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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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At http://bit.ly/ea5BG I've picked up an article form a few days ago in The Daily Telegraph. It took me back to when my son was born.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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ray2x
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: April 2009
Messages: 430
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My local newspaper in Santa Clarita, CA, ran a new article about training children 4 to 14 steps on how to act if and when a stranger grabs you. The children were taught to bite, kick, scream, whatever and to observe details of the stranger. All in good, except not one mention about if the stranger wasn't a stranger but maybe a father, an uncle,an aunt, a trusted neighbor, etc. We are still taught about the strangers of life and what these men could do to innocent boys and girls yet it's a good statistical probability that a child stands a chance to be molested and abused by a family member. The between the lines reading stands that a gay man will most likely be prowling the parks, schools, churches and will yank one's darlings away from the family. Yes, the stranger among us is the monster.
Raymundo
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Er, yes. But that is about being abducted by an alleged stranger. What happens when that abductor is the STATE?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Yes, Timmy, the social services were certainly to be avoided when I was a young parent, especially when we allowed our daughters to bring their boyfriends home for the night.
Knowledge, early, about sex and the willingness to talk about it is the best protection for the child and keeping the social services (and nosy neighbours) completely ignorant is the best protection for the family. At least until the rest of the world thinks as I do about bringing up children.
Love,
Anthony
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ray2x
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: April 2009
Messages: 430
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Point taken. I didn't think about that.
Raymundo
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e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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The law (in California) requires that a child must have 'suffered harm' or be at 'substantial risk of harm.' in order to have been abused. 'Substantial risk' generally means that a sibling must have suffered harm and this child is with the same parent. 'Harm' is not defined, but is generally regarded to be a physical, sexual, or emotional injury.
For 13 years I was a social worker handling and investigating child abuse cases for one of the most paranoid children's services departments in the world. The unofficial motto of the department was "err on the side of protecting the child." It's sounds really good. We all want to protect the child and too much protection is better than not enough, right?
Wrong! I learned quickly to cringe whenever I heard that phrase. I hated it. It made me sick to my stomach. Mostly because practicing the phrase was altogether different that uttering it. 'Err,' of course, is short for error, a mistake. 'Protecting the child', however, translates into 'remove the child from the parent if there is any chance the parent will abuse it.'
Removing a child from its parent is a traumatic experience for a child. It causes emotional suffering and harm and can fall into the legal category of emotional abuse. Making the mistake of uneccessarily removing a child for its parents because a social worker thinks it might be abused IS ABUSE of that child. A more appropriate motto for my department would have been "It is better for the state to commit child abuse than to allow the parent to do it." At a meeting with the director of the department (he occasionally came to the field offices to address the staff), I suggested that by telling us to "err on the side of protecting the child," he was asking social workers to become child abusers. He promptly suggested that I find another line of work and failed to address the question. Although it was some years later, I did take his advice.
Perhaps it was because of my own sexual orientation, but the idea of whether a parent, foster parent, relative caregiver, or child might be gay rarely played into any decision I made. There was one exception. It was a case of two gay 20-something foster parents who wanted to adopt a schizophrenic 16 year old boy. I recomended the adoption. But everyone all the way up the ladder who had to approve my recommendation made me answer the same stupid questions. You know which ones. The case was eventually transferred to the adoption division and I never found out whether it actually occurred. But I knew that if anything went wrong it would have my ass that would have been screwed so I had to make my recommendations very carefully.
Think good thoughts.
e
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