Child abuse and molestation have become the witchhunt causes of the last 15 to 20 years.
I know how many will react to that statement. And I understand the sentiment that children are the only true innocents in our society and that as a civilized society we can not leave abused or molested children in the hands of their abuses.
And despite that I contend that aside from the exceptional cases, even a bad parent is better for a child than even a good state.
What am I talking about? I'm talking about the way most children suffer far more at the institutional hands of Tennessee's Department of Children's Services than at the hands of their own sometimes abusive or molesting or neglectful parents.
Yes, I am aware that my comments may cost me clients, but it is a conclusion based on working with many such cases, seeing the clumsy, uncaring, overworked, efforts of social workers and courts shuffling children from foster home to foster home to shelter to psychiatric unit, with decisions perversely motivated by funding schemes that rewards states and counties based on the number of children they remove from homes, and keep in state custody, not based on the number of families they heal or the level of juvenile delinquency they reduce.
The present system is an abysmal failure, and everyone coming in contact with the system knows it.
The average child is hurt far more after removal, even if the state "cares", than he or she would have been by staying in the parental home and occasionally being abused or neglected or molested.
I do not and will not apologize for such behavior in parents and would wholeheartedly agree with more aggressive criminal prosecution and punishment, but this does not mean the child is helped by removal from the home and being placed into a system.
Visit with a child who has been shuffled through four or five "placements" in foster homes and institutional facilities and see what kind of effect is created by that kind of disruption and frequent tearing or bonds between the child and the child's care-givers. Children end up unable to develop the kind of trust and relationships they need to develop normally. They are injured more savagely than most ever were in their homes... and it is why I contend that even a bad parent is better than even a good state.
Should children be raised in good loving, stable, two-parent homes, promoting their health and safety, free from abuse and neglect? Of course.
But this question is meaningless. Everyone agrees. The question is what is the best way to accomplish the goal, and how far must a family environment stray from that setting before society should intervene? To meaningfully answer we must address the limits of what can be done by the "system" intended to "help" children (whether the "system" is the "Village" Hillary Clinton naively envisioned helping to raise a child, of a commune, or our kindly parent the state, or the Department of Children's Services, or whatever else you might call it, it is a "system", dispassionate, bureaucratic, unresponsive, and about as flexible and faceless as a stone).
Whenever I hear someone talking about how government needs to do "more" for children I wonder if they honestly believe the state can replace parents.
Another problem is that of "child-saver" zealots who believe their desire to "safe innocent children" justifies anything they do, a mindset frequently resulting in caseworkers who commit perjury and honestly feel smug about it because they have convinced themselves they are doing it for the "good" of the children and because they suspect nearly all parents of abuse.
But regardless my views, Tennessee law requires reporting suspected child abuse or molestation, and the identity of those filing reports is protected and cannot be disclosed. (This leads to false reports, often being made maliciously, and with the person filing the report knowing that they will virtually never suffer any consequences for known false reports. False reports are now more common than true reports in custody cases.) Failing to file a report when you have reason to believe there was abuse or neglect or molestation is even criminal, though the reality of it is that no one is ever charged with this crime except household members who essentially help the abuser or molester. Once the report is made, Tennessee law allows state agencies, and social workers with little no true education or training to intervene, get court-orders that are routinely granted with no meaningful review and no hearing or opportunity fort the parent to respond, and to then place the child in a foster home or institutional setting. (If you or someone you know is the object of just a charge, click here.)
I have heard too many times to count the claptrap that "the cycle of abuse is repeated from generation to generation" so the state must intervene to "break the chain." But I am aware of absolutely no empirical data that in fact state intervention is in any way positive, or reduces later criminal behavior. My own observations lead me to conclude it is counterproductive, something virtually no one in the system will ever admit. They will admit that the efforts have not done what has been desired, but they will invariably explain this as being because they simply have not had enough power or enough money, and if they are only given more of both, they can "help the children."
The extent to which society has bought this is utterly amazing.
To step down from my soapbox and explain more of what happens in Tennessee, after a court finds a child is "dependent and neglected", the court can order the child into state custody "to protect the child'. The court will also often couple the removal of the child from the parental home with orders that the parents take part in counseling and psychiatric sessions, all while the child is placed in foster care or sometimes with a relative. During the time when the child has been removed from the parent's home the state is required to allow the parents visitation with the child or children, but only for four hours a month.
The courts periodically review cases to determine the status of the children, but unless the parent has an aggressive attorney arguing their interests, often these "reviews" involve courts rubber-stamping recommendations of the caseworkers, and routinely the courts make their decisions without ever speaking to the child involved.
Once the court takes jurisdiction over a child, it can continue its intervention until the child reaches age 18. When cases are truly bad, and a parent shows no interest in correcting the problems that originally brought the removal of a child, the court can terminate the parent's parental rights.
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