But that slippery slope isn't happening. For years the state has been able to take custody of children if they believe their welfare is in danger and you don't see parents getting arrested or their children taken away for being stubborn in public. I beleive it is actually as DaLincolnJ says, more often than not the state doesn't take custody of kids when they should or the courts give the kids back to unfit parents. The system has little money and it usually takes extreme cases for the state to take action. I think childrens rights get pushed aside in the name of "parenthood"
You aren't following the news? A Florida couple arrested in Cuba and sent back to the USA because they kidnapped their own children. Their children were taken from them because they were busted for drug possession. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/12/children-kidnapped-cuba/2076639/ That's just today's news. It happens all over the place and all the time. http://www.custodyprepformoms.org/lrflc.htm Ludicrous Reasons Why Good & Fit Mothers Have Lost Custody Sadly, we must report that if you have a guardian ad litem (GAL) or child custody evaluator assigned or appointed to your case that is unscrupulous, ill-trained, incompetent or biased either toward a father or a form of custody, there is virtually no way for a mother to truly "prepare" for a child custody evaluator. If you have been unfortunate enough to have this type of evaluator, be very prepared to find other documentation, evidence, witnesses, and experts with superior credentials to refute the report and offer alternate views to the court. You can not let these sorts of evaluations stand. Here are some of the more ludicrous documented reasons given by evaluators or judges in numerous cases where good and fit mothers lost custody: Breastfeeding--the mothers either wanted to and it was determined an alienating behavior, or they did not choose to breastfeed and it was termed child neglect or indifference Children got head lice during a period of mother's care. Too many people (all relatives) living in one home (i.e. mom had to return home to family to gain economic and emotional support) Father remarried and married family deemed superior to single motherhood Father's job and education deemed superior--sometimes even though mom sacrificed her goals and dreams so father could obtain same. Not desiring 50/50 custody or other joint custodial arrangements Not desiring to give up the marital home Leaving the marital home while fleeing from abuse, especially if she left the children behind. Going to church Going to church too often Not going to church Having a different religion than the father Having a different religion than the children Home schooling your children Being poor or less well-off than the father and his extended family Having unprotected sex although no longer living with or married to your former mate Believing your children when they tell of abuse Being depressed or sad Having been diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) caused by the battery/abuse in your relationship with your child's father and having that used to term the mother "unstable" Crying in front of any court personnel Being anxious or "hyper-vigilant", even when abuse to self and children are an issue Dating on occasion and leaving your child with a trusted sitter Dating someone of another race Not dating Having a boyfriend Not having a boyfriend Living with a boyfriend Refusing to marry your boyfriend Having a social life--women have been penalized for taking occasional evening breaks away from the children for meetings, to meet friends, etc. Not having a social life--women were penalized for being "wrapped up" in the kids and not having other interests. Having a career Not having a career Working too much Not working enough Using daycare or before/after-school care so you can work to support your kids Being non-white: a Native American, Black, Asian, etc. Having your child learn your native language--mothers have been deemed more of a "flight risk" for teaching their child their heritage and language, or deemed to be alienating the child from the father by teaching the child a language the father does not know. Being white-fathers ethnicity given greater accord because mother supposedly could not provide a racial/ethnic identity for the child. Being involved in your children's education/volunteering-deemed "over-involved" or enmeshed with her children Having a close, loving relationship with your child - court personnel seem to love pathologizing mother/child bonds as "enmeshed", "unhealthy" Wishing to move Being disorganized Having a messy home Being too neat & orderly Being a lesbian Being a good role model for your child--a female child in one case was noted by the judge as being "alienated" by the mother because the child looked up to her mother and wanted to follow in her same career path when she grew up. Not liking your ex Having been hospitalized for a physical ailment or injury Thinking negative thoughts about your ex (doesn't matter whether you verbalize them or not) Being an "unconscious alienator", termed as having the likelihood of alienating sometime in the future Going back to school and using daycare Not using daycare--mother deemed too "enmeshed" and "over-involved" with her preschool aged children because she worked at home and used her maternal relatives for occasional childcare and did not want to put her toddler into daycare/preschool. Being disabled at the hands of your child's father Being blind or deaf, although adequately being the primary parent of your child for numerous years Photographing injuries found on your child and identified by the child as having been caused by their father The evaluator didn't like the mother because she reminded her of someone--in one case, a woman was told she wasn't liked because she reminded the evaluator of her mother Being protective of your children Taking your children to the doctor - termed "anxious" parenting, or pathologized further into Munchausen's Syndrome By Proxy Using your computer Computer dating Staying up too late at night to get work done Sending the kids to summer camp - termed "farming them out" Following doctors orders in administering prescribed medications Taking your children to counseling Children's grades are not high enough Children missed too much school due to illness You're not a father
Really? I'm guessing these short statements of why kids are taken from the biological mother are kind of like your interpretation of that video, take one line a judge says out of numerous things they say and hang it all on one sentence. But regardless of these misleading one liners, again, the context of this list are about custody battles during divorce and how husbands can end up with the child. I thought we were taking about the state taking your children . . . I just don't think you are tracking this right.
