Winnipeg children seized from neo-Nazi parents - part 2

Perhaps both the mother and daughter can have therapy at the same time-- if the mother is open to this, and agrees to avoid racist behaviour in the meantime then why remove the child?

I don't see calling for the punishment of the mother and by extension the daughter to be productive in and of itself. The question must return to what is best for the child, primarily. Also to consider what is best for the community because the arrival of a child with a swastika on her arm is traumatizing for the other children as well.

But if we are approaching this from a constructive viewpoint and the mother is cooperating and the main influence was the father in the racist activity then let's step back a moment here from a full public flogging- as offensive as her behaviour was. I am approaching this from the point of view of a possible mental illness. If the mother is able and willing to get help and both are able to see and learn about racism, there is a better way to handle this. There are enough children in foster care and there is no guarantee that yanking this child into foster care on this issue will not actually increase the chance that she will turn to such horrible beliefs.

There are other measures to deal with this other than removing the child from the mother- especially if the mother is cooperative which she appears to be.

Snert wrote:

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But if we are approaching this from a constructive viewpoint and the mother is cooperating

 

Except that she's not. She's being blatantly dishonest and expecting we're all dumb enough to buy it.

 

"Oh, we're just celebrating our White Heritage!"

 

Fine. We're just "helping your daughter explore alternative lodging options".

If that is the mother's current position AND she is not treatable for a mental illness then I am fine with that. But I am not willing to say remove the child without those questions answered.

It is not as if there can't be significant supervision and a reversal of a decision if things are not working.

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Many considerations need to be examined- the child's relationship with the mother, the mother's willingness to change

 

But what would she change? To her, she's just taking pride in being European. That whole business about n**gers and swastikas and black people dying so that white children can be safe is probably just some fiction the child dreamt up. The fact that it seems to align with racist paraphernalia found in the home is just an unfortunate coincidence.

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did you miss the fact that the mother is really reaching out because she wants to do anything to get her kids back?

Anything except be honest.
If she would step up and say something along the lines of "Yes, I taught my daughter those things and yes I encouraged her to hate POC and yes I understand how wrong that is, but I'm committed to learning and changing" then I might have some sympathy. But if she wants her daughter back, I think she's going to have to go through the tough work of being a grownup, and nothing less. This game of pretend, wherein she pretends that this is all just some accident she had nothing to do with isn't exactly inspiring confidence in her ability to parent.

Can I just interject to request that we not use excessive quoting?  It's not necessary to quote huge long posts (with quotes from earliers posts within the quotes) and then respond beneath it.  Just quote the relevant part you're responding to.

As Unionist points out, the mother has a right to have whatever beliefs she wants. She's not mentally ill just for having them. Imo, though, if she is looking after her children in every other respect and there is no physical or emotional abuse (I recognize the latter is arguable, for some people) then I would think the kids are still better off with racist Mom than with strangers. Foster care is rife with its own problems. There are just as many horror stories, sometimes it seems more, in foster care situations as there are in family of origin. I don't believe the mother is "lying" to get her kids back. She is still openly white supremacist/white "pride" whatever, but has acknowledged that how she expresses that is dangerous and will get her in trouble. She is acknowledging that she made a stupid error in drawing everyone's attention, through their children, to her stupid beliefs. And now she is doing everything she possibly can - as she states, "I'll jump through whatever hoops they want me to " - to get them back. Because that's more important to her than her racist beliefs.

As with any other child apprehension situation, and provided the children do indeed want to go back, she should be allowed another chance to prove that she can take care of them according to socially acceptable guidelines.

This is an extreme case. A far greater number of children are removed from their birth parents due to poverty and the conditions poverty creates for the family/single parent.

It's at that point where money is produced by the system for care of the newly created foster child. And then the systematic abuse begins, sexual and otherwise. Some foster parents - but certainly not all - will take in several children for reasons other than their love of children. In any event, these are not natural parents of the children.

So part of the real solution, imo, is to help more parents living in poverty to care for their children by ensuring they have adequate resources. Canada has some of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world after too many years of old line party rule in Ottawa. Child poverty is a crime against everyone and has no place in a modern society. Poverty in general has no place in a modern society. And I've come to the conclusion years ago that our two rotten old line parties are just not concerned about poverty at any rate.

