They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin
In the classic 1947 science fiction novelette whose title this column shares, Jack Williamson predicted the perils of the nanny state by depicting a future world infiltrated by self-replicating robots who volunteer to do every dangerous job free of charge; only after the lazy humans have allowed the “humanoids” to take over all police and other “protective” functions do they discover that the machines have their own standards of “safety” and will not allow humans to do anything which carries even the slightest risk.
The problem, of course, is that nearly everything worth doing carries some danger, and ofttimes the greater the risk, the greater the reward. When we allow others to absorb the peril we gradually lose the nerve to take exciting, profitable or even necessary chances for ourselves, and when we allow “authorities” using the excuse of “safety” to dictate what we can and cannot do we lose the greater part of what it means to be human and become nothing but domestic animals owned and controlled by the State. Big Brother says that some activities are just too dangerous, so they are prohibited and those caught doing them are punished by having their goods stolen and their bodies violated or confined, but kept biologically alive in a condition the State defines as “safe”. And if some people are killed in the process of establishing this worldwide nursery, well, you know how it is with omelettes.
The War on Drugs is the most widespread and monstrous realization of the campaign to “protect” adults from their own choices, but the War on Whores is nearly as bad. Once we were branded as “degenerates”, but for the last century (especially the last two decades) there is a growing tendency to characterize laws which restrict the sexual freedom of adult women as attempts to “rescue” us from our own choices; trafficking fanatics, neofeminists and proponents of the “Swedish Model” paint us as imbeciles and emotional basket cases who suffer from “false consciousness” and are unable to make decisions for ourselves. Self-proclaimed moral authorities even demand that porn actors be protected from their own informed decisions. And in a world of smoking bans, seat belt laws, gun control, Gestapo-like “child protective service” tactics and lawsuits based in the idea that individuals are not responsible for their own safety, paternalistic anti-sex work arguments seem very credible to the average spineless American.
In the ‘40s, the watchword was “victory”. In the ’60s, it was “freedom”. But by the ’90s, it had degenerated into “safety”. Americans once recognized that there are some things worth dying for; now we encase our children in bubble-wrap and cry like little girls at the slightest risk. Our great-grandparents dared unknown frontiers, while we sit in our playpens content to watch the world go by on television, or to waste endless hours in “virtual worlds” when there’s a wonderful REAL universe waiting to be discovered. People aren’t like this naturally; most of us are born with a yearning to explore the world, a zest for adventure and a thirst for knowledge, but these are ground out of children in factory schools, frightened out of them by “authorities” trying to create a race of docile, frightened sheep and squeezed out of them by overprotective parents who imagine “child traffickers” and “sexual predators” around every corner, despite the rarity of these criminals. One of my favorite non-sex-work bloggers, Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids, uses the term “helicopter parents” for those who are always hovering over their kids, watching to ensure that nothing “happens to them”…and in the process squelching their growth and destroying their ability to act or even think independently.
Skenazy understands that safety is not and should not be such a paramount issue that it instantly trumps everything else, and though her concern is primarily with the mollycoddling of children into dull-witted, complacent obesity, she does occasionally touch on the way the “Safety First” mantra affects adults as well. She recently mentioned this 2009 essay by Mike Rowe of the TV series Dirty Jobs, and it impressed me so much I’d like to share it:
My husband works on the oilrigs as a well tester. We watched you folks do so without any eye protection! Are you crazy? Drilling a hole with no protective eyewear? Between him, a well tester, and me, a workers’ compensation lawyer, we’re cringing! Somebody could LOSE AN EYE! Seriously – Safety First, fellas! I would expect better from the Discovery Channel!! — suzemommy
I sincerely appreciate your concern for me, and agree that stupidity plays an ongoing role in my professional and personal life. But believe me, I have no wish to be injured on the job. However, it is not the objective of Dirty Jobs to conform to any particular set of safety standards, other than those dictated by the people for whom I happen to be working at the time. I take my cues from them, and I assume whatever risk they assume, for the most part. In the end, we hope to capture an honest look at what life is like for the workers in a particular venue. We do not aspire to set an example, or be a poster child for OSHA or any particular industry. I realize that my sound controversial, but it’s the truth, and not nearly as inflammatory as what I’m going to say next.
Ready?
Of all the platitudes automatically embraced in the workplace – and there are many – there is none more pervasive, erroneous, overused, and dangerous, than “Safety First!” in my opinion. I have heard this slogan countless times. I have seen it emblazoned on banners, T-shirts and hats. I have sat through mandatory briefings and slideshows and presentations designed to “protect me from the hazards at hand.” And I have listened as safety officers and foremen have run down list after list of OSHA requirements, all apparently construed to remind me that nothing is more important to the employer than my own well-being. What a load of unmitigated nonsense. In the jobs I have seen thus far, I can tell you with certainty, that safety, while always a major consideration, is never the priority.
Never.
Never, ever.
