Religion and the Foster System

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Clarissa

February 27, 2014

I just heard something curious from a colleague in social sciences. She says that in the US the percentage of children in the foster system is heavily skewed towards Muslim children. I don’t understand ow this can be.

Christianity denies the value of the extended family and exalts the nuclear family. The positive result of this is that the patriarchal family structure is undermined. The negative result is that orphans don’t have anywhere to go and end up abandoned by their relatives.

Islam and Judaism, however, don’t have this absolute denial of the extended family. Hence, the patriarchal model is extremely strong and orphaned children are always cared for by the extended family.

But this scholar’s data seems to contradict this. Does anybody have any insight? What am I missing?

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13 responses to “Religion and the Foster System”

Sandra Heine Merchant

February 27, 2014

Could it be that the children are from African-American/Black families who identify as Muslim?

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 27, 2014
  
  This is what I was thinking. Is theirs a different version of Islam, less patriarchal or something?
  
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  1. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
    
    February 27, 2014
    
    Don’t Black kids have much more trouble in getting adopted in the US than kids of other races? That could be why there’s greater numbers of them in the system.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      February 27, 2014
      
      Black or white, if they are, indeed, Muslim, then there has got to be a very involved extended family that should be eager to take these children in.
      
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  2. good enough professor
    
    February 27, 2014
    
    The Nation of Islam is a largely African-American religious movement, founded in the 1930s. Its adherents identify as Muslim but it has a very different history and generational background than the Islam that immigrants bring with them to the US.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      February 27, 2014
      
      Ah, I knew I was missing some piece of cultural knowledge, and this is it. Thank you!
      
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Anonymous

February 27, 2014

My first thought was that these are children of immigrants, and that the extended family did not, perhaps was not allowed to, emigrate. I know in Canada, the Harper government is changing the immigration laws to make it harder for immigrants to bring their extended family to Canada. It’s also possible that Muslim families get scrutinized more often and more closely than non-Muslim families.

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twicerandomly

February 27, 2014

My first thought was that the extended family did not, perhaps was not allowed to, emigrate. I know in Canada, the Harper government is making it harder for immigrants to bring their extended family to Canada. Or it could be that Muslim families receive more scrutiny than non-Muslim families.

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 27, 2014
  
  But there is no immigration into the US. The immigration is closed unless one is a mail-order bride, religious fanatic or a lottery winner. How can so many people come to the US that their abandoned children become more numerous than the local abandoned children?
  
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maitreyi1978

February 27, 2014

Just because they are Muslim doesn’t mean that their extended family is Muslim. Their parents may have been converts and they are probably Black.

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 27, 2014
  
  I haven’t considered this possibility, but now I get it.
  
  This is why it’s great to have a blog: people help to clarify things.
  
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NancyP

February 27, 2014

Nation of Islam and offshoots are patriarchal, but the offshoots are less patriarchal than the original NOI. A lot of women lose their children to the foster system when the women are imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses, being present when their significant other gets busted for dealing, being drug mules, or just using. Islam has a certain appeal due to being “not the white people’s religion” and Islamic clerics do chaplain at prisons. It is possible that some women, not originally religious, convert to Islam, in part to join a religious community that is strong in many prisons.

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twicerandomly

February 27, 2014

According to this, if children come to the attention of the state, they are not automatically handed over to family members, the extended family members must apply to be their foster parents, and they will not necessarily be accepted. Also, Muslims have concerns about being foster parents because of the requirement of being veiled in the presence of someone who is not an immediate family member. http://www.muslimlinkpaper.com/community-news/community-news/3335-lack-of-muslim-foster-families-resulting-in-children-losing-islam.html?joscclean=1

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