Children of Heroin Crisis Find Refuge in Grandparents’ Arms
May 22, 2016 4:09 PM Subscribe
A NYT photo essay: "Not since the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, analysts say, have so many children been at risk because of parental drug addiction."
I have seen grandparents being the parent for 20+ years in Montana and it is getting worse. It used to be concentrated in low social economic status areas but now it is everywhere. Meth and alcohol use are often the causes.
posted by ITravelMontana at 5:08 PM on May 22, 2016
posted by ITravelMontana at 5:08 PM on May 22, 2016
Sadly, heroin had only become an issue because white people are using it.
This is nothing new. It is heartbreaking, frustrating and cruel to both the addicts and their children.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:09 PM on May 22, 2016 [12 favorites]
This is nothing new. It is heartbreaking, frustrating and cruel to both the addicts and their children.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:09 PM on May 22, 2016 [12 favorites]
Pretty tame "photo essay" those pics could have been re-framed as just about anything
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:58 PM on May 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:58 PM on May 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
. It used to be concentrated in low social economic status areas but now it is everywhere.
Two former coworkers, both upper middle class, are raising grandkids right now, one full time and the other part time. And I know other people in this situation, too. It seems incredibly common.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:07 PM on May 22, 2016
Two former coworkers, both upper middle class, are raising grandkids right now, one full time and the other part time. And I know other people in this situation, too. It seems incredibly common.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:07 PM on May 22, 2016
Upper middle class people have always had screw-up kids, and had to take in said screw-ups' own kids. Mean reversion can be a really bastard ... query if opioids are making it worse, or are just the temptation easiest to hand; if no Oxy, it'd be booze, or gambling, or hippy commune cults, etc.
posted by MattD at 6:42 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by MattD at 6:42 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
Not since the crack epidemic...
I smell a moral panic in the making.
posted by TedW at 6:47 PM on May 22, 2016 [12 favorites]
I smell a moral panic in the making.
posted by TedW at 6:47 PM on May 22, 2016 [12 favorites]
Yeah, crack "epidemic" you say?
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 6:52 PM on May 22, 2016
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 6:52 PM on May 22, 2016
Let's get the disclaimer out of the way: I know (both as an abstract fact and as in know some people in this situation) that this is a problem for some people. That having been said, the framing of this is kind of problematic, just as the crack problem was framed as being some unique and terrible crisis (including the prophesied wave of "crack babies", which turned out to be a myth), which in turn was used to justify racially discriminatory mandatory drug sentencing laws. This bit jumped out at me: In late middle age, taking in a grandchild can crimp retirement plans and add new layers of financial stress and logistical responsibilities. Translation: there go those millennials again, finding yet another way to fuck things up for the boomers. (Let's not look too closely at the generational characteristics of the prescription painkiller pushers who led those young people to get hooked on opiates in the first place.) The individual stories have more nuances than that, but I really don't believe that the NYT cares that much about nuance.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:56 PM on May 22, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:56 PM on May 22, 2016 [7 favorites]
Sadly, heroin had only become an issue because white people are using it.
So what? If it's an opportunity for things to get better for everyone living from now on, why not take it now, when it might do everyone some good in the future? I don't get this crabs in a barrel approach to society people are so quick to take lately. Why should we let resentment over the past make the future suck, too?
posted by saulgoodman at 7:07 PM on May 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
So what? If it's an opportunity for things to get better for everyone living from now on, why not take it now, when it might do everyone some good in the future? I don't get this crabs in a barrel approach to society people are so quick to take lately. Why should we let resentment over the past make the future suck, too?
posted by saulgoodman at 7:07 PM on May 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
These articles make me so angry I can't even see straight. You are absolutely spot on with the moral panic and the reference to "crack babies." You all know that "crack babies" are a myth, right? A story told to scare white people? There were always more white people using crack than African Americans.
These problems are very real for these individual families, but no amount of touching photo essays in the NY Times are actually going to change anything. This kind of stigmatizing crap really really doesn't help.
posted by gingerbeer at 7:09 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
These problems are very real for these individual families, but no amount of touching photo essays in the NY Times are actually going to change anything. This kind of stigmatizing crap really really doesn't help.
posted by gingerbeer at 7:09 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
So what? So we should actually care about these things even if we're being sold a bill of goods that it only affects African Americans. It is to our shame as a country that we wait until something affects white people before we start accepting compassionate responses. If we don't critique how these things happen, we will fall into the same patterns again and again.
posted by gingerbeer at 7:13 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by gingerbeer at 7:13 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
Notice the one stat they provide: "Nationwide, 2.6 million grandparents were responsible for their grandchildren in 2014, the census shows, up 8 percent from 2000."
