4 ms·

Maybe the thinking was, what bad can happen from being extra cautious, an extra visit from a kind child safety inspector?

sowbug 4y ago
That's dangerously close to the thinking that if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. The US Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure means that we, as a society, are OK not detecting all crime. But this doesn't feel like a commonly held value these days. "If we can save just one life..." is considered a valid argument for excessive safety protocols. Not far from "If we can detect just one crime..." (Not necessarily disagreeing with your point; indeed, maybe that was the thinking.)
iudqnolq 4y ago
For one, you could temporarily lose your child/parents. Whenever something bad happens to a child and there was an investigation in progress the investigators are criticized. So they've set things up in many states to bias strongly towards briefly taking the child away and placing them with strangers. But that has long-lasting negative impacts on childhood development.
candiodari 4y ago
Yes, what could possibly go wrong if you keep mother and child separate ... oh wait. That's actually well studied: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_attachment_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_attachment_disorder That this can happen, of course, to any sane person would be a very strong argument not to interfere, and place the threshold for taking children forcibly away almost at the point they would die without aid, because the vast majority of problems neglect causes are much less bad than the problems CPS causes. Neglect causes "parentification" [1], where sometimes very young children take responsibility for themselves and sometimes also for others. The one psychological problem children can develop that can actually improve outcomes for them. Essentially if children "succeed" at parentification, it results in good outcomes. So you'd think we would alter society to make it easier for children to take care of themselves (e.g. guarantee medical access for children by themselves WITHOUT referring them to CPS, in abstract a clear, workable, understandable set of rules. Do X, Y and Z (e.g. school) and you get to do what you want, which must of course include telling social services to get the fuck out) The problem CPS has is that in general, very, very bad parents deliver better results with children than CPS interference. This is partly due to the state of CPS institutions and just how incredibly bad they are, but is also the result of how the human mind works. A constant relationship with even an abusive parent/caregiver is a lot better than many short caregiver relationships, even if those are pretty good ones. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parentification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parentification

sowbug 4y ago

That's dangerously close to the thinking that if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. The US Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure means that we, as a society, are OK not detecting all crime. But this doesn't feel like a commonly held value these days. "If we can save just one life..." is considered a valid argument for excessive safety protocols. Not far from "If we can detect just one crime..." (Not necessarily disagreeing with your point; indeed, maybe that was the thinking.)

iudqnolq 4y ago

For one, you could temporarily lose your child/parents. Whenever something bad happens to a child and there was an investigation in progress the investigators are criticized. So they've set things up in many states to bias strongly towards briefly taking the child away and placing them with strangers. But that has long-lasting negative impacts on childhood development.

candiodari 4y ago

Yes, what could possibly go wrong if you keep mother and child separate ... oh wait. That's actually well studied: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_attachment_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_attachment_disorder That this can happen, of course, to any sane person would be a very strong argument not to interfere, and place the threshold for taking children forcibly away almost at the point they would die without aid, because the vast majority of problems neglect causes are much less bad than the problems CPS causes. Neglect causes "parentification" [1], where sometimes very young children take responsibility for themselves and sometimes also for others. The one psychological problem children can develop that can actually improve outcomes for them. Essentially if children "succeed" at parentification, it results in good outcomes. So you'd think we would alter society to make it easier for children to take care of themselves (e.g. guarantee medical access for children by themselves WITHOUT referring them to CPS, in abstract a clear, workable, understandable set of rules. Do X, Y and Z (e.g. school) and you get to do what you want, which must of course include telling social services to get the fuck out) The problem CPS has is that in general, very, very bad parents deliver better results with children than CPS interference. This is partly due to the state of CPS institutions and just how incredibly bad they are, but is also the result of how the human mind works. A constant relationship with even an abusive parent/caregiver is a lot better than many short caregiver relationships, even if those are pretty good ones. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parentification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parentification