Hillbilly Elegy

require occupational licensing for foster
parents—just like nurses and doctors—
even when the would-be foster parent is
a grandmother or another close family
member. In other words, our country’s
social services weren’t made for
hillbilly families, and they often make a
bad problem worse.
I wish I could say this was a small
problem, but it’s not. In a given year,
640,000 children, most of them poor,
will spend at least some time in foster
care. Add that to the unknown number of
kids who face abuse or neglect but
somehow avoid the foster care system,
and you have an epidemic—one that
current policies exacerbate.