The journey from there to here

Imagine the following scenario, if you will. You're a young family with six children and completely broke, with no prospects. How you got into that situation is immaterial to this hypothetical example.

You have been trying to find work, but for whatever reason it has eluded you. Upon speaking with several people about your predicament, you are approached by a lawyer and offered $50,000 each for two of your children by the wealthiest couple in the community. Being good parents, you go to the library and research the couple. Not only are they wealthy, their experience has shown them to be the ideal couple in so many ways for raising your children. Their faith is the same as yours, they enjoy many of the same activities as you do, and not only that, they are willing to offer your family virtually unlimited access to your children as they grow. So, you take the money and sell your children.

What you just did is highly illegal. You can pretty much guarantee that, if caught, you will not see ANY of your children again, and will spend a great deal of time in prison. And yet, despite its illegality in the "civilian" sector, it is done all the time by government agencies.

When Child Protective Services removes a child from the home, they receive a set amount of money from the government. This basically puts CPS workers on a "quota" system to receive funding. They receive more money if they can successfully have the child medicated by a psychiatrist, as now they are "special needs" children. But the REAL payoff comes when they can have children permanently removed from their home and adopted out. Because the demand for white children is higher than for minorities (coupled with the fact that minorities have better access to legal representation due to their minority status), white families are all too often targeted by CPS workers. And many times, when it's boiled down to the brass tacks, the reason for the child's removal is poverty (though CPS workers claim this is not so, an examination of CPS cases shows this IS the case. The case worker's subjective standards of what constitutes appropriate care are often used as the basis for removing children from the home).

Our insistence that the government is more capable of raising our children than are responsible parents is an insidious practice, and must be abolished, even if the "majority" of Americans believe in the system. You see, if the majority of Americans believe in the system, if their belief is guided by ignorance, it is, essentially groundless. And civil rights court rulings of the last 140 years have assured that we cannot use the values of the majority to unduly oppress the minority.


Comments
on Jun 08, 2005
What do you propose to replace the existing CPS system? There are cases where it is definitely necessary that a child be removed from a home due to abuse or neglect. WOuld you put forth a modified CPS with a very narrow charter, or just eliminate it altogether because the government has no right to interfere, even when the wellbeing of a child IS in fact at risk?
on Jun 08, 2005

zoomba,

I've already addressed this, but on separate threads, so I'll rehash. I believe that child protection issues should be the domain of law enforcement officials specially trained in such areas. Police officers are trained to make OBJECTIVE analyses, and they have a higher level of accountability than CPS. CPS workers don't even face contempt of court charges when they knowingly and willfully violate court orders, and one can be a CPS caseworker with a Bachelor's degree in ANY subject; it doesn't need to bear relevance to the social services field.

As for the foster care system, the relatively small number of cases where foster parents are genuinely needed should be handled by privately run, volunteer based agencies. The stipend offered to foster parents has led to the creation of "foster farms" where parents raise as many children as the state will allow in conditions sometimes FAR WORSE than those that have been used to justify the removal of a child from its parents in the first place....and this is doubly appalling because it happens in a system that is supposed to PROTECT the child.

on Jun 08, 2005
Sorry I missed your poposal on the previous threads... I definitely like the direction you put forth here. I was previously unaware of the sort of "free reign" CPS had in terms of court orders and such.