Not even once.Is it important? Of course. But is it more important than getting the job done? No. Not even close. Making money is more important than safety – always – and it’s very dangerous in my opinion to ignore that. When we start to believe that someone else is more concerned about our own safety than we are, we become complacent, and then, we get careless. When a business tells you that they are more concerned with your safety than anything else, beware. They are not being honest. They are hedging their own bets, and following the advice of lawyers hired to protect them from lawsuits arising from accidents.
You are correct to suggest that wearing safety glasses would have made the task at hand safer. But why stop there? Wearing a helmet would have made it safer still. And wearing a steel mesh shark-suit would have made it really, super safe. I know that sounds glib, and I know that many will wish to scold me for appearing cavalier. But really, I’m not. In a car, I wear a safety belt. On a motorcycle, I wear a helmet. Not because it’s the law, but because it seems a reasonable precaution. And ultimately, the only one responsible for my own safety is me. (Besides, if the government were really concerned with my safety above all else, wouldn’t they drop the legal speed limit to 30 miles an hour and make cars out of rubber?)
Again, you’re right – I probably should have been wearing safety glasses, not because safety is first, but because I like to hedge my bets. We can always be safer. We can always assume less risk. But if safety were really first, I wouldn’t travel at all, or engage in any activity that required me to assume any risk. And I certainly wouldn’t be hosting Dirty Jobs.
Thank you so much for saying that, Mr. Rowe. The same goes for hookers; though we would like the government to stop making our jobs more dangerous than they have to be, and though we take all the reasonable precautions (such as condoms, screening and call-ins) we can, in the end making money is more important or else we’d all just be working at “safe”, boring, low-income jobs. Each person must determine how safe is safe enough for himself, and each person has to decide whether he will go forth into the world as an active adult or just sit in the nursery with folded hands.
One Year Ago Today
“The Love-Hate Relationship” attempts to explain why Americans seem to love whores as fictional characters, while persecuting us in reality.
One of my favorite articles Maggie. Very well put.
I was sitting near the Maumee river when I realized that I was literally living a dream. I was traveling to places that my first thirty years held only in my imagination. Places like “New Orleans” and “New York City” were so far away on my husbands modest salary.
When I gave him up, and became somewhat nomadic, I felt truly free for the first time ever in my life.
Just yesterday I ventured out on foot into a city I had never been before, taking city buses, walking and exploring the new place. I had so much fun, and saw many little things that most people would never notice, and I saw them not on a 32″ screen, but in real life, within the context of its own natural environment. I felt very fortunate. Even those that travel normally do so in a car and miss all the really good stuff.
It is dangerous to travel alone, city to city, not seeing home for weeks or months at a time, but it is an adventure that I am glad that I have had. If it were not for my involvement in sex work, none of this would have ever been possible.
I also began to evaluate my position as a sex worker, and how my early beginnings led to changes, and I determined that even in sex work there is room for advancement, and opportunities. And alot more quickly than if I had to work my way up someone elses corporate ladder.
I built my own ladder. I decided how many rungs I wanted to climb every day and didn’t wait for any yearly employee evaluations to come and go.
I enjoy freedom. I do not know how I lived without it for so long.
Great Article. I really like this one.
Thank you, doll! Now I just have to get you to read my fictional interludes. 😉
Maggie wrote, “Gestapo-like “child protective service” tactics”, and I must object. Child Protective Services (CPS) is a NECESSARY government agency that is often the only escape route for abused/neglected children. My sister became a Child Advocate; whenever there is a custody dispute over a child who is in in the foster care system, the court assigns the child a third party advocate, who studies the situation and makes a recommendation to the court of which side should win custody.
In my sister’s Child Advocate case, the birth mother was a drug-addicted high school dropout unemployed teenage girl with untreated bipolar disorder who had no stable address and moved in with one man after another, changing locations every few weeks. The birth father was a drug-addicted homeless man. By contrast, the foster parents were a stable, sober adult married couple with jobs and home ownership, and a great support system of family and friends. My sister as a Child Advocate, decided to side with Child Protective Services, and recommended to the court that the foster parents get custody of the child, and ultimately, they did.
Sometimes a child NEEDS to be taken away from his or her biological parents and placed in someone else’s care. Sometimes there are no extended family biological relatives able and willing to raise the child. Sometimes the government MUST intervene and strip biological parents of their custody rights because the child’s SAFETY depends on it.
I agree that ADULTS should be free, in general and with exceptions, to take their own safety risks, but the government has a moral obligation to protect the safety of children when the parents can’t or won’t.
Removing a child from an environment where any sane person would agree he’s in imminent danger is not Gestapo-like; abducting children because their mothers nurse or spank them, threatening to abduct them because they’re allowed to ride their bicycles to school, questioning them coercively and in secret because the parents have a blog and take their children camping, using typical police-state interrogation techniques and holding secret court proceedings which parents are not allowed to attend are as Gestapo-like as anything I can think of.
I watched part of that video and it’s about child protection services in Britain, not America.
