One of the concepts is "sheltering" our children to keep the influences of the world from dragging their hearts away from their parents.
Posted on 05/24/2011 3:26:20 PM PDT by Former Fetus
When many couples have a baby, they send out an email to family and friends that fills them in on the key details: name, gender, birth weight, that sort of thing. (You know the drill: "Both Mom and little Ethan are doing great!")
But the email sent recently by Kathy Witterick and David Stocker of Toronto, Canada to announce the birth of their baby, Storm, was missing one important piece of information. "We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now--a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place? ...)," it said.
That's right. They're not saying whether Storm is a boy or a girl.
There's nothing ambiguous about the baby's genitals. But as Stocker puts it: "If you really want to get to know someone, you don't ask what's between their legs." So only the parents, their two other children (both boys), a close friend, and the two midwives who helped deliver the now 4-month-old baby know its gender. Even the grandparents have been left in the dark.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I never insinuated that you would call CPS. You said that you think this family should be investigated. CPS is the agency that investigates these types of cases. I hope others don’t have your same attitude that we should just randomly investigate families that we think aren’t raising their children right (remember you have no proof of abuse only your suspicion). The first thing that CPS usually does is to remove children from the home. Then they begin their investigation. They have no constitutional restraints. The family courts are closed and families are usually put under a gag order and have no recourse.
I never made on accusation about you. I especially never made an accusation against you that has the potential to destroy your family and cause you to lose your children.
I have two younger children that both have an biologically assigned sex. One is a boy and the other is a girl. By virtue of their age, neither of them is a sexual being (as in sexual intercourse). They are children. Your biologicallay assigned sex as a child and sexual intercourse are NOT closely related issues. They do not become sexual until they reach puberty.
I see these parents as confused liberals that do not want societal norms foisted upon their children. They think they are cutting edge with this nonsense about not telling the child’s gender. Their children will certainly suffer from their choice of parenting as do most children to a lesser degree.
You conintually claim that there is no evidence and I again will tell you that I disagree. I see no reason to list the evidence again just because you restate your claim of there needing to be evidence. I do not know what kind of evidence you would need.
As to your opinions about how CPS operates I am very sympathetic.
I now see what I wrote that caused you to think I said you would call CPS. I said “call on CPS”. I didn’t mean you would make a call to CPS but that you were calling for these people to be investigated. Sorry for the confusion. I did not think you were going to call CPS on these people.
What I am tired of is the attitude that I see alot around here that this or that parent needs to be investigated, needs their children removed, needs their parental rights taken away, shouldn’t be ALLOWED to breed. These are from people that CLAIM to believe in individual freedom.
Removal of children and termination of parental rights should be rare and in extreme cases. It should come after a conviction and not before an investigation. An investigation should come after some evidence that a crime has been committed. IOW, deal with them like any other criminal.
I guess you and I have a different definition of evidence. I see evidence that the children are being raised differently (weirdly). The boy has long braids and looks like a girl.
I do not see evidence of sexual abuse. The oldest actually sounds quite well adjusted considering his circumstances. His parents dress him in girls clothes but he doesn’t want to be mistaken for a girl.
LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER!!!
So tired of this. On what criminal grounds would you call for the removal of this child from their home?
There is no confusion. You have throughout your posts to me insinuated that I take lightly my claim that nthese parents should be investigated. I do not disagree with you as to what warrants an investigation. I do not take issues dealing with CPS lightly though at all as you insinuate and I do agree that it is serious issue and that the system does not seem to operate very well at all many times and that is a problem.
Obviously you do not find it too alarming that the parents seem to be coaching there kids to try to be genderless. There is no neutrality in regards to choice, it is obvious that the kid is being coached and/or manipulated in my opinion.
And I am not sure what age you think co-sleeping with your children is appropiate up until, the article says the boy Jazz is seven, I think, so how long does he share a bed with his parents before you might be concerned?
The philosophy of the parents also fits a philosophy that would seem prone to abuse, imo. No inhibitions, shun all social norms, let the child explore whatever they want, let the kids decide who they want to be (but we’ll secretly coach them),etc...
The above should read ‘I do disagree with you on warrants an investigation’ and not that I do not disagree.
The reason that the parents speak of the children keeping secrets is based upon the premise that the outside world will not understand.
It is not because of some family crisis or family secret that could damage the family or something. They are teaching the kids isolation and to lie because outsiders are bad.
