By now we have all heard about this tragic case:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/01/19/starved-beaten-unbathed-how-a-17-year-old-escaped-a-house-full-of-chains-and-freed-her-12-siblings/?utm_term=.da0956f96373
In case you haven't tuned in, a California couple, David and Louise Turpin, were found to have kept their 13 children captive in their home. A 17 year old daughter initiated a 911 call with an inactive cell phone, and alerted authorities. The children, ranging in age from 2 yrs. to 29 (!) were found in conditions of filth and starvation, and had been physically and mentally abused. What should give us pause is that they were totally off the radar in two states: Texas, where they had lived for several years, and California, where they are presently. The usual ways that red flags are raised about abused and neglected children were bypassed. They were homeschooled, so teachers wouldn't have been in the picture. They apparently didn't have medical attention, so doctors wouldn't have noticed. One wonders if all of them were born at home? Are there birth certificates? Extended family had been cut off years ago. The grandparents had planned to visit them, but the couple refused to give them their address. One article said the family were Pentacostal Christians, but apparently they were not part of any congregation, where someone might have noticed something amiss. As members of society do we give people too much freedom to live their own lives?
The parents are under arrest and face life in prison if convicted of the charges against them. What will happen to the children now? Imagine being 29 years old and knowing nothing about the world beyond four walls. I pray for them to learn how to be happy, and to find out that the world isn't a terrible place.
Correction: At first I mistakenly said that the parents were under house arrest. In fact they are are arrested, in custody, and held in lieu of $13 million bail apiece.
Truly terrible. I noticed a related story linked from this one about four social workers being charged for negligence in another boy's death. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/23/an-8-year-old-boy-suffered-horrific-abuse-now-four-social-workers-will-face-trial-for-his-death/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.1a92394388e1
ReplyDeleteWe have such a schizoid view of parental rights it's not funny. When a child dies after repeated and long-term neglect, we tend to blame an underfunded and understaffed system of child welfare workers, whose hands area often tied.
Every effort is made to keep children or reunite them with parents who are hopelessly addicted or mentally ill.
Social workers are also often hesitant about putting kids in foster care because that system is so dreadful. Some fosters are only in it for the money, but many more find it hard to bond with problem kids who are only with them for a short time. Children suffer from emotional instability in that system, at best.
When my mother was a little girl, her parents took in a neighbor child whose father was "shell shocked" from WWI. My grandfather and other WWI vets tried to help, but Mr. B was too far gone and often violent. The doctor eventually signed papers to have him committed. My grandparents took in the little girl without hesitation during Mr. B's bad spells and for a time after his committal while Mrs. B tried to get on her feet.
I don't want to glorify the past, but the little girl was taken care of because neighbors were aware of what was going on and were willing to step in. She was also among people who knew and cared about her. My gramma gave her and my mother each a banty hen of their own to take care of. Gramma would praise up the girls for being such good farmers when their hens popped eggs.
After Gramma died, we discovered Mothers Day cards that the little girl, then a grown up with her own family, had sent to her.
We all need to stop looking away from the misery around us.
Jean, I agree with you about our schizoid view of parental rights. And sometimes the social services systems try too hard to reunite or keep children with parents who are hopeless and are simply never going to be up to the task.
ReplyDeleteRelated to this, I feel that this decision by Boys' Town to focus away from residential care that they have done in the past toward "alternative care" may be a mistake. One size doesn't fit all situations; sometimes there is a need for residential care.
It's one way to avoid situations ripe for sexual abuse. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abuse-allegations-probed-at-boys-town/
DeleteEqual opportunity abuse there: http://www.omaha.com/news/crime/former-boys-town-supervisor-convicted-after-having-sex-with-/article_e869d950-9f8e-11e5-99bc-2f0f365a6971.html
DeleteUnfortunately there are also a lot of instances of sexual and physical abuse happening in foster care. Or from blood relatives. I don't know what the answer is, other than vetting the people we place children with really carefully.
DeleteSocial services workers hands are often tied by state laws that favor parental rights. It's bad public policy.
DeleteMichigan has experimented with the "orphanage" system, ensuring that children stay in the same dwelling with houseparents who may shift around, but kids don't have education interrupted.
Not perfect, but more stable.
When I was a child, I believed adult claptrap about the joys of childhood and children as the future of our nation. My parents gave me no reason to believe otherwise. But as I got older and got to know other parents, I realized it is mostly claptrap.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, the school day was built around the needs of an 8-5 workday required by a capitalist economic system, and the school year was built originally around the need for child labor on the farm and later -- easily because it didn't require much change -- around the hospitality industry's need for a set period for family vacations and students with summer jobs. Kids have always been mere units of production. And the spread of IT is also making them units of consumption. In other words, adults. As such they can be treated as expendable, like other cheap tools.
Wha† is more important -- Disney or kids? General Motors or kids? The answer is, for whom are the American day and week designed. Heck, even traffic lights favor corporations over kids. See Jim P's post.