I realize the American Child Protective Services agencies have in some cases taken parents from their children unjustly, but those cases are relatively rare. Most CPS cases consist of an overworked, underfunded CPS worker with too many cases, deciding which cases to pursue and which to give little attention or ignore altogether because there’s no time to pursue all of them. Due to budget limitations, CPS generally takes kids away from the parents only in the most egregious cases of child abuse/neglect.
Even in my sister’s Child Advocate case, of which you say “any sane person would agree” that the child should be taken out of the birth mother’s custody, the only reasons the foster parents won custody were that 1. The birth parents had initially given the child up to foster care voluntarily before she decided she wanted her child back, which meant the burden of proof was on her to prove she was now a fit parent, and 2. The birth mother eventually relented and agreed to give up custody just as the case was about to go to trial, because she had a second, younger child who was also in foster care in a different home, and CPS told her they would give her a better chance of getting the second child back eventually if she gave up the first one. Without those two unusual circumstances, CPS would probably have let the birth mother have the child back, because CPS has to pick their battles on their limited budget, and there are severely abusive birth parents who pose an even greater threat to the child’s safety than this one did.
CPS’ biggest wrongdoing is neglecting endangered children, not relatively rare “Gestapo-like tactics”.
EDIT: I meant I watched the video about the secret court proceedings in Britain. At the time I started writing my previous post above, that was the only thing Maggie had linked in the post to which I was replying.
The tactics I was discussing aren’t limited to the US; they happen in much of the West (such as the case of Dominic Johansson, who was literally abducted from an airplane by Swedish “authorities” when his parents decided to move to his mother’s native country, India). And I’m sorry, but I don’t think these cases are all that rare any more than believe all the cases of police brutality are “isolated incidents”. The State is drunk with power and until bureaucrats are held criminally accountable for abuses, this won’t stop until the revolution comes.
Hi Maggie,
Here are some links to some resources on the topic of CPS abuse. I remember following the Jim Wade case at the time with a growing sense of anger.
Wade family torture by Sand Diego CPS
Alicia Wade
Wounded Innocents
Assessing the Costs of False Allegations of Child Abuse: A Prescriptive
What most folks don’t understand is that there is a high risk of child abuse in the foster system. So when CPS takes children as a “precautionary measure” they are actually putting them into a system that has a much higher rate of abuse than the general population. While this may be justified in instances of established child abuse, to use it as a precautionary measure is wrongheaded at best.
One study by Johns Hopkins University found that the rate of sexual abuse within the foster-care system is more than four times as high as in the general population; in group homes, the rate of sexual abuse is more than 28 times that of the general population.[87][88] An Indiana study found three times more physical abuse and twice the rate of sexual abuse in foster homes than in the general population.[88] A study of foster children in Oregon and Washington State found that nearly one third reported being abused by a foster parent or another adult in a foster home.[89] These statistics do not speak to the situation these children are coming from, but it does show the very large problem of child-on-child sexual abuse within the system
My sister did her graduate work on severely abused children. It has been noticed that Romanian Orphans exhibited Reactive attachment disorder because of the institutionalized abuse/neglect rampant in those orphanages.
She did her work on more retail cases; the group she worked with had severe neuro-behavioral deficits that did not appear to be originally organic but brought on environmental stressors. All of her group had been subjected to the trifecta of abuse; physical, emotional and sexual. Some had been abused by biological relations, some by institutional actors and some by both.
In severe cases, the children had no sense of extension; that is, they didn’t know where they ended and “out there” begin. This manifested in several ways; one child could never successfully clear an obstacle, eg., he would walk into door frames or desks almost as if he didn’t know where “he” was. Another would repetitively bang body parts against solid objects; his head against the floor, his arms and fists and feet against walls unless restrained.
Her idea was that these children were deprived of the normal handling that most children receive; being picked up, held, hugged, swung around, etc., that provided tactile feedback to the infant brain that helped that brain establish where its body was in relation to itself. It’s this kind of feedback that we provide to ourselves that tells us where we are in our environment and it’s this kind of feedback that these severely abused children have never developed.
Her children had already gone through the standard therapy regimes without effect; her attempt at integrating some kind of mind-body feedback involved music and movement and she did have some success; the boy who had difficulty navigating through doors learned to gauge where he was in relation to them; the child with chronic repetitive striking would actually stop while music was played.
I asked her about the apparent disconnect between CPS action regarding middle-class families and their actions regarding clearly abusive households with drug addicted mothers and violent live-in boyfriends. I wondered if what we were seeing in the media at the time was skewed by editorial selection or it really was a screwed up as it looked.
She said the reality was two-fold. Many of her colleagues were past victims of abuse or bad family situations themselves and this is what motivated their choice of career. Unfortunately, their background skewed their perspective; they identified more closely with families of an abusive nature and were more tolerant of behavior that would horrify someone from middle America; conversely, they did not understand what passes for normal in middle America, so brothers teasing sisters or sibling rivalry and other anti-social but normal behavior among siblings and the remedies that parents used would be misinterpreted as abuse. (For instance, we had a neighbor family whose daughters called CPS because their parents insisted that they help do family chores or face grounding; CPS showed up and warned the parents that they would take the children if the “abuse” continued.)
