I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

"Did you hear about the Republican presidential candidate who took a Rorschach inkblot test? The shrink showed him an image and asked, 'What do you see?' 'F--king,' he replied.  Another image. 'F--king.' Next image, same answer.  Next image, same answer.  The shrink threw down his image cards and said, 'You're a pervert!'

"The Republican shouted back: 'Don't blame me! You're the one with the dirty pictures.'"

Here are some very illuminating fact sheets from the Children's Defense Fund about the state of children in every state of the union. Figures from this year show that about 20% of America's children live in poverty. These fact sheets break it out by state:



http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/state-data-repository/cits/2013/2013-children-in-the-states-complete.pdf



In addition, here is a wikipedia article on Poverty in the U.S. I include it because it presents many good sources conveniently in one place.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States



Sorry I can't cut and paste very well - I am on the iPad and it frequently (and maddeningly!) dumps, making it much easier to cut & paste the links.



L

Indeed, Notself. Perhaps if they spent less time trying to repeal The Affordable Care Act and whining about how much in taxes they (really don't) pay and more time passing jobs bills, infrastructure bills and working on true universal health care we would be better able to care for those who need our care most. I thought those statistics about the children who die before their first birthday were shocking, too.



L

Yep. But ... Moar gunz! Benghazi! IRS! VACATIONS!



Yeah.



L

Illinois - I could have written the same post...coming from the other side of course.

There hasn't been a post on the other thread in 8 hours.  Mardibra is probably a little lonely.

Crazy in the best way! 

Why are there blue lines here?? Do we invade their cesspool and offer advice? NO. I with they would take the hint. Phasers on ignore!!!!

Understood, Wabbit.  A human can only take so much.

It saddens and enrages me to know that some blue-liners who took joy from baiting Athena and having her banned, who called her names and insulted her intelligence, now weep large crocodile tears from beyond the confines of our happy galaxy.  Yes, yes, I know, all of the snarkiness and pettiness and "stupid libtard" comments were all in good fun and have noooo bearing on how they REALLLLLY feel, but you should at least keep quiet.  Don't heap even more hypocrisy onto your mound of evil deeds.

E

E - you go girl!!

I've been off line since yesterday - cleaning and company - but since I spent more than two years as a public defender trying to get children back to parents after the Division of Youth and Family Services in the State of New Jersey removed them - and defending parents when the state wanted to terminate parental rights, i feel like I have some insight into what happens with these families.  I'm sharing this with my peeps - just to give some information - not to respond to anything said by visitors from another planet.

The children taken by the state during my period as a public defender were taken for what will be described as a range of reasons, but the basic unifying issue was poverty.  Well off families do have children removed by DYFS, but it is much rarer.  

The other part of this story is that DYFS ran an adoption mill.  DYFS was paid by the federal government for every adoption that went through, and with babies and small chilren, there were always families willing to adopt - unless it was a special need child.  DYFS was much more willing to work with a family that has older children than younger children, because those children would be harder to adopt out.

 So the reasons that DYFS would take children:

Children will be removed if the parent is caught using illegal drugs.  This is without showing any harm to the child - any lack of care or any lack of caring.  This happens more often in poor families, because frankly, the rich families just don't get reported all that often.  Still, this was the most common reason for adoptions - the parent has a drug problem and would get a year to get her act together.  If she could not get and stay clean, the child would be adopted out.

Then there's the children removed because the parent or parents don't have a place to live, for a variety of reason, most often because he/she loses a job. This is the most frustrating one:  a mother might desperately want the children back, but the state won't return the child until the mother has a "clean and safe" place to live.  however, in New Jersey where the average one bed-room apartment is over $800 a month, which is not affordable on a minimum wage salar, poor parents get caught in a catch-22.  There isn't enough public housing, so it's reserved for families, i.e. one or two parents and a child.  You can't get the housing without having custody of a child, and you can't get the child without housing.  This goes on long enough, especially in the case of a young child with foster parents eager to adopt, and the state goes to terminate parental rights.

Then there's the children removed because DYFS didn't approve of the medical situation.

I defended a mother whose little girl was taken away because the mother used alternative medicine to help her sickle cell.  The child had actually been hospitalized a lot fewer times than average for a child with this disease. DYFS came in - demanded the mother go to a specialist.  Mother made an appointment for December 21.  Child had an episode and was hospitalized on December 19.  She was in the hospital on the date of the specialist appointment, so she didn't go. On January 3, DYFS took the child from the mother, claiming that the mother's failure to go to the doctor's appointment on December 21 resulted in the child being hospitalized.  I pointed out to the judge the absurdity of this statement- since the child had been hospitalized days before the appointment, but the judge awarded custody of the child to the state.  The mother was black, and the social worker disliked her "attitude"  - that she, as the mother, knew better than the social worker.  It took four months to get that child home - in the meantime, she went from a well-behaved child doing well in school to a child who was lying, stealing, having burst of anger and violence, and talking about suicide.

I had another client who had lost health insurance because the husband had lost his job, and one of the kids wound up in the hospital because they didn't have health insurance.  Guess what DYFS did.  Eventually got those kids back - older children - who would have been difficult to adopt.

Then there's the clients who don't have jobs or don't have jobs that DYFS approves:

I had another client who had eight children that adored her - but she was a prostitute, which was how she paid for the house big enough for all the kids to live in.  She got into a verbal dispute with a teenager who smashed a coke can into the side of the mom's head.  Mom slapped the teen.  DYFS took the children away for "violence" but really because Mom was a prostitute.  There were no allegations that the children were not properly care for - except for the slap - just that the Mom earned her living in a way that the social worker and the deputy attorney general disapproved of. They demanded she get a regular job.  So she got two minimum wage jobs in order to try to get enough money to pay the rent, but then DYFS wanted to know how she would pay for child care because she wouldn't be home enough to oversee the kids.  Long story, it took almost a year to get kids who loved their mother and whose mother loved them back home.  This happy ending was also only possible because there were no infants or small children involved.

The saddest cases were when children were removed because the parent or parents were deemed not to have the mental capacity to take care of children.

These were almost always adoption cases.  The parents could be loving sweet people, but they had i.q.s below 65 or so.  If these parents had family support - i.e., parents, grandparents who could help, then the child might be allowed to stay with them.  But, if as was so often the case, the parents themselves were the product of foster homes and had no support system, the baby would be taken and adopted out.

Similar to mental capacity were the mental illness cases - where the mother was diagnosed as bi-polar or other mental illness.  These could go either way - depending on the severity of the mental illness and the mother's cooperation with mental health directives.  Sometimes, to my mind, DYFS' movement to terminate parental rights in these cases was unjustified - the mother's illness did not preclude her being a good parent.

Yes, there are always some cases where there is physical abuse and some cases where the parents have the ability to pay for food and clothes and simply don't, but those are much rarer cases.  The bulk of the cases that I saw in my time wth the public defender were as described above.

These cases are sad and are indictments of our society.  In so many of these cases, children could go home to their biological parents if only we supported them. 

Alexandria, thanks for your insight - and for the respect you showed your clients, both when you were representing them and now.  It always saddens and angers me when social workers, teachers and others who are supposed to me helping people with difficult lives use their experiences to trash them instead. 

What E said!

L

What E and Wabbit said! And thank you, Alexandria, for giving voice and support to people who had none. It is people like you who stand as the bulwark between people and families that others would discount and dismiss and the tide of indifference or active hatred that we have seen overtaking our society. You help keep their darkness at bay.



Wabbit, hugs and love to you and DH. We are here standing shoulder-to-shoulder with you and will give you our strength to carry you through.



Notself, I am so very glad you are back! We missed you!



L