I have spent a lot of time with foster children over the years - kids for whom I have not necessarily acted as a foster parent.

Though politics is by nature divisive, surely we all can agree that foster children need stability, safety, education, opportunity - and love.

I am not only the person who wrote and sold a novel while raising a houseful of biological and foster children; I am also the person who wrote a horrific young adult novel that never sold and gave up on a foster child I couldn't handle - an experience that still haunts me.

We were pressured to accept kids we were not qualified to handle. And we do that to people all the time, which is why we don't have enough foster parents.

I've worked with homeless kids, kids in foster care, and I've never met a kid who couldn't be reached.

As an adoptive parent myself of foster children, I have seen firsthand the glaring problems of the system currently facing this Nation.