So they would support sending children back to biological mothers with drug problems (because the circumstances were familiar) but would also take children away from middle American families because Johnny broke his arm playing on the slide, or whatever because a broken arm is clear evidence of abuse and they had no context to judge otherwise.
She did say, however, that there were those CPS types who would target middle American families out of malice, but they were a minority.
c andrew, I think it would help if each CPS developed clear, specific definitions of what constitutes child abuse/neglect/endangerment, and then share that definition with the public. Specific definitions would minimize the arbitrary power of individual CPS workers to take children away from parents.
Even that’snot enough; laws are specific but cops can still interpret them in ridiculous ways just to fuck with people. The only way these bureaucrats will ever be reigned in is by establishing severe criminal penalties for malfeasance and a separate government agency whose entire mission is to investigate and develop cases for prosecuting crimes by bureaucrats. Let’s see how the cops, prosecutors and CPS workers feel when there’s a Gestapo breathing down their necks looking for excuses to arrest and torment them.
“Revolution” in the risk-averse culture you rightly hate? No.
But *war* will get the job done, if only everyone lends a hand, and much risk-averse and “precautionary-principle” blood is shed on American soil.
Lots of real men after that, and salad days for whores.
You know, I can’t even finish reading this. It is disgusting to me.
You say your sister was an “advocate”. The parents were “drug addicted” and moving from home to home.
Have you ever been a child in the CPS system? Have you ever seen first hand the way that foster parents glow at their reviews, and yet privately abuse and neglect their foster children?
I have.
Have you ever seen first hand the children of those “drug addicted” parents quietly laying in their “safe” foster beds at night? Crying themselves to sleep?
Have you ever laid in a sweaty hot bedroom which was the only unairconditioned room in the house specifically designated for storing the foster kids that were only good for generating a check? I have. I spent nights in that room with a wet towel on my naked body to stay cool at the age of fifteen.
What I went through in Foster Care was significantly worse than what I endured at the hand of an abusive father. Fact is children love fathers and mothers even when they are abusive. The foster care system is equally abusive.
I know of children taken from mothers for no other reason than that mother was a sex worker, unbeknownst to the children.
What improvement did CPS offer them? None. It ruined their life.
You have a glimpse into one tiny little case with your third hand knowledge and you dare think that you understand?
You do not know the half of it. CPS workers are given a $5000 bonus every time a child is removed permanently from a parent and adopted. The federal government pays big bonuses yearly to states for each individual child in its care. It becomes a game of delay tactics, trickery and deception that ultimately tears loving families apart just as much as dysfunctional families.
You have no idea what you are talking about, and people like you that naievely believe what the good people at Cps tell you about keeping our children “safe”. No offense, but live that life before you go objecting to anything related to CPS.
Your sisters experience as a wanna be do gooder guardian ad litem is absolute bs. It is propaganda. What training does she have? None. They get a two week crash course.
How do you know that that poor kid whose parents are on drugs is any better off?
Research lady. Learn. Get some first hand knowledge and realize the nightmare that you are advocating.
It is government sponsored kidnapping for profit in most cases.
I want to add that I tentatively advocate putting an end to the practice of paying CPS workers a bonus every time a child is removed permanently from a birth parent and adopted. CPS workers should be paid their salaries and benefits, and no bonuses.
Dear Marla, thank you for putting your money where your mouth is! You’re not just complaining about a system while doing NOTHING to even TRY to change it. I’m wondering if there’s any petitions out there about all this? I think it’s a possibility. There’s wonderful websites made up of petitions to at least TRY to change many things for the better.
I did a search on yahoo.com “petitions to reform cps” and came up with a LOT of results. This proves there’s many working for change and even if they fail at least THEY TRIED. If no one tries then nothing ever changes. Petitions can and do work and if anyone wants links to prove that I can post them. Thanks for listening.
