(USA centric view) You cannot legislate parents into being good parents. You cannot pass laws that protect children from bad parenting as best case result you may get the state to intervene and put the child in a foster system where there's a 50% chance that they end up in an even worse place.
My wife's family fostered and the only thing that happens is the kids eventually get sent back to the families. Even families who have abused the kids multiple times. We don't have an answer to kids from bad families. The state can't overcome bad parents.
It’s true that there are some very bad parents. It’s also true that no state run system has been as good as biological or adoptive parents for the vast majority of children... even those with negligent parents.
Only in extreme cases does one bad (taking a child away from parent figures) justify removing them and putting them in a state run system (another bad). There’s certainly a place for that, but it’s at the extremes.
Many would like to claim that the state should raise kids. That’s a stance that does great harm to parents and children alike.
And there's the detail that of course any such punishment will make the problem infinitely worse. Why are laws always written from the point of view that the state is all-powerful, that it can and will solve whatever problem such a law creates ? It just won't. This sounds, on the surface like it will improve kids' lives, but it will make quite a few kids' lives a LOT worse once you take into account that there's nothing the the state can do here. It cannot replace parents it takes away (nor would kids accept those new parents).
(Before you say "but child services/adoption/foster care", read about how well kids are supervised there. Foster care is a LOT worse for kids than being ignored at home)
I'm very close to people who were saved from really horrible situations by state intervention. But then for them, foster care was hardly any better until they were adopted.
The state taking my kids is actually my worst parental nightmare--even beyond all the accidental and criminal bad things that could happen. I'm a very good parent (you'll have to take my word, I guess), but I'm not conventional. And I know all it takes sometimes is a little misunderstanding.
The fostering system is already known to have abusive foster parents. Now you just encourage them. You encourage extremely large foster households in which children cannot get adequate nurturing. You encourage hostile custody lawsuits in which parents do their best to alienate the child against the other parent. And at the margin you encourage the murder of children.
This entire idea of granting votes from minor children to their adult caretakers would be extraordinarily bad for society.
We have an equivalent of Child Protection Services here in my country, and what they do is take away the children from bad parents.
It's not a great solution, there's a massive overpopulation of children in foster homes if lucky, group homes if unlucky.
I wish they did something to the parents (my radical solution would be some kind of reversible sterilization until they prove themselves able to raise a kid)
BTW there was a thread where people complained that Child Protection Services threatened some HackerNewser parents to take their children away because they left them to play in a park alone, yet they don't do anything in Baltimore?
The United States does separate children from their parents and put them in the foster system when their parents are tried and convicted and nobody is around to take care of the kids, take that as you will. (Personally I think it is very bad and poses the question of which crimes can be awarded non-prison sentences which presently mean prison. Few people are so bad that the loss to society of incarcerating them does not go beyond the cost, which is already high, of maintaining the prisons.)
I am curious where people cannot provide a healthy and stable environment.
I grew up poor, somewhat stable. My children are going to be growing up in a stable and healthy environment because of my choices. This is course has a cost. The wife doesn't have a full time job. Income is limited to one earner. Vacations aren't as extravagant.
I am in the middle of becoming a foster family. Loads more sacrifices and paperwork. The families that lose their children are really screwed up. There's neglect, abuse, and no blood related that are available to help.
The State is not any better at parenting because their interest doesn't align with the child's best interest. The State essentially contracts out parenting. The problem is parenting is essentially its own religion. Naturally that means the State will be in conflict with the Parenting.
Foster children are protected by the State so disciplining methods aren't always accepted. A child of any age without effective discipline will be subject to natural consequences which are often more severe that a loving parent with patience, grace, understanding, and attention to desired outcome.
A hard question it might be, but you don't get to write it off. If you think the state should intervene in cases of "child abuse" but not "bad parenting", you need to define - and justify - that line.
The problem is that once the child is in the hands of the state, whatever happens to the child is the responsibility of the state. If the child suffers any problem which normally occurs, the state is now magically responsible.
For example, if the child was adopted by an abusive alcoholic then this is a case of the terrible neglect and perfidy of the state... even though gobs of people are naturally born to abusive alcoholics and taking them away would usually be regarded as an instance of the terrible neglect and perfidy of the evil, bureaucratic state.
The state must have a perfect track record in order to be merely tolerated. Otherwise, it will be overthrown. So by our own stupid irrationality, we ensure that the state is irrationally defensive. If the state could solve a problem 90%, but 10% are still left over, that 10% becomes the awful perfidy of the state, so we create an environment where the other 90% are completely ignored because at least it's "nobody's fault."
This statement seems to be based on a false premise that foster care is bad care (it is often very good care where I originate from, UK) and ignores the fact that sometimes parents kill their children and that there are many children in desperate need of help.
The greater problem with the CPS or similar agencies is underfunding. This leads to families only having dealings with them when the circumstances are suspected of being dire, rather than CPS having the resources to support parents in a meaningful way over a meaningful period of time. Such meaningful support helps to reduce the need for more drastic interventions and allows social workers to have much more knowledge of the families they are helping and of when interventions are needed.
it's not the foster care that is the problem. even if the foster parents are perfect, separating children from their parents against their will is causing severe trauma to the children and often hurting them more than what the parents might do to them.
i agree with your second paragraph. the focus needs to be on supporting parents to take better care of their children.
Anecdote is not data. States cannot afford (in dollars and beds) house every kid they are justified in taking from guardians. Increase the budgets until they can and fund solutions that reduce violence against children. Not as easy as just hand waving about bad parents and might also require evaluating your prejudices.
It would be nice if prosecutors really were that compassionate. I've read that lots of kids end up in foster care because their parents go to jail. But maybe that only happens to poor people.
An alternative would be to have criminal parents serve time consecutively -- that way noone gets away, and the children would not have to be taken away.
I'm against the abuse of children and happy to use the government to accomplish that.
However, the prevalence of abuse and neglect in the foster care system - complete with cases on that order of horror - makes a very weak case for the idea that external regulation accomplishes any better.
In practice it just doesn't work very well sometimes. I think it's better to risk letting more child abusers off the hook, than potentially ruining the lives of decent parents like these.
I just want to point out that much of the things that supposedly justify sending kids to foster care, actually happen just as much (if not more) in said care of the state. There are major issues with lack of oversight of foster parents. I just didn't see this mentioned thus far and thought it relevant.
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