Who got a better education, the public schooled child who graduates a functional illiterate that can't feed, clothe or shelter himself or the wide ranging child who build their own dwelling with their own two hands? Is it a 'box' or teaching ingenuity, resourcefulness and contentedness?
The following is pointed advice for those interested. I gleaned it from an attorney with years of experience defending families against abuses by the child-welfare system.
Child-protection agencies get away with targeting people who exhibit 3 characteristics:
- They're poor.
- They don't know their rights.
- They don't have connections.
Things to remember if you are targeted: If you allow the workers to get you focused on arguing that your approach to child-rearing is good and/or that you did nothing wrong, then their job is practically done for them and shortly your parental rights will be terminated.
- Say nothing. Be polite but decline to speak. Do not allow workers inside unless they are accompanied by an officer with a warrant. Everything you say can and will be used against you.
- Get a lawyer. The alternative is to lose your children so this is no time to be cheap.
- Sign nothing. Workers often present "routine" paperwork — but there's nothing routine about this. Parents unknowingly sign away all their parental rights every day. You can always insist that your lawyer review papers first no matter what the workers say.
- Remember that the guardian ad litem (if appointed) is trained to get your trust and then testify against you.
To avoid being targeted, you should make connections in your community, know your rights, and avoid looking poor or crazy.
If you think arguing that your home is fine will get you anywhere with these agencies, you don't know what you're up against. In most states, constitutional protections you'd expect (right to public trial, to face your accuser, etc) do not exist because removal of children is not a
criminal matter — those protections are only for people accused of actual crimes.
Meanwhile the real reason families are unjustly targeted is that agencies don't get funding unless they take away children — we're talking tens of thousands per child, more if they have special needs — and because the public has such a dim view of people at the bottom. The system is tuned to proceed to termination of rights without the victims catching onto how it works. Can you see then why pleading for mercy or arguing that you "did nothing wrong" has zero relevance to what's actually happening?
If, God forbid, you become a target, your goal is not to defend homeschooling or your housekeeping practices or anything else, because you can't homeschool or bathe your children if you don't have them. Your goal is to get your children back and get off the radar of the protection agency.
Thoughts?
