from WASTED by Patrick T. Murphy

 

It’s probably important to remember when you read these quotes that Mr. Murphy was an immediate response worker in New York City…where they really don’t have time to micro-manage marginal families…

“In truth, public Child Welfare agencies will never be satisfactory.  We give them children who’s spirits have been crushed by oafish parents and expect the agency to put the kids’ psyches back together.”

“The Child Welfare system has failed children because it refuses to distinguish between parents who are ill-equipped to raise there kids adequately without help, and parents who are too immature or thuggish to raise children even with help.  To the system, all parents are victims, irrespective of their crimes or potential for reform.  And, the parent, not the child, is the client.”

“Guilt and responsibility, pillars of the criminal justice system, are alien concepts in the juvenile justice arena…the parent’s abusive acts become irrelevant once the juvenile court determines that the child has been abused.  Instead, the courts and the child welfare bureaucracy are responsible for providing services to the parent(s).”

“In the present system, the parent’s victim status becomes more important than the child’s neglect.”

“Self-described child advocates have sloganized ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ in order to relieve bad parents of blame for abusing their children or of the responsibility for raising them as adequately as their resources permit.  Indeed ‘it takes a village’ has become an incantation to ward off those who dare to suggest that with parenthood comes individual responsibility.  The village can indeed provide the family with a friendly environment, but only a parent can raise a child.”

“In juvenile court, parents who have abused their children are frequently sent to parenting classes.  I have always thought this was a waste.  The time to teach people to parent is when they themselves are children.  Classes ought to be held regularly for all children at the grammar school and high school levels, concentrating on the responsibilities of parenthood.”

“Too many child welfare types can’t bring themselves to admit that there are cowards and bullies who are good at having babies but incapable of nurturing their children, with or without multiservice centers.  They abuse their kids and ultimately lose them because down deep they never wanted them.”

“We force children to stay with people whose only connection to parenthood is a roll in the hay nine months before the child is born.”

…true enough, but Mr. Murphy need remember we ‘force’ children to stay with their parents because we have no where better to put them!  The state makes an even lousier parent!