 

a: I think bringing up such flaws as may exist in the foster care system is a red herring, but to pursue it briefly, I've some association with that system, and it's not the unrelentingly Dickensonian nightmare some would suggest.  That's another thread though.

b: Professionally speaking, there's nothing to suggest these parents are mentally ill.  Lots of parents with mental health diagnosis raise lovely children very successfully, with varying degrees of support.  (which they welcome I might add)  What these parents are, is extreemly nasty.  That's not a diagnosis, and it's a lot bigger obstacle to good parenting.

c: It's been mentioned about they're having a right to a point of view as long as they don't act on it.  Listen to their daughter.  They're acting on it!  They are absolutely causing harm to their offspring by aggressivly passing on an objectively reprehensible, destructive and maladaptive lifestyle/belief system.  The kids meet the legal definition of being "in need of protection" and should be removed.

Now, can the parents genuinely change their views?  Maybe, I haven't a clue. Depends I suppose on what circumstances got them so scarred and twisted inthe first place.  I've heard of some pretty hard case being reformed, so one should always hold out hope. Obviously, that option should be looked at by the child welfare authorities, but in my mind they made the right decision here.

Unionist wrote:

If the argument is, "well, they should stay with the parents because they have nowhere better to go", then that's not a good enough argument. We certainly wouldn't say that if they were being deprived of the physical necessities of life.

 

So in your personal opinion, and for what that's worth, you would have children removed from their mothers bosoms due to poverty. Youre no longer talking about the extreme case mentioned in post#1 - youre now encouraging people to agree with your own broad generalizations of poor people in general.

Watch your step in this thread, because I'll be "turning you in" to the babble feds if you persist, mr. "This children bullshit has to stop!" Yes, I remember your comments in that thread, too.

There do exist support groups for surivors of foster care abuse in Canada, many of them native children. Foster care does have its [url=http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?k=15566&id=3f601e... stories[/url]

 

There was another case in Ontario recently where care of a little girl was handed to a couple of dregs, who then murdered her. Tortured her to death actually. But at least she didnt have to endure growing up in poverty living with her natural birth mother.

 

 

 

I think Canada's near bottom of the barrel child poverty statistics are a good reference point for understanding why bad things happen to children of poor families in this country. Our governments dont believe in helping poor families to raise children properly. In too many cases theyre "thrown up." Poverty in Canada is a vicious cycle that needs outlawing. I will agree that the situation in Canada is better than in that bastion of economic Darwinism to the south of us. I dont know for how much longer though if our stooges continue handing the country off to American interests.

More than likely. Theyre not saying much about the family. I think the situation with poverty in Canada can be compared to people who find rotten food in the back of the fridge and are completely bewildered as to why it happens. It was perfectly good food at one time.

So youre saying children in Canada have rights? Like the right to a roof over their heads, food every day, the right to have clothes on their backs, and a short list of other necessities? What if free markets just dont produce these basic necessities of life for every family? Is this the right time and reason to remove children from their natural birth parents?  

I agree that children should have well defined rights, and that someone in authority should be guaranteeing that those rights are enforced in all cases, whether it's before the children are removed from their natural birth parents as well as in cases where charges of the state are handed over to total strangers for the rest of their growing up years. ie. foster parents.

[url=http://www.canadiancrc.com/UN_CRC/UN_CRC.aspx]About the UNCRC[/url]

 

[url=http://www.canadiancrc.com/Newspaper_Articles/Ottawa_Citizen_Senate_Comm...'s treatment of its aboriginal children is "a national total disgrace,"[/url] Senator Romeo Dallaire said in 2007

 

 

Refuge wrote:

I am not sure if this comment was directed at my post or not.  If it was, I did not comment at all on children's rights.  I only commented on what I think are abusive acts by parents.

Well I took it to mean that you were talking about children's rights to the basic necessities of life. If people are having a difficult time providing those necessities, then I think there's a problem. In fact, it is a problem across Canada. Kids need bringing up not throwing up, and I'm not surprised at all when I read about isolated horror stories like this one. There is never much published by our alleged news media about the everyday subsistence of children living anywhere below the poverty line. Our elected politicians and fascist-lite new media dont seem to care that there are families struggling to make ends meet or that there are hundreds of thousands of children relying on food banks across Canada.

