License for Parenting

[Sleepy]

It's really quite a shame how little social workers are paid, considering their role in the lives of many families. They have to schedule visitations, doctor appointments (the vast majority of the kids there see several doctors due to abuse), deal with court cases, help assess the situation to determine whether the parents deserve another chance or whether the kids are better off in foster care... and they have to do that for multiple children. Juggling that many responsibilities at once would leave my head spinning, but the folks who do it well are really dedicated. It'd be nice to give that entire system an overhaul so we can get more workers who are adequately paid, so the children are adequately cared for.

Another problem with the system is that they give parents too many chances. When the kids are taken away, they basically give the parents a list of things they need to do to be able to have their kids returned. They oftentimes fight as hard as they can to keep the kids with their biological parents, regardless of abuse they may've endured, and that sickens me. You abuse your children, you don't deserve to be a parent.

[Canadian Mojo]

Tiger, is creating then raising a child a right or a privilege? Let me rephrase that. Is creating and then attempting to raise a child a right or a privilege?

Going by the principle of "your rights end where other people's rights begin", it's a privilege, since a child's right to be raised in a loving household that can properly provide for them trumps a parent's right to have a child they're not fit to raise.

Interestingly enough that is the same argument used by anti-abortion groups. A potential human trumps the rights of an actual human. I strongly disagree with that philosophy in whatever form it manifests itself.

Fetuses don't have rights, children do.

Very true, but you are giving preferential rights to something that hasn't even gotten as far as the fetus stage yet.

In my opinion, and it's only my opinion, governments owe it to their citizens to give them all the tools they can to help them enjoy their rights responsibly before even contemplating taking them away. Would we even be having this discussion if CPS was beefed up and backed by better laws, home economics/family studies/parenting was mandatory in high school, and we actually did something meaningful to eliminate poverty, and the all other things we can do are done? If the answer is yes, then we look at curtailing people's rights.

[Smurfette Principle]

Thing is, what counts as one strike? You've got people who are putting hot sauce on their children's tongues and holding them under cold showers and that's acceptable, and then you have children being taken away from their parents because they are too fat.

[Witchyjoshy]

Thing is, what counts as one strike? You've got people who are putting hot sauce on their children's tongues and holding them under cold showers and that's acceptable, and then you have children being taken away from their parents because they are too fat.

And this is the major issue.

Where do you draw the line?  Is the parent who swats her kid's rear once for nearly running into traffic is as bad as the parent who beats his children's rear ends with a belt until they're raw and bloody?

[Sleepy]

At the very least, we can draw a one strike line for things like obvious, major physical abuse. You would think that'd be common sense, but I've seen kids get returned to their parents after such abuse because the parents completed all the "required steps."