Posted on 01/19/2015 2:55:18 PM PST by lifeofgrace
Hey moms and dads, if you’re like me, before you had kids, you imagined yourself teaching them, raising them, and being responsible for them. After generations of our parents and grandparents shedding their responsibility to the government in exchange for a selfish, me-centered life, we no longer have primary authority to raise our children as we see fit. That authority now lies with the government.
We’ve given away so much authority to the all-powerful state in the name of protecting children, that it’s a crap-shoot when kids who really need protection will get it. And when the state gets it wrong, kids die. The solution to every problem is now to call 911. See a kid alone on the playground? Call it in. See a young black girl with a much older white man? Must be a sexual predator. Drop a dime.
When you live by the government, trusting Uncle Sugar with all of life’s decisions, you die by the government.
We’re so dependent on “someone in authority” to handle things, that if you try to be Joe Citizen, you take the chance of a huge life-screwing backfire as your reward. Best not to get involved. I’ve had that thought plenty of times—don’t get involved, nothing good can come of it. I wonder how many kids end up harmed because of that thought? And as a parent, thinking this way makes life stressful. Everyone trying to help is a potential harm to my kids, and everyone watching me might drop a dime and make me a criminal. I prefer not to see the world this way, but the incredible selfishness of the “me” generation who brought me up made the world we live in, and yes, they left us with a no-strings, all-about-me, Uncle-Sugar-please-handle-this world.
There’s a place for law enforcement to take over. If I, for example, tell my lawyer that I’m God, or ask her to read the Bible to me in Swedish, then bring my kid to a church I’ve never attended and ask the priest to baptize my six year-old, I deserve to be separated from my child. I deserve to be locked up in a padded cell while I sort things out.
But when every divorced couple is calling 911 on their ex-spouse, or trying to get the alphabet-soup of agencies who are entrusted with our kids’ safety involved as some twisted kind of vengeance for long-dead marital crimes, imagined and real, the system becomes fragile and absurdly broken. A truly crazy person like the father who did the “I am God” bit, whose own lawyer called 911, was judged by police not to be a threat to his six year old daughter. Hours later he threw her off a bridge and killed her.
With my own kids, I’m always looking over my shoulder. I bet you are too.
We could spend hours swapping stories of our kids’ OMG moments. Like when I arrived in the living room to a tower of Babel made of tables and chairs stacked precariously and mounted by my darling four year-old so he could reach the toy that we placed way up above the fireplace mantle—specifically to keep it from him. You can tell me stories of four year-olds attempting to go for a drive in the family car, or escaping from escape-proof doors in the middle of the night.
Or when I walked into the kitchen and nearly impaled myself on the chef’s knife my five year-old was holding, pointy-end toward me. After my heart restarted and I stopped screaming like a little girl, I heard him say that he was just trying to help, because I had left it on the counter. He learned from me that chef’s knives were dangerous and shouldn’t be left out. At least he held it by the handle, pointed away from himself.
Kids will be kids, right?
But what if someone else saw that scene with the knife? Or saw kids walking down the street alone, or playing in my front yard unsupervised. I’m sure you’ve had that moment of fear: if someone saw that and reported it, I bet they’d accuse of me child neglect. When your kid gets lost in the grocery store, or at the amusement park, or runs away from mom and dad, or screams bloody murder (“please don’t hit me”) to get his way, do you ever look around sheepishly to make sure nobody’s got their cell phone out, reporting you? I know I have.
Since we’ve given all parenting authority to the government, once they get involved, it’s over. It’s over for you, and it’s over for your kids. You’re down the rabbit-hole, all the way, and there’s no turning back. The government works one way, and only one way: its way. Not my way or your way. People who carry a badge, or worse, a clipboard, can really mess with our lives, and with our kids. They do it day in and day out. When they show up at your door, you’re automatically a suspect of child neglect.
Someone dropped a dime on you. Snapped a phone pic. Posted something on Facebook. Tweeted that “father of the year” moment. Maybe they saw your kid sick and you casually mentioned using a herbal or home remedy instead of taking them to the doctor. Oops, that’s neglect. Maybe you believe more in prayer and nutrition than antibiotics or immunizations. As for immunizations, I believe in them—I think it prevents more dread diseases than the stories of terrible side effects, or autism, can prove (scientifically or empirically) against them. But I don’t feel that we should take your kids away if you don’t agree with me. And I don’t think the government should have that authority either (but they do).
Paranoid yet?
