My husband and I recently adopted two children from Maine’s foster care system. They’re kind, smart, beautiful, funny, athletic and empathetic — like millions of other kids. I’m a teacher and my husband works in affordable housing.

Our older child, a rising senior, insists on working 50 hours a week during summer. Our younger child has chores and dutifully takes care of the family’s bearded dragon. We’re a hardworking family and our kids are learning great habits. But what if they had landed elsewhere and not found a forever family, left to navigate the world solo? When I think of how their lives could have turned out, I shudder. 

This led me to think of the nearly 400,000 American children in foster care who will age out of the system when they turn 18, who may not have had guidance of a loving family throughout their childhood. As an educator and parent who is with kids all the time, I don’t know a single one who could get through life seamlessly on their own, especially one who was not raised in a stable environment.

Now, with President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” 22 million already stressed families, many with children, will lose some or all of their SNAP benefits. Does every single person deserve every single SNAP dollar in every single situation? Maybe not. But children, who have no choice in being born or to whom they are born or abandoned by, should never lose access to food. 

Nicole Petit Wiesendanger
South Portland