The truth is there’s MANY who have literally had their lives saved through the foster care system. 1 great example is the writer Dave Pelzer. His mother abused him horribly for years and his life was saved when he was put in a foster home. He’s just the 1st 1 I think of as I own some of his books and he’s inspired me and many others to keep going in our own recoveries from abuse (my abuse was the verbal/emotional kind including verbal sexual abuse). Pelzer’s foster parents were wonderful people. Again, Pelzer isn’t the only 1. Before any screaming starts, yes, I do know there’s some perverts in the foster care system. Also non-sexual abusers. I have a friend who was abused in every way by her biological family, including physical sexual abuse. Her and her siblings were put into foster care. Her foster parents were abusers also. The result was she got multiple personality disorder. However, to her credit, she did the recovery work and her personality has been intergrated for years now. Also to her credit is she doesn’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater” like she EASILY could and she does give credit where it’s due to the GOOD foster parents, the GOOD CPS people, etc. There are many. My last psychologist was a former social worker who once worked for CPS. I learned about CPS some also from her telling me about some of her 1st hand experiences. She also helped me HUGELY and I’m very thankful for her help and caring. If she’d been 1 of the perverts/abusers, her psychology practice wouldn’t have truly helped many including me. Does anyone on here TRULY KNOW if Marla herself was abused? It’s possible she WAS. Also possible she wasn’t. I get so tired of the worst being ASS-umed about people without even asking them, etc. I think it’s wonderful and NEEDED how Marla’s shared her information. She’s fighting the constant negativity which is very needed. There’s also no proof presented that Marla’s sister is a liar. I could easily say Dave Pelzer is a liar, but I won’t because there’s proof of that I’ve seen. It’s very cruel to ASS-ume people are liars because they have different experiences than our own. To Nymphtalk, I’m very sorry for what you went through. But, to automatically discount what Marla said isn’t fair at all. It would be as unfair if anyone said to me you weren’t abused and/or what you went through doesn’t compare to anyone elses’ case and you didn’t go through the same stuff as they did so it doesn’t count. I’m very glad Marla has shared with us and show that not all in the CPS/foster care system are ###*** which is very needed. Some ARE, YES! But, those who aren’t deserve to be talked about and recognized. Thanks for listening.
It is not the cases of children that are in complete imminent danger we are discussing.
I believe we are discussing the “gestapo like tactics” currently being used by CPS, which by the way is a relatively new and private organization.
I agree GOOD foster homes are needed, I also know they are not often found. The fact is that most foster parents are in it for money, because they are poor. Which is why the government can install a revolving door in their home to march children in and out of.
What needs to happen is this- Audit every foster parent. Complete, unannounced audits. Every time I reported my foster abuse, an inspection was done on the home, and to make sure the state didn’t lose a much needed foster parent, the parent was given 24 hour notice of the planned inspection providing time to put food in the fridge where there was none, or whatever other changes need to be made prior to getting busted by inspectors.
We also need to eliminate profit from CPS workers having a parents rights terminated and getting the child adopted. We need to address the dishonest practices such as keeping parents uninformed of laws so that they do not know their rights. CPS workers have come out admitting that they were told if a parent asked for copies of statutes or any information that could help them with reunification efforts they are to be denied access to such.
We need to instill sting operations to identify when a CPS worker lies in a report.
Guardian ad litem needs to return to a volunteer position. Currently, judges recommend their favorite guardians and will sometimes only accept that guardian in a case. Fees can range from 500-1500 to have the guardian evaluate the childs position. And people say it is wrong to profit from sex…I’d rather profit from sex than the misfortune of a child.
Until we take the profit out of dependency cases, we will continue to rescue some children from family abuse, delivering them to foster abuse and we will continue to see some children that were not abused delivered to foster abuse.
I have personally worked as a volunteer at The Covenant House and Kids in Distress I have seen horrible abuse it is true, but I have also seen cases like Marla described. Marla described a drug addicted mother who moved often and had alot of boyfriends. Hardly reason to uproot a child.
Look at it through their eyes. Being taken away from home is not always what the child wants, it is terrifying.
We live in a time when family dysfunction is very common and when you make it legal to take a child away because they witnessed their parents yell at each other, that is gestapo like.
Go to youtube and search CPS.
Learn about the nightmare from those that live it. Workers, Parents, and Children.
Then when your done look into the “treatment” industry, another industry that makes millions imprisoning children.
nymphtalk wrote:
“Marla described a drug addicted mother who moved often and had alot of boyfriends. Hardly reason to uproot a child.
Look at it through their eyes. Being taken away from home is not always what the child wants, it is terrifying.”
First, I want to say thank you for all that you have posted here about CPS. I have learned a lot from you.
In my sister’s case as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), I believe she was correct in recommending that the court give custody of Emmy to the foster parents (now adoptive parents).
Emmy’s birth parents voluntarily gave 5 month old Emmy to the foster care system, and they had so neglected her that already as an infant she showed signs of attachment disorder. Her first and only foster parents cared for her from 5 months to 18 months, at which point the birth mother, whom I’ll call Sue, started trying to get Emmy back.
Sue was a 15-year-old high school drop out runaway when Emmy was born. Sue was addicted to cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol. The court waited more than a year for her to get sober, and she repeatedly failed drug and alcohol tests. The court scheduled regular supervised visits for Sue and Emmy, and Sue failed to show up for about half of these visits. Sue had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but she was not seeking any treatment. Sue moved in with various men for roughly 2 to 5 weeks at a time. The problem wasn’t that she had a lot of boyfriends; the problem was that she had no home of her own, was not a home owner or lease holder anywhere, and she had no stable residence. Sue never had a job or any source of income; she took money from Sue’s own adoptive mother, who was over 70 and too old to raise a new child, and Sue had a history of violence toward her elderly adoptive mother. There was no support, moral or material, from anyone in Sue’s adoptive extended family, and Sue’s birth mother was a paranoid schizophrenic.