Once you’ve been accused of child neglect, there’s no end of living hell. The state-appointed protectors of children never have to stop investigating. Never. When a case is opened with one of the alphabet soup of agencies responsible for vetting parents, it stays open forever or as long as they decide. If the case worker feels like you should lose your kids (maybe because you are a little too “religious” for their taste), they’ll never close it. A case gives the government unfettered and uninhibited access to your home, your kids, your life, opening every area of your life to some stranger’s judgment.
Refuse to cooperate with the state’s authority? They’ll take your kids away.
Take your kids. Your kids. Forcibly from your home. Screaming from your arms. With you handcuffed or restrained by police.
A couple in Silver Spring, Maryland, Danielle and Alexander Meitiv, chooses to raise their kids to be independent. They call it “free range children”. They’ve got a very mature ten year-old boy and his six year-old sister, and they allow those kids to walk a mile to a local park, crossing busy streets at crosswalks. Halfway home from the park, the police picked up the kids and brought them home. They reported the incident to CPS (child protective services, one of a alphabet-soup agencies), who decided that the kids were too young to walk to the park. This story was reported in the Washington Post.
The Meitivs say that on Dec. 20, a CPS worker required Alexander to sign a safety plan pledging he would not leave his children unsupervised until the following Monday, when CPS would follow up. At first he refused, saying he needed to talk to a lawyer, his wife said, but changed his mind when he was told his children would be removed if he did not comply.If you’re charged with murder, the police have to stop questioning you if you ask for a lawyer. If you have a statement in front of you, and the police ask you to sign it, and you ask for a lawyer, they can’t threaten you. But CPS can threaten to take your kids away if you don’t sign their “safety plan” lawyer or no.
I can’t think of a worse punishment having my children forcibly removed from my home. If someone wants to take my kids, they have to come through me, and my fists, my baseball bat, my pistol, my rifle, my flamethrower (if I had one I’d use it) and whatever else I have at hand to defend my kids. I’m not going to let them go without a fight. But all the state needs to take my kids is a clipboard. No matter what I do to protect them, if the state removes my kids, they’re going to use whatever force necessary to take them, including killing me. At that point, it’s futile. Alexander Meitiv made the right—the only—decision: sign whatever they give you. Pay the ransom, or lose your kids.
You can’t just disagree with the state when they come to investigate your parenting. They never stop coming back. They walk through your home, look at your laundry, check out your finances, count the Bibles in your house; they interview your kids at school and they show up unannounced at whatever hour they feel like. They don’t even honor the right of privacy the Supreme Court grants you to practice sodomy in your bedroom, or kill your unborn child.
If your thirteen year-old gets pregnant, and her school counselor takes her to the abortion clinic without your knowledge to terminate the pregnancy, that’s not criminal, it’s protected.
If you dress your three year-old boy as a girl and call him Emily because you believe he is a little girl trapped in a boy’s body—because he told you so, that’s not criminal, and you’ll get back-slaps from liberal society.
If you let your ten and six year-old kids walk to the park by themselves, a mile away, you’ll be hounded forever as child neglecters.
If you let your nine year-old daughter play at the park by herself while you work at the McDonalds down the street because you can’t afford babysitting, you’ll be charged with a crime.
If you leave your preschool (not baby) kids in your car for five minutes with the windows open in the 7 Eleven parking lot while you run in to buy them a Coke, you’ll be arrested. (If you leave your baby—or dog—in a hot car, not only are you a criminal, but you are also a terrible human being. There’s no excuse for this, no “I forgot”. Period. End of discussion.)
If you pack a Bible with your kid’s lunch to take to school and read during free time, it will likely be sent home with a note advising you not to do it again. It’s not illegal, but the school teachers don’t seem to know that. If you do it again, you may be asked to visit the school principal, but on their schedule. If you visit on your own without an appointment, you’ll be charged with trespassing. If you make a scene, you’ll be arrested. Then they’ll take your kids away.
It's all our fault if we let this continue. We have the power to stop it, and take back responsibility for our kids. But taking back responsibility takes work. It means building families instead of tearing them down or abandoning them. It takes unselfishness.
Listen moms and dads, the most important thing you’ll ever do is raise your kids.
It’s THE Most Important Thing.
And it takes both of you.
That means you don’t leave each other for selfish reasons and use the kids as ping-pong balls or negotiating tools, or instruments of vengeance. You work out your differences, for the sake of each other, and for the sake of your kids. I know, it’s not fashionable to do that—it’s terribly old-fashioned to stay together “for the sake of the kids”. It’s even more old fashioned to fix a marriage instead of discard it. And yeah, it’s hard. So what? If we don’t learn how to take back responsibility for our kids, in this generation, then we are giving our children over to the most selfish generation yet: the one who can’t even give them basic protection from harm. If we continue to give up our parental responsibilities to the all-powerful state, our kids will grow up in a world of parenting in an American gulag.
