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Authors: Susan Sheehan
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weekends, thereby acquiring the âparenting skillsâ that the agency felt she needed. Crystal insisted that she wasnât ready for this. It suited her to have little Daquan exactly where he wasâat the Hargrovesâ, where she could be an every-other-weekend mother, and do a minimum of Pampering, feeding, and bathing him.
âIâve got no parently patience,â Crystal acknowledges. She found it arduous to take Daquan on outings. âIt was hard for me to carry him in one hand and his carriage and my pocketbook in the other,â she says. âThe baby was heavy, and so was the carriage.â Crystalâs vision of motherhood was buying Daquan expensive toys at Christmas and leather clothes (his first Easter suit, when he was six months, was custom-made), and taking him on annual or semiannual outings to the circus or to amusement parks with big Daquan, âsoâs when he grows up heâll remember he went with his mommy and daddy to Sesame Place.â The status quo was also acceptable to Daquan Jefferson.
Margaret Hargrove was content as well. The Long children had not suited her. A foster parent has the right to ask an agency to remove a child on short notice. Regina Long was the first to goââdue to unresolvable disruptive behavior in the Hargrove home,â according to St. Christopher-Ottilieâs recordsâin the fall of 1985. Her brother and two sisters were freed for adoption by the Family Court in January of 1986, but one by one they left the Hargrovesâto go to another relative,another foster parent, another agency. Rawanda was the last of the Long children to leave the Hargrovesâ, at the end of 1987.
Before little Daquan came to the Hargrovesâ, Margaret Hargrove had given up her job at the diner to devote herself full time to foster care. In 1985, as the Long teen-agers began to depart, she took in Frances Smart, six, and Donna Smart, seven, who were the third and fourth children of a drug-addicted mother; she would never take a chance on another teen-ager. (Her sister adopted three of Ms. Smartâs children, and Margaret Hargrove adopted Frances and Donna in 1989, and subsequently had Ms. Smartâs twelfth and thirteenth children in foster care.)
It was financially to Margaret Hargroveâs advantage to maintain six children in residence. She receives what she calls an adequate âpaycheck,â which depends on the age of the child (foster parents receive more for six-to-eleven-year-olds than for infants-to-five-year-olds and still more for children twelve or over) and on ever-changing rates. In December of 1984, when two-month-old Daquan Drummond was presented to Alice Hargrove, St. Christopherâs sent Aliceâs mother a stipend of $242 a month for him. The current rates for foster-home care in the New York metropolitan area range from $386 to $526 per month for healthy children. For âspecialâ children (those with moderate physical and/or mental disabilities) and âexceptionalâ children (those with illnesses like AIDS or other extreme physical or mental handicaps), the rates are $845 and $1,281 per month, respectively. These stipends are tax-free. Each childalso receives a clothing allowance set by the state and has his or her dental and medical care covered by Medicaid (at a cost of between three and four dollars a day). An agencyâs administrative costs add to the yearly sum required to keep youngsters in foster care. The Hargroves receive the same amount of money for the children they adopt, because it is state policy to subsidize adoptions of foster children with handicaps or special conditions, and those who are considered hard to place: those who have been in foster care in the same home for at least eighteen months; siblings; children who have been freed for adoption for at least six months; and minority children who are over the age of eight and white children over the age of ten.
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âIâve got no parently patience,â Crystal acknowledges. She found it arduous to take Daquan on outings. âIt was hard for me to carry him in one hand and his carriage and my pocketbook in the other,â she says. âThe baby was heavy, and so was the carriage.â Crystalâs vision of motherhood was buying Daquan expensive toys at Christmas and leather clothes (his first Easter suit, when he was six months, was custom-made), and taking him on annual or semiannual outings to the circus or to amusement parks with big Daquan, âsoâs when he grows up heâll remember he went with his mommy and daddy to Sesame Place.â The status quo was also acceptable to Daquan Jefferson.
Margaret Hargrove was content as well. The Long children had not suited her. A foster parent has the right to ask an agency to remove a child on short notice. Regina Long was the first to goââdue to unresolvable disruptive behavior in the Hargrove home,â according to St. Christopher-Ottilieâs recordsâin the fall of 1985. Her brother and two sisters were freed for adoption by the Family Court in January of 1986, but one by one they left the Hargrovesâto go to another relative,another foster parent, another agency. Rawanda was the last of the Long children to leave the Hargrovesâ, at the end of 1987.
Before little Daquan came to the Hargrovesâ, Margaret Hargrove had given up her job at the diner to devote herself full time to foster care. In 1985, as the Long teen-agers began to depart, she took in Frances Smart, six, and Donna Smart, seven, who were the third and fourth children of a drug-addicted mother; she would never take a chance on another teen-ager. (Her sister adopted three of Ms. Smartâs children, and Margaret Hargrove adopted Frances and Donna in 1989, and subsequently had Ms. Smartâs twelfth and thirteenth children in foster care.)
It was financially to Margaret Hargroveâs advantage to maintain six children in residence. She receives what she calls an adequate âpaycheck,â which depends on the age of the child (foster parents receive more for six-to-eleven-year-olds than for infants-to-five-year-olds and still more for children twelve or over) and on ever-changing rates. In December of 1984, when two-month-old Daquan Drummond was presented to Alice Hargrove, St. Christopherâs sent Aliceâs mother a stipend of $242 a month for him. The current rates for foster-home care in the New York metropolitan area range from $386 to $526 per month for healthy children. For âspecialâ children (those with moderate physical and/or mental disabilities) and âexceptionalâ children (those with illnesses like AIDS or other extreme physical or mental handicaps), the rates are $845 and $1,281 per month, respectively. These stipends are tax-free. Each childalso receives a clothing allowance set by the state and has his or her dental and medical care covered by Medicaid (at a cost of between three and four dollars a day). An agencyâs administrative costs add to the yearly sum required to keep youngsters in foster care. The Hargroves receive the same amount of money for the children they adopt, because it is state policy to subsidize adoptions of foster children with handicaps or special conditions, and those who are considered hard to place: those who have been in foster care in the same home for at least eighteen months; siblings; children who have been freed for adoption for at least six months; and minority children who are over the age of eight and white children over the age of ten.
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