Second-hand policies for neoliberal capitalism are producing most of the decay and rot that we're seeing in this country. That's a  more profound statement than pointing an occasional finger of blame at the "evil" people, those abominable products of a socio-economic ideology gone awry around the world where tried since 9/11/73.

Unionist wrote:

So, don't worry about the Nazis raising kids in their own image, because of all the child poverty out there which is a more important problem.

What a cop-out.

Did you really believe anyone would disagree with you that Nazification of children is not a good thing? Youre a true champion of children's rights, for sure. Of that I have no doubt. I think you must be amazed with how these seemingly safe topics of the tabloid variety can suddenly become serious discussion.

Unionist wrote:

Do you think these kids should be left with their parents, or do you think the state should forcibly keep them away until the parent(s) have proved, to the state's satisfaction, that the harm they have done can never recur?

Why do you waste our time with this nonsense if youre only interested in the who and the what but never the why? That's what I'd like to know. Some of us have minds of our own and refuse to be prodded like sheep into bleeting out your pre-wrapped optional answers reduced to yes, or, no, or even, maybe. Has anyone ever mentioned you have dictatorial tendencies?

Unionist wrote:

I don't care "why" these parents have turned into child molestors. The children must be protected.

Do you need to know "why" rapists and murderers became that way before you act to protect their victims?

It would seem to me that if these kiddie "9/11's" have been happening for some time that some one, some where might be interested to know how these wicked monsters abusing children are created in the first place. Isnt that what Noam Chomsky is telling us to avoid questioning and assume we know already wrt those other kinds of terrorists? I think you choose who will do your thinking for you from time to time.

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As for pre-wrapped answers, I don't have any favourite political party that provides any to me, so I'm forced to (shudder) think these things through all by myself.

Just dont ponder any of the hard questions, like who or what conditions created these people, because I think you might grind the gear box. Better to write it off to those evil-wicked people need some mastering, for sure.

Here's your pre-packaged dichotomy thrown back at you:

If someone comes running to tell us the factory is churning out bad widgets, do we scramble to round up the useless widgets, or do we fix the part of the factory that's not working properly? OR, do we simply SMASH the factory and start over?

 

Well, I would want to know why people hate others, abuse, rape and murder others. Isn't that the most important part? There are always causes. Finding out what the causes are would eliminate future problems stemming from those causes. I think the best way of looking at antisocial behaviour is to find out what psychological and emotional problems it stems from in an individual, or if it's a pattern across a group, then in that group. And then to look at where social and other factors may be causing or aggravating those.

I would actually be really interested in what it is that "white pride", white separatism, white supremacy does for its members, and what is lacking in their lives or their social reality that they feel they need something like that. Because I guess belonging to a group like that would give one a sense of power, a sense of "pride" - however misguided - a sense of safety in numbers, and also a sense of belonging, but belonging without real responsibility as, I think we can guess, there is no realistic "revolution" for them on the horizon.

But I would agree that it's probably not the Canadian stooge-ocracy alone that is causing this.

There is the interesting and rather problematic issue of the mother's subservience to the father. (Or is he the stepfather?)  According to court testimony relayed by the CBC, the mother didn't inculcate racist ideas in her children until the father (?) arrived with his white heritage ideology and his neonazi program.    They are poor, marginalized people.  Should the courts not be examining the undue influence and sway of the male parent, who might well have imposed his views on his wife as well as on the kids?

Everyone keeps talking about the mother's blame, but I am yet to see the real cause addressed.

And I agree that placing children in foster care is a huge gamble on their physical and psychological safety.  Deal with the parents first, or else oblige them to take their children to special deprogramming classes. (Which might result in their becoming quite schizophrenic....)   The other option is to give the parents their rights and allow the kids to stay in a loving home and wait for them to grow up and become integrated into society (and hope they don't join the armed forces or the police), just like the majority of good Germans who were Nazi Youth members as late as 1945 (including Ratzinger).    

My ideal solution would be simply to keep them under social workers' close watch for signs of actual abuse - i.e., subject them to stricter guidelines and keep the threat of removal present.  I bet that, given the authoritarian bent of the father, there will be "strict punishment" meted out which can be grounds for prosecution of the parent, which would take the problem out of the house.