Okay, I don’t as a rule like posting ‘ain’t it horrible’ news stories, but my rant is about the attitudes of society rather than the perpetrators.
In brief, a couple with five young children kept a horribly filthy house – literally more than half a hundred animals they didn’t clean up after, feces and garbage and general trash heaped everywhere inside their house. The full article can be found here.
This is the bit that makes me gnash my teeth:
Yes. The conditions were so dire that it was urgent to rescue all the animals IMMEDIATELY. But the children? Hell, who cares about what kind of living conditions they have to endure? Just leave them there.
What the hell are people thinking?? With all the talk of animal rights, why don’t we have a Children’s Rights movement??
I’m not saying these children should not be removed from their parents. At face value, it certainly seems that they should.
However, I think the statement that “the bar is higher” is based on the fact that a child’s life is greatly affected by being removed from his or her parents, and so there has to be evidence that it is in the child’s best interests that it happens. 100 + farm animals? They could care less who they’re with. But sometimes, I honestly believe, removing kids from their parents isn’t always the best answer.
Again, I’m not excusing the situation in that article. Just putting forth my two cents as to why animals might be automatically removed, and not the children.
As I pointed out in another pit thread, animals are still belongings and children are still people. It is easier to take someone’s posessions through legal action than to take their children.
That being said, these children should be taken away from their parents…that’s just wrong.
And why does the UK have a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children? Kind of reminds me of an episode of Dr Quinn where the town council had to rule that a little girl was an animal (I think there was a debate over evolution) in order to take her away from her abusive father.
The family was evicted on August 9th and the home was condemned, which means that the children were removed from the premises “IMMEDIATELY.” They were only allowed to bring the children back into the home after they’d cleaned it up. Then the state filed criminal charges against the parents for endangering the welfare of their children, for which they’re both facing jail time.
So it doesn’t sound like they took the animals out of those conditions, but left the children – the children went with the eviction and the animals following that. Hardly the same as “The conditions were so dire that it was urgent to rescue all the animals IMMEDIATELY. But the children? Hell, who cares about what kind of living conditions they have to endure? Just leave them there” to me.
Are you complaining that the animals weren’t returned after the cleanup, but the children were? I’m not necessarily disagreeing that these seem to be unfit parents and their children, ultimately, might be better off being placed with a family who can guarantee a clean and safe environment, but that’s not what you seem to be arguing here, and I don’t think you’ve made your case for what you’re trying to say.
I read years ago that the American movement for children’s right’s was kicked off when a pair of kids were declared animals by a judge, because he had no other legal recourse to protect them. This was embarrassing enough to mobilize a political movement in favor of children.
Note that the American Humane Association works equally on cruelty against animals and cruelty against humans. The connection between the two is well-known in the animal world; and if it’s easier to remove animals from abusers than to remove children from abusers, I can promise that’s not due to efforts of humane association folks to condone child abuse.
It was Henry Bergh, President of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals (ASPCA), who argued before a court that Mary Ellen McCormack was a member of the animal kingdom and therefore deserving of protection from cruelty. Bergh went on to found the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
The family protection guys are always in a lose - lose dilema, but they seem, on the surface at least, to have made a good call. The parents were given a chance to clean up their act. Parents did so and kept their kids (for now). Yanking the kids away from mom and dad would have gained equally bad headlines and possibly traumatized the kids. Since none us us here actually knows the family and has only heard about the situation from a TV station, what’s wrong with letting the professionals do their job?
I think that’s the correct way round. Royal societies tend to be social luxuries so the Royal backing gives them status. A National society though seems more fitting for a necessity since it should need no backing from Royalty in order to exist.
Child protection aught not to need Royal backing, but maybe protection of birds does need Royal backing to be taken seriously?
…I feel that the parents have been given more than enough chances to clean up their act and have refused to do so time and again.
How these parents are only being charged with child endangerment and not neglect is beyond me. These poor kids had no edible food in the entire house, were living among the feces and urine of 57 animals, piles of garbage surrounded them, and “pornographic photos had been pinned up near where they slept on soiled mattresses”. Add in the previous other visits from state child welfare officials and several other housing condemnations, and it seems like a no-brainer to me.
I just hope to God that the child welfare folks know something good that is allowing this to continue without serious charges and/or removing the children from this home.