I really have nothing to add to this discussion except that I am completely horrified and disgusted at how some parents can treat their own children, foster or biological. But as an aside…
lee said:
How, exactly, does homeschooling fuck up a child? My cousin was homeschooled during her last two years of high school because they moved fairly often and she wanted to finish high school early, and she is one of the sweetest, smartest, most well-adjusted and normal people that I know. She is incredibly social and has an amazing amount of friends and extracurricular activities in college. Conversely, I know of some children who have been doing home study since kindergarten, and on average they are smarter, more polite, and even more social than many public school kids. A child can be warped due to many things, but to insinuate that homeschooling is one of them is an incorrect generalization. Since when does home schooling equate a messed up child?
In my fantasy world everyone is born with a little switch that must be turned on before they can have children. The only place the switch can be turned on is in an office downtown. Everyone who goes to the office will have their switch turned on, no exceptions.
The point of this is that you at least have to want a child bad enough to drive downtown, look for a parking space, find the office, and walk in before you can have children. You actually have to want a child bad enough to have had some forethought in the matter.
I spent some time working in a home (dormitory, hospital, whatever you want to call it) for emotionally disturbed children in Oklahoma. This facility was the last stop, the place where children went when no one else could help them. We’re talking howling-at-the-moon crazy. Two years there was all I could take.
What I learned is that children are very resiliant creatures who can generally handle the crap thown at them much better than adults. You have to really TRY if you want to screw up a kid. But once one is screwed up good and proper, you’re good to go for at least three more generations of screwed up kids.
Most of the kids I saw were born for all the wrong reasons. “I love my boyfriend, I wanted to make him happy.” “I was nineteen and all my friends already had kids.” “I was drunk . . .” “I’m an addle headed moron, and sex feels so good.” And so on.
I’m not sure what the right reasons are for having a child. I don’t claim to know how to raise children (I’ve never had any), and God knows I don’t have any answers (except, do NOT send them back to the environment that screwed them up in the first place).
Now if I could just work out all the bugs in my little fantasy world.
The link seems to be down. Hopefully the kid is in better hands. I can’t image it getting any worse then crackheads who kept him chained by the throat.
I said in efect that abuse by state licensed parents should not be taken as evidence that all parents need to be licensed by the state to prevent abuse. The way people on this board reacted to my own, admittedly unusual, descision to not allow animated Disney movie and related merchandise in my home, as evidence that I will be a bad parent indicates to me that in any parental licensing scheme will end up judging parents by irrelevant criteria. In any case abuse by licensed parents should not be taked as evidence that licensing all parents is a good idea and would prevent abuse.
You know, lee, it might be easier to get your point across if you start with the reasonable arguements and then shift into the foaming rhetoric, rather than the other way around.
Hey lee, WTF did MM8B’s quoted post have to do with your rant? Why was it quoted in the same post where you decided to wig out? I see NO connection between her recounting a story of child abuse and what you posted.
Don’t people get paid by the state for caring for foster children? If this is true, money could have been the motivation for trying to get the foster children in the first place.
I think Ethilrist read that incorrectly. xcheopis was in foster care. The other children were in foster care, as well, because their biological parents hated them.
I find lee’s posts to this thread to be eminently reasonable. I believe the over-reaction to her first post is primarily a carry-over from a previous thread.