That list is plenty good for single parents, for married couples, etc. They're reasons the state deems to take children from their families. BTW, if they upheld the same standard for drug possession, the govt. should have taken Chelsea Clinton from her parents, the Bush daughters from their parents, Obama's daughters from theirs. And that's just the presidents.
HuffPost. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/26/disabled-parents_n_2190725.html -- Millions of Americans with disabilities have gained innumerable rights and opportunities since Congress passed landmark legislation on their behalf in 1990. And yet advocates say barriers and bias still abound when it comes to one basic human right: To be a parent. A Kansas City, Mo., couple had their daughter taken into custody by the state two days after her birth because both parents were blind. A Chicago mother, because she is quadriplegic, endured an 18-month legal battle to keep custody of her young son. A California woman paid an advance fee to an adoption agency, then was told she might be unfit to adopt because she has cerebral palsy. Such cases are found nationwide, according to a new report by the National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency. The 445-page document is viewed by the disability-rights community as by far the most comprehensive ever on the topic – simultaneously an encyclopedic accounting of the status quo and an emotional plea for change.
Again, that list was made in the context of custody battles, not state terminating parental rights. Two totally different standards in the law. The Clinton argument shows how you view the law. You see things in black and white and slippery slope type arguments. When really what we have as a system is a judge who listens to all the evidence and makes a ruling based on standards involving best interest of the kids. No judge would find it was in the best interest of the child to take them away from the Clintons because he experimented with mj in school. That is just silly and I can't believe you don't see this. It's not, if you posses drugs at some time in your life, then gov't gets to take away your children. If your drug use puts your child at risk, then absolutely the state should step in. You should see some of the terrible cases out there and the conditions some of these kids grow up in and I suspect your heart strings would be pulled where even you would actually want the gov't to step. To have kids go without food, having severe skin infection because their diaper hasn't been changed in over 5 days, pieces of crack or herion on the floor that they can pick up and digest. Someone should be sticking up for these kids!
I see a family torn apart by Melissa Harris-Perry and her ilk who had to kidnap their own children to be with them. I so do not want the government to step in. For all the good intention, the unintended consequences are far worse. You're crazy if you think Clinton (or W or Obama) only experimented a few times with drugs in school. They're baby boomers. Children of the 60s.
Fine, whatever drugs Clinton or Obama have used, you are crazy if you think a judge would use that to take their kids away. I feel sorry that you are so paranoid about the judicial system. It's not a perfect system, but it beats anarchy. So you are OK with a single meth addicted parent with anger issues and mental issues and no parental skills, leaving drugs all over the house, putting their child at risk, and not having the gov't step in?
