Today's letter to the editor from Erlinda Mejia addresses the subject of paying for foster care. Her letter refers to a commentary in the Oct. 21 Vision section, where a former foster mother questions the motives of people who say foster parents should be more fairly compensated. To read Mejia's letter, click here.

There are two issues here. One is taking children away from loving and competent parents who could keep their children if they had some financial help or parental coaching. That should not happen, and social services should stand on their heads to help those parents keep the children or give them very liberal visitation while the kids live in a stable family.

The second issue is putting children in foster care because their parents are violent and incompetent. That is another issue. Children need to be removed from dangerous or emotionally damaging situations, of course, and the people who are good enough to take on the huge responsibility of someone else's wounded child should, at mimimum, be given the financial resources to provide very well for that child.

This whole discussion about paying foster families says a lot to me about how conflicted we are about money. It is interesting that so many people consider money to be a bad thing.

The writer of the Sunday commentary, Mary Callahan, said she felt guilty accepting money for caring for her foster children because she told them she loved them. That logic does not follow for me at all because, clearly, we do not have the same viewpoint on money. There is no amount of money that can make someone love or hate another person. Teachers often love some of their children at the end of a school year, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be paid.

The money given to foster parents is needed to compensate that child for having incompetent birth parents. Poor parenting is a huge disadvantage in life that children do not deserve. The more money available to that open-hearted and stable foster family, the more resources can be poured into that child's well-being. The extra money could mean that the parents can work fewer hours to give extra care to that needy little one. It could mean the child gets guitar lessons, cheerleading costumes, soccer cleats, a trip to the beach, math tutoring, a gym membership, tickets to Disneyland, French lessons, a home with a yard, a pet dog, ballet shoes. For those children to overcome traumatic ordeals, they need something very positive to compensate for that.

There is a shortage of foster homes right now. I'm sure there are more people who would be willing to help children if they could afford to do it well. Callahan believes her child would think less of their relationship if he knew there was money involved. I find it abusive to tell a child that you were paid to love him. Besides, that's a lie. She was paid money to help make a better life for him. She decided to love him or not on her own.

Do we have too many children in foster care? Probably. That's an important question for state social services to investigate.

But when foster care is needed, the compensation should be good. Then we would have more foster families to choose from. And that would allow the authorities to make better matches -- to take only the cream of the crop. Those precious, wounded children deserve that.