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This article looks really uncritically at people who had their children taken away for abusing them, but in most of these cases it looks like these same people
by tinalumfoil 4y ago
This article looks really uncritically at people who had their children taken away for abusing them, but in most of these cases it looks like these same people are trying to take their partner's children away from them. The article keeps calling this form of abuse "rare" but doesn't actually offer any evidence.
The picture of a mother losing custody of their children is always going to be an emotional picture to paint, but if you step back and focus on the well-being of the child, then you need to take this stuff into consideration.
- newaccount74 4y agoThe article also has an example of the reverse situation, where the kid wanted to live with the father and the mother claimed it was parental alienation. The point of the article is that courts are (sometimes) ignoring childrens' testimony and instead siding with unqualified experts who have a financial incentive to remove children from their preferred parent.
- throwaway09223 4y agoChildren are malleable and relying on their testimony encourages parents to manipulate them. Placing the children with the most manipulative parent isn't in their best interest. There are so, so many cases of children testifying against a parent while living under the care of another, then recanting years later as adults. I don't have a good answer here because I think often the experts are unqualified and give bad advice, but it's important to acknowledge the depth of the problem
- NohatCoder 4y agoThey are also usually really bad at lying. When questioned by actual experts they certainly make for more reliable witnesses than their parents.
- cafard 4y agoProvided always that the actual experts are actually experts and do not have an axe to grind. The McMartin day care case shows what can happen.
- tinalumfoil 4y agoYes, I'm not trying to say it's one-sided in that regard but the author is very careful in the picture they paint in the opening. The issue is sometimes (maybe often) the children's testimony is in fact tainted and should be ignored. Here in the US there's actually a surprising number of high-profile historical cases that involve children being manipulated into false testimony, see for instance the McMartin preschool trial.
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