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> No matter how awful the family relationship they still have a family which is ultimately more grounding and stable than anything else. When one reads stories

> No matter how awful the family relationship they still have a family which is ultimately more grounding and stable than anything else. When one reads stories like the New Yorker article on Mackenzie Fierceton (née Morrison) [1] or various accounts of physical abuse rendered in /r/asianparents, one is very skeptical of your assessment. Is a gilded cage an acceptable tradeoff for mistreatment and contempt? What's the point of keeping children in the company of people that think of them as little more than chattel? That can't be good for a child's self-esteem or development. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/04/mackenzie-fierceton-rhodes-scholarship-university-of-pennsylvania https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/04/mackenzie-fier...

pmyteh 4y ago
The practice in England and Wales is summed up by the following (now rather famous) passage from Mr Justice Hedley in a 2007 case[0]: > Basically it is the tradition of the United Kingdom, recognised in law, that children are best brought up within natural families. Lord Templeman, in Re: KD (a minor ward) (termination of access) [1988] 1 AC 806, at page 812 said this: > > "The best person to bring up a child is the natural parent. It matters not whether the parent is wise or foolish, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, provided the child's moral and physical health are not in danger. Public authorities cannot improve on nature." > There are those who may regard that last sentence as controversial but undoubtedly it represents the present state of the law in determining the starting point. It follows inexorably from that, that society must be willing to tolerate very diverse standards of parenting, including the eccentric, the barely adequate and the inconsistent. It follows too that children will inevitably have both very different experiences of parenting and very unequal consequences flowing from it. It means that some children will experience disadvantage and harm, whilst others flourish in atmospheres of loving security and emotional stability. These are the consequences of our fallible humanity and it is not the provenance of the State to spare children all the consequences of defective parenting. In any event, it simply could not be done. (Emphasis mine). I'm not sure I like it, but I understand why this is where we are. Of course, we haven't outlawed beating children in England yet, unlike Wales and Scotland, so there are still obvious improvements to be made... [0]: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCC/Fam/2006/2.html https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCC/Fam/2006/2.html
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  Beating children is unreasonable chastisement and is outlawed.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Yes. The line for state involvement interfering with the raising of children has to be somewhere well beyond "barely adequate". Many things can be problems we all hope to be better that do not fit into the set of problems the state should be responsible for. People seem to think and want more and more for the government to take the responsibility to fix things despite plenty of evidence that they really can't do so all that well. Beyond a certain threshold yes, but that threshold is not "if there's still a problem the government isn't doing enough".
  - pmyteh 4y ago
    There is a lot that government could be doing which would make family breakdown less likely and less traumatic: building enough social housing that local authorities are capable of discharging their homelessness duties, for example, or reopening the children's centres. So I certainly wouldn't want to sign on to the idea that our present state of child protection is fine. But corporate parenting is hard, and we're depressingly bad at it :-(
    - treeman79 4y ago
      Destruction of the nuclear family is a “goal” of Marxism. They believe the only allegiance is to the state. https://nypost.com/2020/09/24/blm-removes-website-language-blasting-nuclear-family-structure/ https://nypost.com/2020/09/24/blm-removes-website-language-b...
      - hulitu 4y ago
        I would be careful when i read about marxism from an american newspaper. YMMV.
colechristensen 4y ago
>What's the point of keeping children in the company of people that think of them as little more than chattel? That can't be good for a child's self-esteem or development. What has to be considered is the alternative, there is not an infinite supply of good places to send children to if their parents are terrible. The foster system has quite a lot of negative outcomes, to put it generously. Not very many people want to adopt a half grown child with behavior problems from earlier mistreatment, it is not at all an easy thing to do. A family court has the unenviable position of picking lesser evils when surrounded by manipulations while attracting incompetent zealots. Everyone wants to be upset about the mistreatment of children, few good competent people able to support a difficult child actually want to take on that responsibility from someone else.
treeman79 4y ago
I’ve adopted and dealt with foster kids. Almost anything is better the removing them. We adopted a teen from foster care. Every single person she knew that ended up in the system is either in jail. On hard drugs. In Abusive relationships. Or have kids already taken away. Or all of the above. Being bounced around from home to home just destroyed their sense of belonging. We had a brutal number of years of lost health l destroyed finances and everything else before she finally knew we loved her and wanted her. But I did get to finally walk her down the aisle and she is with a good man now.
- soderfoo 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing such a nice story. I've put off starting a family until my mid 30s due to being abandoned by my mother as a child. Luckily, my dad did all he could to shower me with love and raise me well. It took a while for me to truly appreciate him (early 30s) and accept he will always be there. When my time comes to be a dad, I hope to harness the patience and empathy of great parents like you and my dad.