When your kids become parents, do you want them to bow to Uncle Sugar for every need, and call 911 for every problem? Or do you want your grandkids to be raised by their parents according to the values you’ve instilled? Remember, Uncle Sugar is always waiting for someone to drop a dime. And the next dime might be on you.
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How far away are we from ‘subversives’ being arrested/disappered for writing such an article?
closer than most think
If CPS comes to your home and threatens to take the kids tell them “Go ahead. I can’t afford them anymore. But if you take them, don’t plan on bringing them back.” They’ll backtrack like a crawfish. Their “goal”, no matter the problem, is to reunite the family. Even if a child is being molested.
Not advocating anything, but if they are like most agencies, they lose you if you change regions or if the investigator passes away.
Some bitch called cps on me because my daughter was constipated.
“”After generations of our parents and grandparents shedding their responsibility to the government in exchange for a selfish, me-centered life””
GENERATIONS? He’s certainly not speaking for me or my parents/grandparents, even my great grandparents and I’m sure he’s not speaking for the majority of freepers. After that introduction, I don’t care to read the rest.
You have no idea how far this goes. One engineer had to put up with CPS nonsense when one manager known for backstabbing called CPS and made stuff up about the engineer. It took a year for that engineer to clear his name.
I got a visit because my 18-month old picked up a bread crust that I had tossed out for the birds.
That is terrible advice. Think how much it would hurt your children to hear you say that! Also, your parental rights might just get terminated right then and there if CPS takes a dislike to you. If your children are young and attractive (especially if they are white) your children will likely be placed for adoption by “married” homosexual couples. It is a terrible situation to be in, of course, but try to be as inoffensive as possible, respectful, say as little as possible, be as noncommittal as possible when asked loaded questions. Reassure your children by your positive pleasant demeanor, and make them feel as secure as you can, and make them believe you are in control, even though you are as close to helpless as you can be. Then if the worst happens, and your children are taken, get on the phone asap and get a good lawyer. Your lawyer will be pleased to hear that you have not gone stupid and shot yourself in the foot.
Better yet, if you have young children, being aware how crazy this country has become, get some advice ahead of time so that if you should ever have to face CPS, you will know the best way to handle it.
My point? People my parents age our some of the last people to still be married to each other for life.
I was in 5th grade when my first friend's parents got divorced. That was a shock. Now who is shocked when someone gets divorced? Before all the people flood in to affirm that they have only been married once. I know that. I am on my first and only marriage, but look around the 30 somethings are so afraid of divorce they don't even bother to get married. Again, please refrain from telling me how many 30 somethings you personally know that are married. I did not say NONE.
I realize that "we" (as a society) have raised a generation of people that will spend hundreds of dollars on phones and electronic gizmos of all kinds and then turn around and lecture us about being Green. If they did without all that crap maybe they could stay home and raise their kids like women did before. That's the way it is folks. You have people that receive food stamps,WIC,HUD,HEAT, ABP non-food, Gas cards, free phones, if they work 20 hours a week they get a tax refund, Free daycare even if they don't work, head start, Medicare, I can't think if I missed anything, but you get the point.
No matter what they are taught at home they are taught at school that sex is OK. They were just starting this indoctrination when I was in high school. 79-82, that's when most of my male teachers were Vietnam draft dodgers. It makes a difference. We need to get these men and women coming back from war now, to become teachers and take the education system back. Oh an get rid of the Dept of Ed. as well.
“”Apparently, like everything else in this country you don’t like,””
Have we met? You’re a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?
So once we were on the metro train in the DC area going to the airport. I had the baby and we were traveling without dad to see the grandparents in Florida. The baby could talk - way too early.
So this elderly black woman gets on the train and she’s a mess. Looks really sick. The white of her eyes are yellow, her hair is all matted and she’s obese. She is the type of person I would give my seat to had I not had the baby and luggage. There were no seats so she reached up for a strap to hang on as the train pulled out. When all of a sudden the baby yells “Mommy, a gorilla!”
Everyone gasped and I yelled “I am sorry. He’s a baby and should not even be talking yet!” A black woman behind me leaned up to look and yelled “It’s a baby. How’s he talking already?” And she started laughing. Then she got up and give the old lady her seat.
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