The foster parents, Sonny and Liz, were an adult married couple, both employed, homeowners, drug free, and mentally stable, with a strong support system of extended family living nearby. My sister periodically showed up for unscheduled visits, without telling CPS she was going to visit so they couldn’t warn Sonny and Liz, and she always found their house in perfect order and the child well cared for. Emmy’s attachment disorder disappeared within a few months of Sonny’s and Liz’s care. They gave her things she never got from Sue, including consistent attention, physical affection, stability, and medical care. They have now adopted Emmy, and my sister stays in touch and visits them, and Emmy is thriving.
If a mother who uses cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol every day, has no income, has no stable home, and refuses to get treatment for her severe mental illness, is your idea of a fit parent, then you and I are going to have to agree to disagree.
Otherwise, I’m grateful for the information you’ve given about the abuses committed by CPS, and I’m genuinely sorry for the hell you’ve gone through.
nymphtalk, I do know now that CPS abuses its power and engages in evil behavior far, far more than I had realized before you told me. I just think that is not what happened in this particular case. You obviously know what you’re talking about and I believe you.
Two things marla,
1. the level of detail you provided is enough to get your sister fired, you should be a bit more discreet and your sister should be far, far, FAR, more discreet
2. Regardless of the level of details and the situation you discribed something still bothers me. You said CPS threatened(of course you didnt use that specific word) that getting her other child back would be far more difficult if she didnt drop her case to get back her eldest.
Doesnt that bother you? If this woman is such a train wreck is it really fair to sacrifice one child up into her care in order to make the adopton case for her other child run a bit more smoothly when it was by all appearances a sure thing any way?
No names were given with the case Marla described. No location was given either. I’m sure it’ll be VERY easy to find all the information on this exact case that’s been talked about (eyeroll). Like clockwork, the negativity has started! Marla will defend herself, then another negative thing will be brought up, then another…
lujlp,
1. I did not provide any information that would make it possible to identify these people; no surnames, some of the first names changed, no location, and no dates. I revealed only what and why, not who, where, or when. I had to give some detail in order to answer nymphtalk’s questions.
2. lujlp wrote: “You said CPS threatened(of course you didnt use that specific word) that getting her other child back would be far more difficult if she didnt drop her case to get back her eldest.”
No, I never said or implied that. The two cases of the first child and the second child were totally different because only the elder child was involved in a custody dispute since her foster parents wanted to adopt her. The foster parents of the younger child weren’t trying to adopt or get custody. Therefore, the only legal barrier to Sue getting the younger child back, was Sue’s ability to demonstrate her own fitness by staying sober and eventually getting a job and a place to live (even mental illness treatment isn’t mandatory for someone not in legal psychiatric commitment). CPS offered, not “threatened”, that if Sue gave up the first child, they would expedite Sue getting second child back IF she demonstrated her fitness, not if she remained, in your words, “a train wreck.”
Emmy’s adoption case was NOT a “sure thing” since Sue was not suspected of that locality’s narrow definition of child abuse (violence beyond normal spanking, or sexual abuse). Sonny and Liz opted for a jury trial, because jurors who are not lawyers may be persuaded to look beyond the law and vote for the child’s best interests, whereas a judge might rule on the law alone. Sue gave up the fight just before the case was scheduled to go to trial.
I can’t answer questions about the case without going into even more detail, as you can see. I think I’ve said more than enough to demonstrate that Emmy was and is better off in her adoptive parents’ care.
Laura, until marla mentioned that she changed names we had a story where the first names of the child, the mother, and both adoptive parents were mentioned.
marla, Its not that hard to run an IP trace and get someones real address and real name, then from there finding out your sisters name working for CPS would be a breeze. Walking in knowing the names and detalis of a childs case and the name of the worker could have gotten her fired. Technically even with the names changed a halfway competent person who wanted to cause trouble could – so my advice about discression was sound
And when a government agency offers help, but only conditionally(that condition being to do as your told and to shut up as well), it is indeed a threat
Dear Marla, it’s wonderful you don’t wilfully deny the severity of bipolar disorder. This is a very serious disease that without treatment can lead to psychosis. I know this 1st hand from 1 of my family members. It’s a literal chemical imbalance in the brain and thanks to great progress with drugs there’s more choices than ever before as far as which drugs to take that have the least side effects, etc. It’s a very serious disease and to not treat it is a risk that isn’t worth taking. Thanks for listening.
