FLDS: Pots and Kettles and Who's Calling Who What?

A couple of years ago I met individually with a number of child welfare workers for some research. These are the people who decide if a child should be removed from a home, who write up recommendations for the court regarding the child’s future, who work with parents on creating a better home environment, and who inform courts if parents are fit to be parents or not. One thing that really struck me was the family life of these folks themselves. One very interesting thing that struck me was that those married with children were outnumbered by those single with children. Single because they were either divorced or had never even married the other parent. And these are the people telling others how to create a good home?

This was not even remotely scientific, but it would be interesting, if someone hasn’t already, to study this issue and find out just who we are relying on to determine who is fit to be a parent. Maybe next year.

As an old song says “If you can’t even run your own life, I’ll be damned if you’ll run mine.”

On a related note, just who is the state saying is or is not a fit parent? Apparently Texas’ CPS is OK with a polygynous relationship where some guy makes a baby with a teen girl and then runs off. There are some pretty reliable statistics to indicate that this kid is extremely likely to become a teen mom or dad themselves (and they are also likely to become a criminal). I can’t find any records of CPS raiding these homes, even though there are thousands more of them throughout the state. Even when CPS does get involved in these it’s rare that they remove children from the home. Yet, in a polygynous relationship where dad sticks around to help raise all of his kids and where evidence indicates that extremely few, if any, will turn out to be criminals, CPS deems it necessary to confiscate the kids.