6 ms·

A lot of posts in this thread are not understanding the point of the law. Sentiments such as: "Why need a law? Just let your children be free and independent.

by graeme 9y ago

A lot of posts in this thread are not understanding the point of the law. Sentiments such as: "Why need a law? Just let your children be free and independent. They need that." "If anyone threatens to call CPS on me I'll tell them to fuck off." That's why the law is needed! Currently, in a lot of jurisdictions, do either of those two things and your kids can arbitrarily be taken from you, legally, by the government. This law makes it so that allowing children normal independence is legal. Because slowly administrative agencies started to take a stricter view on what was "safe".

doitLP 9y ago
Very true. I used to volunteer with an advocacy group that helped parents whose kids were wrongly taken by CPS and what I saw of the system scared the crap out of me. It does some good work but the sheer stupidity of some of the employees, the arbitrary powers and lack of due process was the stuff of nightmares.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  There's a number of stories about children being taken from parents for dubious reasons, who end up dying in foster care: Removed from parents because the father smoked marijuana at night when the child was asleep, child murdered by foster care parent with a history of violations: http://fox43.com/2014/11/06/2-year-old-taken-away-from-parents-because-they-used-marijuana-killed-by-foster-mother/ http://fox43.com/2014/11/06/2-year-old-taken-away-from-paren... Removed from parents for "drug use and homelessness", died from neglect in foster care: https://www.abqjournal.com/1113809/caregiver-arrested-in-death-of-11-month-old-foster-child.html https://www.abqjournal.com/1113809/caregiver-arrested-in-dea... Removed from parents because baby had a bruise from when he bumped his head while feeding, died in foster care: http://fox40.com/2017/08/17/after-baby-dies-in-foster-care-biological-family-wants-answers/ http://fox40.com/2017/08/17/after-baby-dies-in-foster-care-b...
  - zzzeek 9y ago
    I read that last one and I'm not sure the "free range parenting" bill would even cover that. That was a case of, baby had a bruise and a doctor arbitrarily decided it was a willful injury by the parents. A process as aribtrary and random as that seems pretty broken and after that the foster process failed catastrophically. But I doubt "free range parenting" shuts down the entire process of removing kids from environments that are detected (rightly or wrongly) as directly physically abusive.
- larrik 9y ago
  As someone who has been a foster parent and worked with a sort of advocacy group as well, I can tell you it isn't any better on this side.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  It is frightening. And it varies significantly by state. For example Utah (where I foster) has 2.8 per 1,000 children in foster care, while neighboring Nevada has 6.7 per 1,000. New York has 5.0. California has 6.2. [1] The ever-conservative Utah legislature puts a very high priority of children living with their legal parents. As long as there's no imminent health risk (abuse, hard drug use, severe neglect), parents virtually always keep custody. I really wish it were like that in more places. Traumatic situations for children should not be taken likely. But being forcibly removed into state custody is also a very traumatic event. You've got to be confident that the latter is the lesser evil. [1] http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/6243-children-in-foster-care?loc=1&loct=1#ranking/2/any/true/573/any/12987 http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/6243-children-in...
rayiner 9y ago
My friend had a babysitter report her to CPS because there were stuffed animals in her 7-month old's crib, which apparently contradicts some guidance. CPS closed the investigation without doing anything, but not before causing a lot of unnecessary worry.
- chapium 9y ago
  > which apparently contradicts some guidance This isn’t just “some guidance”. Its the American Academy of Pediatrics guidance which shows stuffed animals, pillows, and blankets increase the risk factor for SIDS.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    A lot of medical guidance comes from busybodies who have no ability to perform cost-benefit analysis (e.g. pregnant women and caffeine). SIDS risk is around 0.5 per 1,000. The major cause of the decrease since the 1980s seems to be the decline of smoking. Everything else is noise for something that's already low probability.
    - kolpa 9y ago
      SIDS has decreased (~70%) since 1980s, but Accidental Suffocation has increased (perhaps due to improved diagnosis of ASSB vs SIDS of the same underlying events) to become about as prevalent as SIDS. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/5/e1341.full?sid=bd9574fb-4575-4d35-a46e-a63394e68331 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/5/e1341.fu...
    - btilly 9y ago
      Do you have a source for this claim? References like https://www1.nichd.nih.gov/sts/campaign/science/Pages/backsleeping.aspx https://www1.nichd.nih.gov/sts/campaign/science/Pages/backsl... and articles like https://www.npr.org/2011/07/15/137859024/rethinking-sids-many-deaths-no-longer-a-mystery https://www.npr.org/2011/07/15/137859024/rethinking-sids-man... make it likely that the increase in sleeping children on their back is the bulk of the reduction. And that the fact that blacks are less likely to take that recommendation is the reason why the black community has twice the death rate of whites. This is something that I have a personal interest in. My nephew died of SIDS months before the recommendation about sleeping positions was reversed back in the early 90s. My sister did not smoke. She did put him to sleep on his stomach.
trey-jones 9y ago
Both frustrating and terrifying as a parent of young kids. I'm fortunate enough to live far enough off the beaten path that nosy neighbors aren't my top concern, but it still just seems asinine for cases like the ones mentioned in the article to even result in investigation, much less losing my kids (even temporarily).
iandanforth 9y ago
Good reminder that not all laws are restrictive, or more specifically, some of the best laws restrict the state not the individual.
- maloney 9y ago
  Yeah, see Bill of Rights.
macmac 9y ago
I think what baffles the mind is, that a state law is required to ensure this in the land of the free. How did things evolve to a state where this is necessary?
clairity 9y ago
> "This law makes it so that allowing children normal independence is legal." now we just need to make it normal (i.e., socially acceptable). it's hard because no matter where we stand in the sociosphere, we're always on the lookout for danger and enemies. that's the yang to our yin, the opposing force that elucidates our core identity. while life is full of quite unlikely but life-threatening risks, it's crippling to be constantly finding, worrying about, and trying to mitigate all of those risks for our kids. we can't, and it shouldn't be expected of us. parents need to provide the broad strokes (don't jump off a cliff, swallow random pills, or run blindly into the street) but kids need the room to test the minutiae of those boundaries (can i jump off the monkey bars? is this rural dirt road ok to run into? is it ok to eat 10 of these flintstones vitamins at once?). that's what growing up is all about. otherwise our kids won't be able to cope with the inevitable dangers they will face later in life. on some dimensions, they need to be tested in minutely-increasing increments so they develop confidence in emergency situations ("camp" in the living room, then in the yard, then with a scouting troop, then with friends, then alone) but they don't need to be--and can't be--prepared for every danger in the world. you can't fly without risking a fall to the ground.
- notheguyouthink 9y ago
  It's sad to me how many parents fail to prepare children for the world. As a non-parent (and do not want kids), I feel I have a jaded view on this. Yet, I was once a child.. so I should have some, I guess. I taught myself to shave, learned about sex myself, taught myself to drive, etcetc. I love my parents, but frankly they didn't teach me anything in life outside of passive observations of their behavior. I learned about bickering from them though, in leagues. heh. I don't get why more parents don't want to be the kind that are so dependable, the child will call them when they're too drunk to drive home at 16yrs old. Or the kind that explains to their kids that all drugs are not equal, some are far worse, some are not bad. Or hell, not just that some drugs are bad, but why some are bad. So many parents seem afraid to be the one who teaches their child first about the "tough" things in the world like sex and drugs. Yet, the tough things in the world should come first from them, imo. I just don't get it.
  - 9y ago
throwawaysecops 9y ago
Better solution? Move out of the United States, which is quickly becoming the home of the Fourth Reich.
hodgesrm 9y ago
The law seems like a common sense balancing of issues--protect children from obvious abuse but ensure there's plenty of room for them to grow up into robust adults. Kudos to Utah for trying to be reasonable about it. (Personally I think most people should do a few things that scare the crap out of them while growing up--it's the only way to learn your limits.)

