On November 16, Australia’s Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, delivered another much-televised “apology”.

“There was hardly a dry eye in the Great Hall of Parliament House today as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the Forgotten Australians, recalling this ‘ugly chapter’ of the nation’s history. It was standing room only as Mr Rudd made the national apology to the estimated 500,000 children placed in orphanages and foster homes up until the late 1970s. ‘We come together today to deal with an ugly chapter in our nation’s history,’ he said.’’ (AAP, 16/11/2009)

No doubt some of these children suffered loneliness and lacked love — some being even subjected to cruelty and exploitation. But the fact that they were up for placement suggests that many were being rescued from situations at least as bad.

Must we keep telling ourselves how much better we are than previous generations were?

 If it was true, would we need to keep saying it?

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Today 35,000 Australian children are in state care, mostly in foster homes.

Foster parents are paid up to $800 a week. Allegedly, some children removed from parents who are drug addicts, end up with drug-addict foster parents, who use the money to buy drugs. (News Weekly, 28/11/2009)

Check also:

www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/cash-to-care-for-problem-children/story-e6frg6nf-1111118043089

www.theaustralian.com.au/news/toddler-who-got-lost-in-foster-system/story-e6frg6n6-1111119153962

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Most of us know somebody who spent childhood years in non-family care. Many tell how wonderful were the people who cared for them.

One wrote recently, “Times were hard, with rationing and shortages. Somehow the Sisters of Mercy and the Marist Brothers were able to furnish hundreds of us with regular meals, warm beds, sports, education, music, and the example of their own lives of selflessness . . .

“The Sisters of Mercy were, without exception, our “mothers”; and like true sons we caused them needless worry . . .

“I recently visited those kind men and women to thank them for taking me to their hearts in the 1940s and teaching me so much. They lie in simple graves in North Rocks and Field of Mars cemeteries.

“They have no need to apologise.” (Greg O’Regan, News Weekly, 28/11.2009)

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