Yes, I know the discussion is about the cases where CPS and/or foster parents haven’t done the right thing and/or are truly perverts and/or abusers. However, what I’m talking about is very related to this. It isn’t off topic. The GOOD people in CPS and the GOOD foster parents need defending here. They need and deserve defending because with this group of people the good 1’s don’t deserve to be lumped in with the bad 1’s, i.e. not all of them made out as bad. That’s very unfair to the good 1’s in the group. As far as drug addiction goes, it’s the consensus of the many good psychologists (I was blessed to get 2 of those to help me with my recovery from abuse and trauma), psychiatrists, and the other people who help people with recovery work (such as in Alcoholics Anonymous, etc.) that it IS abuse when a parent is abusing any kind of drug. I also have 1st hand knowledge of this. My Dad was what you would call a “closet alcoholic”. He never was physically abusive. He was verbally/emotionally abusive at rare times (thank God it was never a pattern like it was with my Mother). However, even though he wasn’t physically abusive, etc., his alcoholism still had a bad effect on my brothers and I. This has been shown over and over with many families besides mine. I also know from being a recovering alcoholic myself (I have nearly 12 years sober) how devastating the effects are also on the adults in our lives. It also affects others in your life even if they’re not your kids. The effects on kids is huge. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t have been a need to have this named (adult child of an alcoholic syndrome). As far as looking up the stuff you’re talking about, I’ve done that and I’m also familiar with the wrong stuff going on at times in the treatment industry. I pointed out earlier on here there’s many petitions online to at least TRY to reform the bad stuff in the system. I say try all we can with the time we have to change the bad. I think your ideas for reform are great and thanks for sharing them.
Here is some first hand knowledge: The foster parents who took me in were wonderful people who treated me like their own child. A friend of mine that I met years later had a similar experience. Another friend of mine was just approved to become a foster parent. She and her husband are caring people who love kids and want to help them.
I’m sorry that you had a bad experience, and I don’t want to minimize that, but don’t tar all foster parents with the same brush. Any anger that I have is toward the CPS workers who tore our family apart on very little evidence. They took me away despite the fact that I told them over and over that my parents didn’t abuse me. And yes, even though my foster parents were great, I cried every day for the first month I was with them.
Dear Vicky, I’m very sorry for the bad things you went through. THANK YOU for pointing out how wrong it is to tar all the foster parents with the same brush. Your experiences prove that not all of them are perverts and/or abusers. Thanks again for sharing.
Dear Marla, thank you for sharing. This is very needed and a nice break from the constant negativity. Yes, these programs are needed. Not all who work for them are perverts and/or abusers. Imagine going back to what I call the “good old days” where there were no programs to help these kids or help the abused old people and also abused animals. You’re right in that some kids don’t have anyone who can take them in. This applies to some adults also. My family was in the position a while back of having to deal with 1 of our family members needing what’s called “guardianship”. I say thank God for these programs (including the 1’s that cover “guardianship”) because they ARE TRULY NEEDED by some. I always get a laugh from SOME (NOT ALL) of these people who say there should be no government interference in anything that have never had to deal with these issues. I don’t say that from my own ASS-umptions. I only say it in the cases of the 1’s who state they’ve never been abused, never had to deal with guardianship, etc.
The problem is with health and safety is (Rowe touched on this) is that there are WAY too many lowlifes that know how to work the system by suing people for all they’ve got over criminal things like “your dog bit me, when I was only trying to break into your house” to petty stuff like “I don’t like the detergent you use on your washing” (true story!!!) and because their’s so many people willing to make money off these things it’s only natural that companies do “safety first” as a way of covering their backsides.
Love Rowe’s comments. Thanks for sharing.
Hello there! longhair… How funny to see you here!
CPS, as it presently exists, is a classic case of Statist overreach. The laws involved are so vague, and the CPS agents have so much leeway, that parents have no way of knowing how to behave so that CPS cannot act. In a perfect world, with an all-wise State, this might be tolerable. In an imperfect world, it is a recipe for abuse of power only slightly less explosive than sweating dynamite.
Not that this state of affairs is unique to our era. I recall that during one of the booms of Irish immigration self-rightious Protestants in the New York area succeeded in having children taken from poor Irish families, so that they wouldn’t be raised in “Popish Superstition”.
*spit*
Governments are bad at anything requiring judgement and nuance. They should avoid tasks that require large amounts of same.
Thank you for pointing out that it is nothing new.
Did you know that in a case of domestic violence where a mother is the only victim of the violence, not the children mind you, just the mother if that mother does not force that abuser out of her life immediately after the first incident her children can be removed from her for something they made up to steal them called “failure to protect from domestic violence”?
How many families do you know that have never had the parents yell at each other?
Literally. A father yelling at a wife. The wife does nothing. The wifes children can be taken from her.
There is no such thing as a perfect home or a perfect upbringing and what the state provides is far far away from healthy.
This is an important topic especially for sex workers as that is the latest fad in the CPS kidnapping tactics.
They lie in reports. They lie to parents. They stall case plans.
It is a nightmare that needs to be stopped now!
These parents lose their children for an addiction, a bad decision, a mistake and once the state has the kids they won’t let go.
Get on you tube. Get in google. Learn the facts. Talk to the victims of CPS.
This is a good topic for Hooker Radio.