The double standard, dude. They took away the florida couple's kids over marijuana possession. I'd rather a few children live with their meth addicted parents than have thousands taken from their families for not very good reason. http://www.sacbee.com/2011/09/05/3885321/cps-removes-40-percent-fewer-children.html Sacramento County Child Protective Services has dramatically reduced the number of children it seeks to remove from their homes because of abuse and neglect. That's a big change for an agency that just a few years ago placed more children in foster care than any other large county in the state. CPS petitioned to remove about 1,000 children from their homes last year, a 40 percent decline from 2009, a Bee analysis found. Petitions were up in the first six months of this year, but at the current pace will still fall well below the average in recent years. ... That year, CPS placed 6.4 out of every 1,000 children in the county into foster care, according to data maintained by the University of California, Berkeley. That was the highest rate among the state's 25 most populated counties, and nearly twice the statewide average. The heavy intervention prompted a backlash, with parents and others involved in the system accusing CPS of a subjective assessment process that was ripping apart families without just cause. Even those charged with advocating for abused and neglected children accused the agency of overreaching. "They were removing too many children," said Bob Wilson of Sacramento Child Advocates, which provided legal representation for children in Juvenile Dependency Court for almost 20 years, before losing its contract in July. (this is just one county)
Why anyone would want to see kids raised by the DMV is beyond me. http://nccpr.info/the-evidence-is-i...ing-families-together-the-definitive-studies/ The Evidence is In: Foster Care vs. Keeping Families Together: The Definitive Studies NCCPR long has argued that many children now trapped in foster care would be far better off if they had remained with their own families and those families had been given the right kinds of help. Turns out that’s not quite right. In fact, many children now trapped in foster care would be far better off if they remained with their own families even if those families got only the typical help (which tends to be little help, wrong help, or no help) commonly offered by child welfare agencies. That’s the message from the largest studies ever undertaken to compare the impact on children of foster care versus keeping comparably maltreated children with their own families. The study was the subject of a front-page story in USA Today. The first study, published in 2007, looked at outcomes for more than 15,000 children. It compared foster children not to the general population but to comparably-maltreated children left in their own homes. The result: On measure after measure the children left in their own homes do better. In fact, it’s not even close.
Now this is a link that is more on point. Talking about the efficiency and effectiveness of child protective services is definitely a topic that can be debated. There are a lot of problems with child protective services (budget being a huge one). But even the site you link says that child protective services are necessary and appropriate in some circumstances. So you are posting a study by a group that doesn't not believe what you believe. It sounds like they are dedicated to children and believe there are times the gov't needs to step in and take control of the kids. They just want a tougher standard (I believe). What florida couple are you talking about?
Post #43, a few posts back. Government pretty much fails at what it tries to do. You get militarized police, IRS, DMV, and failed public schooling as examples. I don't pretend to know if some abused child is going to grow up to be a criminal or an Einstein. The number of criminals is puny, so I am not swayed that the govt. can ever do better than actual drug addict parents.
Oh, I completely agree ... that it was deliberate, most rhetoric is. But every writer imagines an audience, and clearly the woman was appealing to your powers of comprehension by her deliberate phrasing (of which you took note). Are you sure you haven't failed her? If you happen to be a member of her audience, I think she wants to draw "your" attention to the matter, not all in the audience will go "what? that's outrageous" some will instead reflect on the realities of the child in our society -- their actions do (in most cases) extend beyond the family and into the world of other people -- sometimes beyond the controlling or guiding hand of a parent or family member.
It's definitely a very strange story, on many levels. Why does this article cite "narcotics" while others mention only pot? Why would Hakken (who, by all accounts, was not a religious man) be talking about "armageddon"? What was the disturbance at the hotel that initially caused the police to investigate? On the other hand, what the hell was Hakken thinking would happen when he tied up his mother-in-law, stole her car, and fled to Cuba?
I think you're really struggling to make a point here. What exactly are you defending in her statements? You have kids? You think we should break through the notion that they're your kids? Do tell.
Denny, this 56-post thread is your greatest achievement. Riling up the citizenry that the government will steal all children is quite a feat. A sucker's born every minute, and you are just the huckster to get them hysterical.
Her meaning of course. It seems obvious what she means. And if you are in doubt what I think her meaning is, then you can reread my post. Fair enough?
