’t feel optimistic about this. Almost every celebrity school has been an utter failure, or just neoliberal institutions like the Oprah School. I can’t imagine a foster home - something much more complex to manage imo - would end better.