by graeme 9y ago

doitLP 9y ago

Very true. I used to volunteer with an advocacy group that helped parents whose kids were wrongly taken by CPS and what I saw of the system scared the crap out of me. It does some good work but the sheer stupidity of some of the employees, the arbitrary powers and lack of due process was the stuff of nightmares.

oh_sigh 9y ago
There's a number of stories about children being taken from parents for dubious reasons, who end up dying in foster care: Removed from parents because the father smoked marijuana at night when the child was asleep, child murdered by foster care parent with a history of violations: http://fox43.com/2014/11/06/2-year-old-taken-away-from-parents-because-they-used-marijuana-killed-by-foster-mother/ http://fox43.com/2014/11/06/2-year-old-taken-away-from-paren... Removed from parents for "drug use and homelessness", died from neglect in foster care: https://www.abqjournal.com/1113809/caregiver-arrested-in-death-of-11-month-old-foster-child.html https://www.abqjournal.com/1113809/caregiver-arrested-in-dea... Removed from parents because baby had a bruise from when he bumped his head while feeding, died in foster care: http://fox40.com/2017/08/17/after-baby-dies-in-foster-care-biological-family-wants-answers/ http://fox40.com/2017/08/17/after-baby-dies-in-foster-care-b...
- zzzeek 9y ago
  I read that last one and I'm not sure the "free range parenting" bill would even cover that. That was a case of, baby had a bruise and a doctor arbitrarily decided it was a willful injury by the parents. A process as aribtrary and random as that seems pretty broken and after that the foster process failed catastrophically. But I doubt "free range parenting" shuts down the entire process of removing kids from environments that are detected (rightly or wrongly) as directly physically abusive.
larrik 9y ago
As someone who has been a foster parent and worked with a sort of advocacy group as well, I can tell you it isn't any better on this side.
paulddraper 9y ago
It is frightening. And it varies significantly by state. For example Utah (where I foster) has 2.8 per 1,000 children in foster care, while neighboring Nevada has 6.7 per 1,000. New York has 5.0. California has 6.2. [1] The ever-conservative Utah legislature puts a very high priority of children living with their legal parents. As long as there's no imminent health risk (abuse, hard drug use, severe neglect), parents virtually always keep custody. I really wish it were like that in more places. Traumatic situations for children should not be taken likely. But being forcibly removed into state custody is also a very traumatic event. You've got to be confident that the latter is the lesser evil. [1] http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/6243-children-in-foster-care?loc=1&loct=1#ranking/2/any/true/573/any/12987 http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/6243-children-in...

