(Adapted, shorter, non-pdf version in the New York Times here.)
I'm only about halfway through and am already kind of goggle-eyed at the analysis she's making and what she has to say about the child welfare system. Some quotes:
In advising my clients, I frequently tell them that the single most important factor in whether they will be able to keep their children (keep their children!) is how well they get along with the caseworker. You've seen the pictures of the burnt and beaten children who have suffered at the hands of abusive parents, some ending up dead. Those are the children whose stories motivated our child welfare system and continue to fuel efforts to be more protective of children. Yet, as almost anyone working in the field will tell you, those instances of severe abuse, which garner all the attention in the media, are unrepresentative of the cases that clog the system.Most children in foster care simply are not there because of child abuse. In most cases abuse is never even alleged. Neglect is the charge and neglect is broadly construed. It entails everything from having a dirty or run-down house, to refusing special education or recommended psychotropic medications, to corporal punishment, to smoking marijuana. In other words, neglect includes many things that reasonable people have very different ideas about. Indeed, it includes many behaviors that my yuppie friends and I engage in without threat of government intervention. (pp. 378-9)
And this:
But these cases are often viewed by the caseworkers and judges not as being about material, economic problems, but as being about parenting ability. The parent who "chose" to leave her ten-year-old alone while she went to work is deemed to have such bad parenting judgment that she may not be trusted to keep her child safe under any circumstances. Of course, a mother who leaves a child home because otherwise she will lose her job and means of supporting that child was choosing between two bad options. She may have made the wrong decision (though, of course, this is one of the many parenting questions on which contradictory views are held), but she may be an excellent parent. She certainly is a parent who could be given better options. Similarly, the mother who "chooses" to let her child live in sub-standard housing may not be taking every step another parent would to address the situation, but that doesn't mean she's unworthy to be a parent (whatever "worthy to be a parent" might mean.) It surely does not mean her children must be better off without her.
Acting as if these cases are about parental judgment is dangerous and ultimately bad for the kids involved. None of us would pass the test of always exercising the best possible judgment when parenting. It's just that some of us have luxuries that mean our bad choices don't have to be between two really bad options (and our choices, whether good or bad, are far less likely to be seen by government officials). (p. 381)
And this:
The point is not that rich, white kids are never abused, and certainly not that we should be less concerned about the poor and minority children who are. The point is that, just as when there is any severe discrepancy in how rich and poor or black and white are treated, we should question what is underlying the disparity. Clearly, we are far more willing to allow government officials to judge the parenting of poor and minority parents. We have allowed, indeed encouraged, government officials to be judgmental of certain--but only certain--parents. With respect to these disadvantaged groups, rather than limiting intrusion into family life to the relatively rare extreme cases of parental behavior that are truly beyond the pale, we have invited the government to engage in an endless game of "What is wrong with that mother?" As any mother knows, this is a game no mother can win. (p. 382)
And this:
Even when mistakes are caught and unnecessary separations ended, those children can never again have what we like to believe is the birthright of all children: a feeling of security that their parents will always be there for them, that their parents have some power to control an otherwise scary world. We take that away when we act as though parents are so great a threat to their children that it should be easy for government workers to come between them. (p. 385)
3 comments:
This seems to me to be a big blind spot for some liberals and academics. I'm often taken aback by the degree to which some people (usually politically liberal people and/or people writing from some academic "ism" POV) would empower the state to intervene on behalf of children against their parents, even in relatively benign situations, such as refusing to teach evolution, or hand-on-the-butt spanking. The rational is always "the best interests of the children", and I believe that proponents are sincere in their desire to provide the best for all children. However, the implication is that the state can and should ensure that all children are raised according to essentially well-educated, middle class parenting and educational philosophies. The superiority of those philosophies as "the best" is taken as a given, of course.
