4 ms·

> A couple of very slightly uncomfortable conversations seems like a small price to pay for raising your kids in the manner you deem appropriate. That is what

> A couple of very slightly uncomfortable conversations seems like a small price to pay for raising your kids in the manner you deem appropriate. That is what I responded to. > You know how if you talk to an overprotective parent about how it's really ok to let their kids wander around outside on their own a little they're always at the ready with a link to a news story about something horrible happening? And you know how that news story is always anecdote and not data? You implied the extent of the risk was a couple uncomfortable conversations based on an anecdote. Hypocrisy much? Based on personal experience, I don't have much faith in the quality of CPS investigations. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-year-child-protective-services-conducted-32-million-investigations/374809/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-yea... > One statistic that stood out in the report: since 2008, the number of referrals to child protective service agencies (hereafter CPS) has increased by 8.3 percent, even as overall rates of actual child victimization declined by 3.3 percent during the same period. There is no system that can totally avoid putting parents who don't deserve it through investigations, despite the fact that even the best moms and dads would regard the ordeal as nightmarish. Over time, however, the number of undeserving parents so burdened seems to be increasing–and the number is large (note that "screened out" referrals are the ones deemed not even worth investigating): The numbers are clearly moving in the wrong direction for the rate of reporting. > He goes on to explain that while taking kids from parents in this fashion is only permitted in emergencies as a matter of law, the way things play out in practice is very different. "According to statistics published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 100,000 children who were removed in 2001–more than one in three–were later found not to have been maltreated at all," Given CPS investigates gets ~3.4 million complaints a year and there are ~74 million kids, a substantial number of these complaints are screened out because they are basically random/irrelevant. I'm not in the habit of ignoring 1 in 20 odds, especially if I've got a 1 in 5 shot at it being something serious. That is alot higher than the risk of terrorism, for instance, affecting me personally.

harryh 10y ago
Does CPS have problems? Sure. No doubt. And as a society we should work on fixing these problems. But when it comes to your own individual life, you can either live your life in fear of the boogeyman or you can live your life the way you want to live it. Let your kids live their lives the way you think they should. And if CPS shows up one day when they shouldn't, you lawyer up and fight. That's what a grownup does.
- DanBC 10y ago
  You might want to look at the burden of proof needed to remove a child from a family; or at the disruption a family experiences with a full on CPS investigation. And that's ignoring the huge cost involved.
- fweespeech 10y ago
  > But when it comes to your own individual life, you can either live your life in fear of the boogeyman or you can live your life the way you want to live it. Let your kids live their lives the way you think they should. > That's what a grownup does. The sheer condescension and lack of empathy you packed into a single comment is quite sad, tbh. I tell you I have personal experience with CPS...and your response is I am terrified of a monster under my bed that isn't real. K. > And if CPS shows up one day when they shouldn't, you lawyer up and fight. Most people can't afford $50k legal bills to fight the government. Are you really this isolated and ignorant that this doesn't even occur to you? Look, Harry, you say things like this: > Yes, I do think it's less than 0.0036%. I show you the false negative rate is a helluva alot higher than that and you still spout when you clearly have no clue what you are talking about. Just walk away before you continue to embarrass yourself.
  - harryh 10y ago
    I'm not embarrassing myself. There is a lot of research literature that makes me pretty convinced that the way Americans raise their kids has gotten worse. We are, as a society, overprotective. We don't let our children out into the world enough. We don't let them experience independence early enough. We don't let them fail at small things so that they develop resilience. These are big problems. In order to fix this we've gotta be a little defiant. If one person acts differently they're gonna be the oddball and the system is going to knock them down. Maybe it's CPS. Maybe it's a nosey neighbor. Who knows. This gets better when A LOT of people start acting differently. Sure. If you're poor or otherwise not in a position to fight the system I don't expect you to be first in line. But I've got a dollar that says that doesn't apply to you or DanBC or some of the others in this thread. The median Hacker News reader is a white engineer with a good salary and is, more that almost anyone, in a position to stand up to the system if it causes them problems. I'm in that group too. It's our responsibility to make things better, not just for ourselves but also for the people that aren't in a position to do so on their own. That's what I think.

harryh 10y ago

Does CPS have problems? Sure. No doubt. And as a society we should work on fixing these problems. But when it comes to your own individual life, you can either live your life in fear of the boogeyman or you can live your life the way you want to live it. Let your kids live their lives the way you think they should. And if CPS shows up one day when they shouldn't, you lawyer up and fight. That's what a grownup does.

DanBC 10y ago
You might want to look at the burden of proof needed to remove a child from a family; or at the disruption a family experiences with a full on CPS investigation. And that's ignoring the huge cost involved.
fweespeech 10y ago
> But when it comes to your own individual life, you can either live your life in fear of the boogeyman or you can live your life the way you want to live it. Let your kids live their lives the way you think they should. > That's what a grownup does. The sheer condescension and lack of empathy you packed into a single comment is quite sad, tbh. I tell you I have personal experience with CPS...and your response is I am terrified of a monster under my bed that isn't real. K. > And if CPS shows up one day when they shouldn't, you lawyer up and fight. Most people can't afford $50k legal bills to fight the government. Are you really this isolated and ignorant that this doesn't even occur to you? Look, Harry, you say things like this: > Yes, I do think it's less than 0.0036%. I show you the false negative rate is a helluva alot higher than that and you still spout when you clearly have no clue what you are talking about. Just walk away before you continue to embarrass yourself.
- harryh 10y ago
  I'm not embarrassing myself. There is a lot of research literature that makes me pretty convinced that the way Americans raise their kids has gotten worse. We are, as a society, overprotective. We don't let our children out into the world enough. We don't let them experience independence early enough. We don't let them fail at small things so that they develop resilience. These are big problems. In order to fix this we've gotta be a little defiant. If one person acts differently they're gonna be the oddball and the system is going to knock them down. Maybe it's CPS. Maybe it's a nosey neighbor. Who knows. This gets better when A LOT of people start acting differently. Sure. If you're poor or otherwise not in a position to fight the system I don't expect you to be first in line. But I've got a dollar that says that doesn't apply to you or DanBC or some of the others in this thread. The median Hacker News reader is a white engineer with a good salary and is, more that almost anyone, in a position to stand up to the system if it causes them problems. I'm in that group too. It's our responsibility to make things better, not just for ourselves but also for the people that aren't in a position to do so on their own. That's what I think.