Today, we visited the Foundling Museum.  The Foundling Museum used to be a hospital that was founded by a man named Thomas Coram.  Coram hated seeing mothers leave their babies or small children wrapped up for someone to find, as the mother herself could not provide the care needed or if she were unmarried, it was socially unacceptable for her to have the child.  The Foundling Hospital took in about 1,000 kids each year.  Unfortunately, there were more children than could be taken in, so they formed a system much like a lottery to see which kids would get accepted.  The mothers would line up and pick a colored ball out of a bag; if they drew red their child was accepted, white meant their child would be put on a wait list, and black meant that they were denied.  After dropping their child off, the mother would leave a token or piece of jewellery with their child’s paperwork.  If the mother ever got to a point in her life where she could care for her child, she could come back to the Foundling Hospital and would have to describe the token to prove that she was the mother of that child.  However, that was not a common occurrence.  From the hospital, the children were then placed with foster families, who would care for them for at least five years, or until they were old enough to begin an apprenticeship.  I found this museum very interesting to learn about because my aunt used to be a foster parent, so I have been around foster care since I was a young child.  I think that foster care is such a great thing, especially now that adoption comes out of it.  Foster care really gives kids who had  nothing a lot of love and care, as well as a new beggining to their life where they can start over and achieve great things.