pmyteh 4y ago

The practice in England and Wales is summed up by the following (now rather famous) passage from Mr Justice Hedley in a 2007 case[0]: > Basically it is the tradition of the United Kingdom, recognised in law, that children are best brought up within natural families. Lord Templeman, in Re: KD (a minor ward) (termination of access) [1988] 1 AC 806, at page 812 said this: > > "The best person to bring up a child is the natural parent. It matters not whether the parent is wise or foolish, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, provided the child's moral and physical health are not in danger. Public authorities cannot improve on nature." > There are those who may regard that last sentence as controversial but undoubtedly it represents the present state of the law in determining the starting point. It follows inexorably from that, that society must be willing to tolerate very diverse standards of parenting, including the eccentric, the barely adequate and the inconsistent. It follows too that children will inevitably have both very different experiences of parenting and very unequal consequences flowing from it. It means that some children will experience disadvantage and harm, whilst others flourish in atmospheres of loving security and emotional stability. These are the consequences of our fallible humanity and it is not the provenance of the State to spare children all the consequences of defective parenting. In any event, it simply could not be done. (Emphasis mine). I'm not sure I like it, but I understand why this is where we are. Of course, we haven't outlawed beating children in England yet, unlike Wales and Scotland, so there are still obvious improvements to be made... [0]: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCC/Fam/2006/2.html https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCC/Fam/2006/2.html

pbhjpbhj 4y ago
Beating children is unreasonable chastisement and is outlawed.
colechristensen 4y ago
Yes. The line for state involvement interfering with the raising of children has to be somewhere well beyond "barely adequate". Many things can be problems we all hope to be better that do not fit into the set of problems the state should be responsible for. People seem to think and want more and more for the government to take the responsibility to fix things despite plenty of evidence that they really can't do so all that well. Beyond a certain threshold yes, but that threshold is not "if there's still a problem the government isn't doing enough".
- pmyteh 4y ago
  There is a lot that government could be doing which would make family breakdown less likely and less traumatic: building enough social housing that local authorities are capable of discharging their homelessness duties, for example, or reopening the children's centres. So I certainly wouldn't want to sign on to the idea that our present state of child protection is fine. But corporate parenting is hard, and we're depressingly bad at it :-(
  - treeman79 4y ago
    Destruction of the nuclear family is a “goal” of Marxism. They believe the only allegiance is to the state. https://nypost.com/2020/09/24/blm-removes-website-language-blasting-nuclear-family-structure/ https://nypost.com/2020/09/24/blm-removes-website-language-b...
    - hulitu 4y ago
      I would be careful when i read about marxism from an american newspaper. YMMV.

colechristensen 4y ago

>What's the point of keeping children in the company of people that think of them as little more than chattel? That can't be good for a child's self-esteem or development. What has to be considered is the alternative, there is not an infinite supply of good places to send children to if their parents are terrible. The foster system has quite a lot of negative outcomes, to put it generously. Not very many people want to adopt a half grown child with behavior problems from earlier mistreatment, it is not at all an easy thing to do. A family court has the unenviable position of picking lesser evils when surrounded by manipulations while attracting incompetent zealots. Everyone wants to be upset about the mistreatment of children, few good competent people able to support a difficult child actually want to take on that responsibility from someone else.

treeman79 4y ago

I’ve adopted and dealt with foster kids. Almost anything is better the removing them. We adopted a teen from foster care. Every single person she knew that ended up in the system is either in jail. On hard drugs. In Abusive relationships. Or have kids already taken away. Or all of the above. Being bounced around from home to home just destroyed their sense of belonging. We had a brutal number of years of lost health l destroyed finances and everything else before she finally knew we loved her and wanted her. But I did get to finally walk her down the aisle and she is with a good man now.

soderfoo 4y ago
Thanks for sharing such a nice story. I've put off starting a family until my mid 30s due to being abandoned by my mother as a child. Luckily, my dad did all he could to shower me with love and raise me well. It took a while for me to truly appreciate him (early 30s) and accept he will always be there. When my time comes to be a dad, I hope to harness the patience and empathy of great parents like you and my dad.