You are right about all of that. But it has nothing to do with what I said.
nymphtalk, I absolutely agree with you that CPS taking a child from a parent for “failure to protect from domestic violence” against someone other than the child, is an outrage. The child’s safety should be all that matters.
Marla and the andrewsarchus did a good job of explaining some of the problems with CPS. There’s also the fact that some people deliberately seek out jobs which will give them access to children because they want to use that access for disgusting purposes. This is a lot more complicated than “drunk with power.” Not that you don’t have some of that too, but there’s more to it.
Today we have people who do all the dirty jobs Mike Rowe has shown us on his TV show, and we have many thousands who, in a time of war with no draft, volunteer for service. People go trekking in the deserts and jungles, camping in the Arctic, and engage in such sports as skydiving and NASCAR. As our day-to-day lives become safer, we seek out danger on our own terms.
Yes, there is a tendency in questions of safety to assume (as in so many other aspects of society) that we can punish our way to Utopia. But the people who would have been adventurous in another age, are adventurous today.
andrewsarchus thanks you.. (What’s the emoticon for big crocodilian grin?)
;-E ?
That’ll do. 😀
This is a really, really good article Maggie and I’m glad you’ve discovered Mike Rowe!
He is one helluva a driven man and he is really in touch with real people.
I don’t know if you’ve seen this – but if you haven’t – you’ll really enjoy it …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-udsIV4Hmc
It’s Mike Rowe addressing a crowd of IT professionals. He talks about a segment of “Dirty Jobs” that he did on castrating Lambs – but he uses that story to get across the message that no one knows everything. And yes he talks about “Safety Third” … and discusses how we have declared war on honest work here in America. It’s hilarious and very enlightening – I found myself wishing he was running for office!
I also noticed that he’s an extremely attractive man. I do not say that often, and I probably wouldn’t have said it about him had I simply seen his picture without reading his words first. But after writing this column, when I went searching for a picture of him to use I certainly noticed it. I almost used this one, but the pic with the “Danger” sign was too appropriate to pass up.
Hmmm … I’m really not that attracted to the guy. 😛
But I am amazed at his talent and intellect. He’s was apparently a pretty good opera singer at one time and used to be on host on QVC.
There’s all kinds of stuff on him on YouTube and he once joked to a reporter, who talked about a clip of him singing into a karaoke machine he was selling on QVC … “YouTube is KILLING me! Just KILLING me!”
I love Mike Rowe – he is seriously made of win. The uh, *ahem* biceps are nice too. 😉
You have hit on a major peeve of mine.
The safety nannies are a bit worse in the UK than here, currently, but believe me the USA is working hard to catch up. I recall a woman I knew of several years ago, in the UK, who was not permitted to make tea for the old people in her care at the care home because she “didn;t have a health and safety qualification”. She’d been making the tea all her life, and how much training it takes to put the kettle on I can’t imagine, any idiot can do it.
I think entering into sex work requires a certain amount of physical courage. It also requires being able to realize your physical boundaries, and capabilities, and what’s safer and what’s less. Those who can’t do this are casualties, sad perhaps, but inevitable.
As I’ve said, I liked working the rough sex edge. But in years of doing that, I never got seriously injured, or even any thing beyond some occasional minor scrapes. I knew my body, what I was capable, of, and when to draw a line. Some might say I took risks, or did things that could have damaged me. Well, I’m still around, and, with the exception of arthritis, am healthier than most.
None of us gets out of this world alive. Let’s enjoy our lives, and bodies, all we can while we’re here, and not worry so much abut adding one more year of senility to the end of it.
Bravo! As I always say, it’s not when we die that counts, but how we live. 🙂
As a child of working class parents, the testimony Mike Rowe presented to Congress warmed my cold, black heart.
http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/dirtyjobs/mike-rowe-senate-testimony.html
I like that link.
Yesterday I was designing a DNA scanning chip for a semiconductor company. Today I replaced the fill valve in my toilet. A couple of weeks ago I repaired my home’s A/C unit by replacing a capacitor. This afternoon I will be replacing some shingles on my roof.
The biggest problem I have is that to make money as a “jack of all trades” you have to get certified by the government in some way for most of the stuff I already do for myself. I have my own welder and I am perfectly capable of welding almost anything but I can’t get a job doing it because I am not “certified”.
Mike Rowe is right that we need to honor, and train kids for, vocational trades. My cousin came to America as an immigrant, immediately got work as an auto mechanic, and now owns his own auto repair garage business, self-employed and making a good living without a university degree. It’s not a coincidence that so many auto mechanics today are immigrants; the American public school system no longer trains young people for that job, so America has to bring in auto mechanics from other countries.
I work in a coal mine, I go rock climbing, I own guns and go hunting, I was in the Army and was deployed overseas, I ride a motorbike, I train in martial arts, I eat food cooked with trans fats, I… – Shit, I’m just a danger to myself and everyone around me. Please lock me up and throw away the key. The world will be a SAFER place.
And so will you be safer, Stick, bless your heart. 😉