Kiwaukee wrote:
SNIP
She should be jailed as punishment, not because it might help her.
In that we agree, though I disagree with your previous statements of it as a deterrent to others (if that was you who made that statement, I'm just going off memory).
There's also a lot to the story that isn't in that article, which should be obvious to anyone with even the slightest background in these types of things. There would have been no need to drop *drug charges* to sever parental rights if the case had been purely what was laid out in the article. The mother's emotional involvement and the fact the woman cared enough to visit the child in the hospital and take pictures of her says there's a fuck of a lot more to this story.
Here's what I'm going to bet wasn't mentioned, but was alluded to.
I'm going to bet that the mother was extremely ill
elsewhere and once again left the girl with the retarded older brother. This is alluded to in the article when the woman claims she was sick and things got beyond her. This would explain the horrendous conditions of the house, as well as the immediate condition of the child. (Not justify, nothing could...I'm saying 'explain'). The conditions while horrific btw...are not the worst *I* have personally seen. So quite frankly I think the social worker sobbing at the curb is the author embellishing, or it was her first day on the job. The cop puking...again, I've seen men gag at a diaper in a good situation.
Because there's simply no way if those conditions are accurate that the police aren't arresting on scene. Not the bullshit of 'let CFS handle it'. Let CFS handle it is told if: there's food, no visible abuse, shelter, etc. If it's non emergency then CFS handles. This was an emergency and a criminal case.
Plus, weren't they there for dope anyway?
So...there's LOTS we're not being told, and some of it is highly manipulated in such a way that frankly I don't trust the author of the article.
So then we flash forward to Mom having been investigated previously. There's an important clue there. Social workers found lousy conditions, but nothing like what was described on the day the child was removed (obviously). And
years before the child is showing the problems she exhibited when she was taken away, despite the fact that she was experiencing social stimulus.
Also these children are not called 'feral children' by psychologists, nor is it even akin to feral children. Feral children are children which attach to an animal and model it's behavior, rather than human behavior. And there are sad examples in modern society of that happening (primarily with abused children and dogs, where children have been chained in the backyard with animals and are treated like a dog and not socialized). We HAVE case studies in modern day of these kids...and it's nothing like these situations.
I also reviewed cases like Dani's in psychology courses, and environmental autism...while also inaccurate is the best descriptor. There are other clinical names assigned, but they also are incomplete (such as attachment disorder, etc. which fails to fully encompass it). In such cases what you have are profoundly retarded children due to lack of stimulation during infancy, coupled (almost always) with severe malnutrition. These children are severely neglected, and are often kept on a bottle, and are usually found by the age of 7 or under (because they probably die off past that age due to malnutrition frankly). When found they generally have the physical appearance of infants or small toddlers, despite being years older.
If they've had no stimulation and are found after about the age of 3, there's not much hope for them. They are non-verbal and are severely retarded. Children who have better recoveries generally are found to have had SOME stimulation during critical development, usually from a relative.
It's beyond fucked up, especially when in two of the case studies we looked at (both old cases out of NY) the mother had had previous children removed from her custody.
In both cases the mother was a single parent, and completely apathetic. The mothers in all cases never fought for custodial rights. Ever. They seemed glad to be rid of them. So why didn't they call and turn the kids over?
I don't know. My guess is that they felt some family/societal pressure. In one case the mother was receiving welfare that she wouldn't have gotten without the children. And, I think part of it was sheer laziness. Similar to some people who abuse animals and can't be bothered to get off their asses and feed them, but have no real problems surrendering them to Animal Control when they finally show up...but can't be bothered to call them and ask them to come get them.
In every single instance we looked at of severe neglect, the mother and children were isolated. No one saw the children to report it. They were always impoverished, though some of them did work (but did not socialize outside of work/home). Most of them seem to have been 'caught' when the children weren't registered for school.
Oh and another point that was made repeatedly was that the mothers in these cases (almost all) tested below average IQ. However, this isn't really an accurate issue. Most of the mothers were also inner city, minority, and had not completed high school, and there's always been issues with the validity of intelligence tests when given to people who have grown up in inner city school districts, as well as cries of cultural bias.
What it failed to note was how well each person functioned outside of this issue, and that's an important indictation.
When you have neglectors who are clearly keeping themselves clean, keeping themselves fed, keeping themselves sheltered (such as the two parents who neglected an infant while gaming), clearly...CLEARLY the parents are culpable. While addiction often plays a role in those cases (parents are more interested in pursing addiction than caring for child) it certainly doesn't mitigate their responsibility. It only helps to understand the dynamics.
When you have a parent, such as in this case, who fails to care for themselves as well...then you have an issue of competence.
There are some people who are actually trying, but due to disease and/or defect are incapable of caring for a child. The responsibility these people bear IMHO is in direct purportion to their capacity to see their inability. In other words, do they think they're doing okay, or do they realize they're fucking this up and can't do it...and to what degree do they know that.
Based PURELY on the article and nothing else, I hate to say it but the mother does give indications that she actually cares about the child. And that she is incapable rather than willfully neglectful. That doesn't absolve her though, she was aware something was wrong, and she was aware that the state would try to take the child (though she claims she believed that was due to the child's retardation rather than neglect) but given the damning information the mother does give...I almost wonder if she's capable of deception beyond self deception.
I think the fact that the DA was worried she might regain custody might be due to that fact too. Family court places a HUGE distinction between intentional acts and unintentional situations. And there's a lot of programs in place to assist people in parenting when they have problems due to mental illness or retardation, etc.
Which would explain their willingness to offer up the deal they did. Mom was willing to fight for the kid and there was a risk she could stay involved with the child or more likely the rights wouldn't be severed and the child couldn't be adopted (which means no foster home can be considered a perm. situation).
Now don't think I'm defending the mother here. She was willing to sign over the kid purely in her own self interest. She sees herself as a victim, not her child. This is not a good person and to whatever extent exists she's certainly responsible.
I just think shes also Crazy McBatshit. = \
Now here's the really scary thing to think about. Schools often catch abuse. With more and more parents able to 'home school', you can bet there's going to be an awful lot of really horrible situations which no one picks up on because there's no one to see what's happening.