That is a telltale sign of abuse, imo.
What is even worse is that the parents of these unfortunate children are teachers. Not only do they mess up their own kids’ lives, but they also have the opportunity to wreck the lives of other people’s children.
The secret they are keeping is the gender of the baby. The whole world now knows the children are being asked to keep a secret. It is a weird thing to keep now that the baby is born but they aren’t being asked to keep the secret because the outside world won’t understand. They are asked to keep it because they dont want anyone to know.
Where do you get the idea that the children are in isolation? The article (not sure which one) said specifically that the older child wanted his parents to tell a group leader of his that he was a boy and not a girl because he liked the person. He obviously has outside contact with people. Are you going by the fact that they home educate the children? If so this misconception aboout the isolation of homeschoolers has been refuted time and time again.
The article never stated that they consider outsiders bad. Obviously they don’t consider the grandparents outsiders or bad but they haven’t told the grandparents either. The grandparents are supportive.
None of those things are telltale signs of abuse. Here is a list if you would like to look at it. As far as WE know none of these things apply, iow there is no evidence.
http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/signs.cfm
Especially note the part about parents being secretive as a sign of abuse. They have one secret and everyone knows what it is. These parents are ANYTHING but secretive about how they are raising their children. In fact, they want the world to know. They have an agenda to share.
In regards to your other post.
I would not be concerned about a 7 year old sharing a bed with parents. Co sleeping happens all over the world often in one room houses and it isn’t wrong just because our culture thinks every child needs his own room. There isn’t anything sexual about sleeping. Of course the parents would need to find creative ways to be intimate as that would be inappropriate in a shared bed.
And btw, I can’t believe that I am in the position of defending these people. I think what they are doing is reprehensible. But you know why I do it, because there have been plenty of liberals on the internet that have said people like me should be investigated. That children like mine should be taken away. Do you know why? Because I am a Christian and I teach my children a Christian worldview and I homeschool them. If I do not defend the rights of other parents to raise their children without the interference of the state how can I expect to raise mine without it.
Again, if you have evidence that these children are being abused physically or sexually then lets see it. You don’t and you can’t because you don’t know them personally. Until you do, your comments are irresponsible.
It is some kind of social justice and race and gender oriented school. Obviously the parents of the students there already have some messed up views.
“The philosophy of the parents also fits a philosophy that would seem prone to abuse, imo. No inhibitions, shun all social norms, let the child explore whatever they want, let the kids decide who they want to be (but we’ll secretly coach them),etc...”
This kind of child rearing is very “normal” in liberal circles. Its called child centered parenting.
I do think it is abuse of their God given authority as parents but I do not think it is abuse in the sense of the state stepping in to intervene. I do not think these parents are physically or sexually abusing their children nor do I think they are neglecting their needs. I think these are very misguided people that love their children and think they are doing what is best.
If these children were enrolled in a public school, they’d be heroes. The school would bend over backwards to accommodate them from providing their won bathrooms, letting them choose the locker room they wanted to use, to making sure everyone, other children included, used the proper pronoun to use, that is the one the child him/her self wanted.
They’re just going after these kids because they’re homeschooled. The gender thing is not the issue, even though the parents are crackpots and claim to be homeschoolers.
They’re not homeschoolers who are crackpots, they are crackpots. Homeschooling does not equate to being bad parents.
The authorities aren’t the ones going after the children. It’s “conservatives” on FR that WANT the authorities to go after the children. That’s the same mentality that liberals have about Christian homeschoolers.
The only way to accomplish the parents’ goals for this child IS to homeschool.
And we should take that as a lesson - they don’t want the “normal” world influencing their parenting goals,
and neither should we.
That being said on their parental rights...
this poor kid is going to be SCREWED UP,
and their “gender neutrality” is going to fail. God is not mocked.
Any government big and powerful enough to investigate this family has enough (oh, soooooo concerned) communists in it to make **your** family miserable as well.
It is good to always remember this principle.
Wow you said very eloquently what I have been trying to say for a gazillion posts. Lol!
One of the concepts is "sheltering" our children to keep the influences of the world from dragging their hearts away from their parents.
I love the Maxwells! Saw them at homeschool convention a couple of months back. Have not read this book but have many with the similar concept. Tedd Tripp’s “Shepherding the Heart of a Child” is a wonderful book too! Talks about godly and biblical discipline and getting to the heart of the behavior(sin) and not just the behavior (fruit of the sin).
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