You may have heard
about the Stanley family by now, as their story continues to gain
more publicity. What is being reported is that the authorities
investigated their home after an anonymous caller told them that the
children were running in the snow barefoot. The children were then
taken into custody upon the discovery of a 'dangerous' mineral
supplement in the home, one that the father claimed he used as a
water purifier.
I do not know this
family personally. I've never met them and know very little about
them, only what has been written about this incident. I also don't
know if there is more to this story than what we have read, and there
very well could be. I feel it's important for me to mention that
because it's frustrating when people jump all over a news story and
make decisions about it based on the very little information that the
media supplies. Tried and convicted in the court of public opinion,
so to speak.
That being said, I
also know this is not the first time I have heard of a family being
ripped apart based on someone else's poor judgment. This story comes
on the heels of yet another story about parents who are under investigation for allowing their two children to walk HALF A BLOCK alone to a playground. And these two stories come on the heels of
numerous other incidents of parents being accused of neglect because
they left their kids alone in a car for two minutes while they ran
into a gas station or had the audacity to disagree with their
pediatrician. Considering over 3 million children are 'checked up on' by CPS annually, it's no wonder these stories are so common. DHS and
CPS appear to wield an awful lot of power. All it takes is a phone
call from a nosy neighbor. Maybe one day the authorities will show up
on your doorstep.
Is there anything in
your parenting someone else might disagree with? Have you ever done,
said, or allowed anything that would be deemed questionable by the
cranky lady down the street, or even your own friends? I don't doubt
the way I run my household is a little different from the way you run
yours, but I bet you love your kids. I bet they love you. Chances are
we're both doing what we feel is best for our individual families.
But when it comes to
these types of investigations, where the lines are drawn appear to be
so discretionary, based on the whims of whomever is involved in the
case. Who do you think deserves to be investigated? Or even
deserves to have their practices outlawed? Deserves to have
their children taken away?
Families in a
polygamist community? A family who practices alternative medicine? A
family whose parents spank their children?
There have been
plenty of times when I have felt sorry for other kids and the way
they were being raised, but I also recognized that they weren't my
children. When it comes to issues of personal liberty and parental
rights, you are not the authority on my family, just as I am not the
authority on yours. At least, that's the way it should be. But as the
state receives more and more power and more and more funding to place
itself in the middle of our daily lives, it can't come as any
surprise that this continues to happen. And it won't stop, not as
long as we continue to wage war on each other's ideologies.
Ours has become a
culture of self-righteous finger wagging. All I have to do to see
that is read through a few threads on a parenting website. How
dare you mutilate your child with circumcision! Breastfeeding
your 3-year-old is abuse! You should never feed your child
McDonald's! Spanking is the same as hitting!
That's precisely
where this gets uncomfortable. Should your standards be applied to
all people? Of all backgrounds and religions and cultures? Which
perceptions should we allow to dominate as we apply arbitrary rules
to how people live their lives?
Because that's what
human beings do best – decide they're right, and then decide that
everyone else should live accordingly. That's why we're now under the
thumb of so many laws and why children are getting ripped away from
loving homes. But I'm here to say that your parenting choices should
remain precisely that – your choices.
It's horrifying to
hear of tragic cases of abuse and neglect. There are some cases of
severe harm, sexual trauma, and death that I've heard about that
stick out in my mind and sicken me to my core. But one has to wonder
if these cases would be fewer if less time and money were spent on
investigating ordinary people just trying to live their lives and
more attention was given to real problems.
So to the nosy
neighbors who like to make reports, I'd like to ask you to consider
these things: Consider striking up a conversation with the family
instead of reaching for the phone. Consider that you are about to
step on the constitutional rights of those parents AND CHILDREN in
that household. Consider that the strange family next door just might
be good people who simply do things a little differently than you do.
Consider that you're
taking away help from a child who actually needs it.
