“Hi! We’re from the government, and we’re here to help you!”
Once upon a time, things like this didn’t happen in America.
A family in Chandler, Arizona, was in bed, sleeping, when shortly after 1 a.m., police broke down their door, yelled and pointed guns at them, and took away the children (https://reason.com/blog/2019/03/27/sick-2-year-old-swat-team-dcs-parents). The state government’s Dept. of Child Safety (!?!) still has custody of the three children, in separate foster homes, and the family will not be allowed to come back together until some judge is in a good mood.
What was the crime that elicited this–shall we say “vigorous”?–response from Herod’s men?
The toddler had a fever. The mother took him to the doctor. While they were waiting to see the doctor, the fever broke, the child’s temperature went down, and he felt well enough to laugh and play.
Take him to the hospital anyhow, the doctor said: he ain’t been vaccinated against meningitis. Finally, to placate the doctor, the mother said yeah, sure; and took her child home. But the doctor called the hospital to tell them his patients were on their way, and when they didn’t show up, the hospital called the doctor and he called Big Brother.
They broke down the door in the middle of the night. Somehow the song “Back in the USSR” comes to mind.
Is this what people become cops for? So they can terrorize sleeping children?
The state even asked the judge to bar the press from reporting on the case–might stir up the peasants, don’t you know.
I mean, really, what is this–England?
Welcome to the way it is here! There were 3 kids outside playing in a fenced yard and a neighbor saw this and reported it to the child services who came with police and took the kids away. It was considered abuse to have the kids outside alone, even though the mother kept watching them from inside.
We’ve had some cases just like that.
That’s insane. I thought they wanted kids outside instead of staring at screens all day? Our neighborhood is full of kids playing outside every day. They play basketball in each other’s driveways, ride bikes up and down the street, and just run around doing kid stuff without an adult hanging over them, and without being fenced in. Isn’t this what childhood is supposed to be like? The parents keep an eye out via windows, which is slightly more attention than we used to get. We were shoved out the door in the morning and only came back for lunch, and in the evening when the street lights came on. Remember those days?
Yes, I do remember those days! But now if kids are found outside away from parents they risk losing their kids. It’s getting very bad in our country. Yet we are still told that kids spend too much time inside in front of a screen! Makes no sense.
We’re also told that smoking is bad for you and should be punished, but we should all smoke pot.
True, smoking is bad but pot is okay. It’s legal here in Canada now, but it’s causing lots of problems too.
Back then, the whole adult world was spying on you, eager to rat you out to your parents. So my mother didn’t have to bore herself crazy, watching her kids all day. Somehow all three of us made it through childhood without constant adult supervision. Why, we could even play baseball without adult coaches, sponsors, umpires, and people in the stands! We could actually have fun!
I wonder if I dreamed it all. No, can’t be–you remember it, too.
Yes I do! We played a lot of make-believe games. The original Wonder Woman (Linda Carter) was popular back then. I remember racing around the yard with my magic lasso (disguised as a jump rope) and leaping off the back of my slide.
We also pretended the rain water running down along the street curb was a stream and we pretended we were out in the wilderness. When we got hungry, we ate concord grapes off the vine in my back yard, and these tiny yellow flowers that grew in the grass. No idea what they were, but they were sweet. We played lots of other games, too, that involved chasing each other around. My kids? They play out side for about 20 minutes then come in complaining they’re “too hot” or “saw a bee.”
*Sigh*
This is what happens when a State goes from Red to Blue. When I was a kid the moms on my street would take turns driving and picking us up from the beach where we hung out all day without adult supervision (except the lifeguard). We never had a problem, except for getting too sunburned.
Chilling.