rayiner 9y ago

My friend had a babysitter report her to CPS because there were stuffed animals in her 7-month old's crib, which apparently contradicts some guidance. CPS closed the investigation without doing anything, but not before causing a lot of unnecessary worry.

chapium 9y ago
> which apparently contradicts some guidance This isn’t just “some guidance”. Its the American Academy of Pediatrics guidance which shows stuffed animals, pillows, and blankets increase the risk factor for SIDS.
- rayiner 9y ago
  A lot of medical guidance comes from busybodies who have no ability to perform cost-benefit analysis (e.g. pregnant women and caffeine). SIDS risk is around 0.5 per 1,000. The major cause of the decrease since the 1980s seems to be the decline of smoking. Everything else is noise for something that's already low probability.
  - kolpa 9y ago
    SIDS has decreased (~70%) since 1980s, but Accidental Suffocation has increased (perhaps due to improved diagnosis of ASSB vs SIDS of the same underlying events) to become about as prevalent as SIDS. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/5/e1341.full?sid=bd9574fb-4575-4d35-a46e-a63394e68331 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/5/e1341.fu...
  - btilly 9y ago
    Do you have a source for this claim? References like https://www1.nichd.nih.gov/sts/campaign/science/Pages/backsleeping.aspx https://www1.nichd.nih.gov/sts/campaign/science/Pages/backsl... and articles like https://www.npr.org/2011/07/15/137859024/rethinking-sids-many-deaths-no-longer-a-mystery https://www.npr.org/2011/07/15/137859024/rethinking-sids-man... make it likely that the increase in sleeping children on their back is the bulk of the reduction. And that the fact that blacks are less likely to take that recommendation is the reason why the black community has twice the death rate of whites. This is something that I have a personal interest in. My nephew died of SIDS months before the recommendation about sleeping positions was reversed back in the early 90s. My sister did not smoke. She did put him to sleep on his stomach.

trey-jones 9y ago

Both frustrating and terrifying as a parent of young kids. I'm fortunate enough to live far enough off the beaten path that nosy neighbors aren't my top concern, but it still just seems asinine for cases like the ones mentioned in the article to even result in investigation, much less losing my kids (even temporarily).

iandanforth 9y ago

Good reminder that not all laws are restrictive, or more specifically, some of the best laws restrict the state not the individual.

maloney 9y ago
Yeah, see Bill of Rights.

macmac 9y ago

I think what baffles the mind is, that a state law is required to ensure this in the land of the free. How did things evolve to a state where this is necessary?

clairity 9y ago

> "This law makes it so that allowing children normal independence is legal." now we just need to make it normal (i.e., socially acceptable). it's hard because no matter where we stand in the sociosphere, we're always on the lookout for danger and enemies. that's the yang to our yin, the opposing force that elucidates our core identity. while life is full of quite unlikely but life-threatening risks, it's crippling to be constantly finding, worrying about, and trying to mitigate all of those risks for our kids. we can't, and it shouldn't be expected of us. parents need to provide the broad strokes (don't jump off a cliff, swallow random pills, or run blindly into the street) but kids need the room to test the minutiae of those boundaries (can i jump off the monkey bars? is this rural dirt road ok to run into? is it ok to eat 10 of these flintstones vitamins at once?). that's what growing up is all about. otherwise our kids won't be able to cope with the inevitable dangers they will face later in life. on some dimensions, they need to be tested in minutely-increasing increments so they develop confidence in emergency situations ("camp" in the living room, then in the yard, then with a scouting troop, then with friends, then alone) but they don't need to be--and can't be--prepared for every danger in the world. you can't fly without risking a fall to the ground.

notheguyouthink 9y ago
It's sad to me how many parents fail to prepare children for the world. As a non-parent (and do not want kids), I feel I have a jaded view on this. Yet, I was once a child.. so I should have some, I guess. I taught myself to shave, learned about sex myself, taught myself to drive, etcetc. I love my parents, but frankly they didn't teach me anything in life outside of passive observations of their behavior. I learned about bickering from them though, in leagues. heh. I don't get why more parents don't want to be the kind that are so dependable, the child will call them when they're too drunk to drive home at 16yrs old. Or the kind that explains to their kids that all drugs are not equal, some are far worse, some are not bad. Or hell, not just that some drugs are bad, but why some are bad. So many parents seem afraid to be the one who teaches their child first about the "tough" things in the world like sex and drugs. Yet, the tough things in the world should come first from them, imo. I just don't get it.
- 9y ago

throwawaysecops 9y ago

Better solution? Move out of the United States, which is quickly becoming the home of the Fourth Reich.

hodgesrm 9y ago

The law seems like a common sense balancing of issues--protect children from obvious abuse but ensure there's plenty of room for them to grow up into robust adults. Kudos to Utah for trying to be reasonable about it. (Personally I think most people should do a few things that scare the crap out of them while growing up--it's the only way to learn your limits.)