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Bar News - June 21, 2002 Book Review: 'The Lost Children of Wilder' By Nina Bernstein Reviewed by David N. Sandberg "THE LOST CHILDREN of Wilder" is the true story of a class action suit that was brought on behalf of New York City's foster children in 1973 and did not conclude until 1999. The book's subtitle, "The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care," is, if anything, an understatement. The origins of the class action date back to the 19th century, when state and city governments began to increasingly assume responsibility for neglected and dependent children. For many years thereafter, New York City delegated the responsibility for the placement and care of its foster children to private, sectarian organizations. In turn, these organizations received most of the available public funding for substitute or foster care. The principal beneficiaries of this system were white children of Catholic and Jewish faiths. This raised no particular concern until midway through the 20th century, when black Protestant children began to dominate the city's foster care ranks. Unlike their white counterparts, most black children were assigned to public shelters or state reformatories whose funding rate was significantly less than that for children assigned to sectarian organizations. Compounding matters was the substandard, often abusive treatment found in state-operated facilities. When a handful of legal advocates for children began to look more closely at this system in the early 1970s, there were state and federal constitutional issues galore: violation of separation of church and state, religious and racial discrimination, and cruel and unusual punishment. When the suit was filed in federal court on June 14, 1973, the defendants included six state and city officials and 77 agencies. If the author did nothing more than describe the evolution of this class action, her book would be worth reading, but it is much more. It is also about three people who figure prominently in the suit, and who dramatically illustrate how much is at stake when biological parenting fails and governmental agencies must intervene. The first figure is Shirley Wilder, the named plaintiff in the class action. She enters New York City's foster care system at age 13 at the request of her father, who asks the family court to have her "put away." Shirley is black, a sexual abuse victim at age 9 by an older cousin, and desperate for someone to care about her. Her "crime" is running away to escape physical beatings by a harsh, rejecting stepmother. The judge in her case, the well-known Justine Wise Polier, is faced with impossible placement options. She can not return Shirley to a father who made it clear he does not want her. Shirley's mother died of tuberculosis when Shirley was four. No relative is able or willing to take her, and the private agencies that control most of the foster homes purportedly have no available bed for her. This leaves one placement: an upstate reform school for delinquents. It is no small irony that Judge Polier, a renowned child advocate who detested New York's discriminatory system, sends Shirley off to reform school despite her never having committed a delinquent act. These and similar experiences over the years led Judge Polier to urge lawyers to undertake the class action suit that became Wilder. Reform school is just the first of numerous institutional placements for Shirley. The author recounts other placements, including the notorious Spofford (a boys' jail), Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, a group home in the Bronx, and a maternity shelter at age14 when Shirley becomes pregnant. Finding little meaning or caring in any of these placements, she runs from each, and in so doing triggers another round of "Where do we put Shirley?" Tragically, she seeks fragments of family that forever elude her. Seemingly, the only things life has to offer her are the streets, drugs, prostitution and, eventually, a premature death at age 31 from AIDS. The second person who figures prominently in the author's narrative is Shirley's son, Lamont, who becomes a ward of the state within days of his birth. His treatment while subject to the New York foster care system actually starts out well (he spends the first five years of his life in a good foster home), but then his fate comes to resemble his mother's. After his foster mother returns him to the child placement agency because of her failed marriage and ensuing poverty, Lamont is subjected to hasty placements in pre-adoptive homes (including one in Minnesota), abrupt and unexplained removals and, increasingly, placement in institutions despite the absence of any serious misconduct on his part. Finding few people with whom he could forge meaningful human connections after the loss of his first foster mother, Lamont - like his mother before him - increasingly searches outside "the system" for remnants of a shattered family. Mostly what he finds are drug-addicted kin, including his father, who have little to offer him. To his great credit, Lamont tries to find a different road to travel than his parents and relatives. With so much weighing against his succeeding, it is miraculous that at the conclusion of the book, he has withstood criminality and drug addiction, and has not entirely given up. Yet, he is nearly overcome by a lack of supportive family and poor job prospects. He also has the new responsibility of a young son whom he longs to do well by, but is unable to support. The third figure is attorney Marcia Lowrey, lead counsel for the plaintiffs. She truly cares about "the lost children of Wilder" and sticks with the suit from start to finish, 26 years in all. Along the way, the author illuminates the forces that work against the suit, including some the reader would not expect. In the end, we are left to ponder whether anything truly meaningful has been gained by the suit, but greatly admire attorney Lowrey's extraordinary perseverance. If there is any criticism to be made of Bernstein's book, it is of the inference that nothing good happens in foster care and that the problem lies with dysfunctional public agencies and societal attitudes toward the poor. The same flaw can be seen in similar books by other authors, such as Jennifer Toth's "Orphans of the Living" (Simon and Schuster, 1997). Having said this, it is understandable that in focusing on the plaintiffs' side of the Wilder class action, the author's intent from the start was to learn more about what went wrong. This is an aspect of substitute care that needs to be told and retold until one day there are no more wrongs. It is difficult to imagine anyone telling this type of story with greater depth, clarity and caring than Bernstein does. Perhaps Bernstein's greatest achievement is that weeks after finishing "The Lost Children of Wilder," the reader continues to think about Shirley's wasted life, whether Lamont will endure, and the vital need of human beings to be positively connected to other people. "Wilder" adds to a growing body of diverse literature that tells us the all-important connection for children is with a stable parental figure, be it biological, foster or adoptive. More than anything, this is what Shirley never had, and seems to be at the center of her short, failed life. As for Lamont, despite what can only be described as the tragic loss of his first foster mother, he has been truly loved by her. It is yet another indictment of the New York substitute care system that years later, when this still-grieving foster mother comes searching for Lamont, the agency responsible for him is of little assistance. But, if there is hope for Lamont, it seems to lie with his relationship with this foster mother during his earliest years. As much as anything, it may explain why he, as yet, has not succumbed to a life on the streets. Regardless of whether you are familiar with the Lamont Wilders of the world, "The Lost Children of Wilder" is highly recommended for summer reading lists. Read this book and you will not soon forget it. David N. Sandberg is legal counsel to the Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of New Hampshire. |
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