I watched a Monk episode the other day involving an adorable 2 year old foster child.
To set the story - Tommy, the foster child was discovered in the park carrying a man's finger (gross!). Monk wanders the park with the adorable little boy hoping the child will lead him to where he found the finger, Monk gets attached to the little boy. Because the boy'd been allowed to wander away from the foster mom, for 10 minutes before being found with the finger, the caseworker came to take him away (this part is totally realistic).
Monk happens to drive up while the caseworker is confronting the foster mom, "the kid found a pinkie, what's the big deal?" At this point. The caseworker tells Monk that she doesn't have a new placement for the child ready for 2 weeks. And here's where it gets totally unrealistic. Monk (a mentally ill single man who has never even been around kids) offers to take the child and the caseworker says yes! Then she takes the child to his apartment, has him sign a few papers, and walks off and leaves him with the child! He even asks her what the child eats and she says something along the lines of "you'll figure it out."
To top it off, the foster parent turns out to be a money hungry kidnapper who leaves the four other child in another room watching TV. In other words she's the bad guy.
Way to go media! Let's portray foster care realistically!
1 comment:
Because that would be boring. Who wants to watch people preparing meals for kids, cleaning up after them, taking them to appointments with doctors and therapists and reading bedtime stories? It's much sexier to have severed body parts, slatternly scheming women and adorable tots.
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