For reasons you quote near the end of this post, I think the potential for harm in state intervention outweighs the potential for good in cases that fall short of physical or psychological abuse. Plus, the clogging of the system by these lesser cases probably allows some true cases of abuse to fall through the cracks until it is too late. The hard part about this position, however, is that it means that some kids would grow up in unhappy circumstances, and the state would do nothing about it. It would be up to neighbors, churches, community organizations and the like to attempt to intervene with the family or to simply encourage the children to perservere and hope for a better future. Some parents would accept help in these informal ways, others would not. Some children would find that better future, some would not. No one would have a mandate to look out for every child; no organization would be as well funded as the government. And yet, perhaps this kind of complicated, messy work is actually *best* done at the community level, by people who can take circumstances into account. The mom who left her 10 year old to go to work for example, can be distinguished from someone who leaves a 10 year old to go partying across town. The government has a tendency to treat both cases the same, since in both cases a 10 year old was left alone, but common sense tells us they are not the same at all. I sense that making child welfare (again, below the level of abuse) the responsibility of the state has led to too many unintended consequences. Perhaps it has also let the rest of us too much "off the hook". Rather than help a child or a family, we now can simply drop a dime and wash our hands of the situation. I don't argue that relying on private and community-based solutions would improve outcomes over-all. I do not know if that is true. But I'm not sure how effective the current government model is either.
Stephanie
Stephanie, what you say about dropping a dime seems very true to me. The first time someone called CPS on me (yes, it's happened twice now!) was when I left Eric, who was not quite 3, in the car alone while I ran into the Haslett library to pick up a book that was waiting for me at the desk. I happened to glance at the clock as I was getting out of the car, and so when I came back to find a police officer trying to break into my car to "rescue" Eric, I can say with complete certainty that I was gone less than 3 minutes. And Eric, at that age, was verbal enough to have been able to make the choice to wait in the car rather than run in with me. (I haven't thought about that situation in awhile, but now that I do, it's interesting to think that I would not leave Yehva in a similar situation--she's less verbal, so it would be harder to get a clear sense of whether she really understood what the options were and what they meant. Also, she can and would get herself out of her car seat and into trouble. With Eric, I knew both that he understood what I was asking him and that I really understood his answer, and that he would sit there, buckled in, thinking happy thoughts, until I got back. But I digress.)
Supposedly, someone called the police. I'm not sure I believe that--the officer must have gotten there like, 90 seconds after I left the car, and that's an awful fast response to a 911 call. I've always wondered if the cop was nearby and saw me leave the car.
But I ended up talking with Joann about it a couple of days later, and one of the things she said was that if a bystander was really that worried that Eric was in danger, the bystander could have chosen to stay and keep an eye on him until I got back. It said something about whether a person is really concerned about the child's safety, or wants to punish a parent who is breaking a rule.
It's interesting to me how many women I know who've had CPS called on them for leaving a child in the car for a very brief time, usually in sight (like, the car and the kid are in sight through a plate-glass window the whole time the mom's in the shop, for instance). Whether, when, and for how long you can leave kids in the car strikes me as a judgment call; some people don't do it at all, some do it for very brief times, some do it with some kids and not others. But it's a judgment call parents aren't allowed to make anymore.
About 10 years ago I worked for a counseling agency that provided intensive in home intervention for families referred by social services. It was a good organization, trying to help parents keep their kids. But the lack of funding throughout the system caused it to work in a very twisted way. It was really all about the behavior of the children, not the abuse or neglect by parents or the larger needs of the families. Kids came into services primarily because they were causing problems in their school or their neighborhood. (And by "problems" I mean they were committing crimes or were uncontrollable.) Counseling was for the purpose of getting the kids to behave. Usually it didn't work because the underlying problems of poverty and insecurity and mental illness and addiction didn't change. There was no attempt to change them.
So the way it works is if your kids have serious behavioral problems and you have money (and insurance) for doctors, meds, lawyers, residential hospitals, etc., you get to keep your kids. If you don't, you lose them, and you will be told that it's your fault. And most of those who are taken away in adolescence will not be better off. At least, I saw very few cases where they were.
Rosemary
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