This number is virtually meaningless without knowing the total number of children in 2000 and 2014 (not provided). For all we know from the article, the population of children has increased so that any given family is less likely to undergo this experience.
posted by praemunire at 7:22 PM on May 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
This number is virtually meaningless without knowing the total number of children in 2000 and 2014 (not provided). For all we know from the article, the population of children has increased so that any given family is less likely to undergo this experience.
posted by praemunire at 7:22 PM on May 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
Are these stock photos?
posted by FallowKing at 8:30 PM on May 22, 2016
posted by FallowKing at 8:30 PM on May 22, 2016
I found the piece moving and feel for the people it portrays. Hard to believe that the primary response here is that the photos could be reframed or that it's white people being hurt or that it doesn't include hard statistics.
posted by Lyme Drop at 8:33 PM on May 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Lyme Drop at 8:33 PM on May 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
Hard to believe that the primary response here is that the photos could be reframed or that it's white people being hurt or that it doesn't include hard statistics.
This article makes an explicit claim about the phenomenon it illustrates: "not since the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, analysts say, have so many children been at risk because of parental drug addiction. With the rise in heroin use, grandparents are increasingly raising their grandchildren..."
This is not a politically or morally neutral claim, and it deserves scrutiny.
Allowing your emotions to be engaged without asking what they are being engaged for is a great way to get caught up in a moral panic.
posted by praemunire at 8:53 PM on May 22, 2016 [15 favorites]
This article makes an explicit claim about the phenomenon it illustrates: "not since the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, analysts say, have so many children been at risk because of parental drug addiction. With the rise in heroin use, grandparents are increasingly raising their grandchildren..."
This is not a politically or morally neutral claim, and it deserves scrutiny.
Allowing your emotions to be engaged without asking what they are being engaged for is a great way to get caught up in a moral panic.
posted by praemunire at 8:53 PM on May 22, 2016 [15 favorites]
Fair point. Just feeling a bit of a lack-of-empathy chill, is all.
posted by Lyme Drop at 8:57 PM on May 22, 2016
posted by Lyme Drop at 8:57 PM on May 22, 2016
My sister is raising her grandchild because her daughter couldn't stay clean. This is not news to us.
posted by emjaybee at 9:20 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by emjaybee at 9:20 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
These articles make me so angry I can't even see straight. You are absolutely spot on with the moral panic and the reference to "crack babies." You all know that "crack babies" are a myth, right? A story told to scare white people? There were always more white people using crack than African Americans.
We adopted a little girl a couple of years ago when she was five. Her mom was a heroin addict, and she spent the first two months of her premature life in the hospital detoxing. She came to us when she was three months old. It's pretty clear she'll have learning and social issues for the rest of her life due to prenatal drug exposure, but that was only half of her lot to deal with over the first few years of her life.
When she was two, the court opted to send her back to her biological mother, because she had apparently fulfilled part of her court ordered treatment program, but not all of it. We implored the court not to do it. We honestly think the court did something illegal, but there was nothing we could do. Our last memory of her for the longest time was her waving bye to us form a van because she thought she was going to see us later.
We didn't see her for a year and a half, because her mom wouldn't let us. After all that time, thinking we'd never see her again, we received a call from social services saying that they found her a drug house hiding under a blanket when doing a police raid. Her mom had left her there for a couple of days when they found her. Would we like to take her back, as they noticed in the file that she last lived with us?
I'm not sure why I'm sharing this again (I've done it here before), except to say that the effects of drug use on kids that are caught in the system are pretty horrible, in more than one way. We did foster care for a long time, and our story is not uncommon. There are actually so many kids who come in with a similar situation in our area that social services can get desperate, and social workers don't know where to take them.
Epidemic? I'm not sure. But the reality is that many, many babies are horribly affected by this, and most people that I talk to have no idea it's an issue. I tend to think that it's not so much a myth as a really inconvenient reality that's pretty easy to ignore or hide behind government programs.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:51 PM on May 22, 2016 [28 favorites]
We adopted a little girl a couple of years ago when she was five. Her mom was a heroin addict, and she spent the first two months of her premature life in the hospital detoxing. She came to us when she was three months old. It's pretty clear she'll have learning and social issues for the rest of her life due to prenatal drug exposure, but that was only half of her lot to deal with over the first few years of her life.
When she was two, the court opted to send her back to her biological mother, because she had apparently fulfilled part of her court ordered treatment program, but not all of it. We implored the court not to do it. We honestly think the court did something illegal, but there was nothing we could do. Our last memory of her for the longest time was her waving bye to us form a van because she thought she was going to see us later.
We didn't see her for a year and a half, because her mom wouldn't let us. After all that time, thinking we'd never see her again, we received a call from social services saying that they found her a drug house hiding under a blanket when doing a police raid. Her mom had left her there for a couple of days when they found her. Would we like to take her back, as they noticed in the file that she last lived with us?
I'm not sure why I'm sharing this again (I've done it here before), except to say that the effects of drug use on kids that are caught in the system are pretty horrible, in more than one way. We did foster care for a long time, and our story is not uncommon. There are actually so many kids who come in with a similar situation in our area that social services can get desperate, and social workers don't know where to take them.
Epidemic? I'm not sure. But the reality is that many, many babies are horribly affected by this, and most people that I talk to have no idea it's an issue. I tend to think that it's not so much a myth as a really inconvenient reality that's pretty easy to ignore or hide behind government programs.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:51 PM on May 22, 2016 [28 favorites]
I think we can agree that the rise in heroin addiction can be both a bad thing and a way of fomenting moral panic.
If the interview I heard with Anne Coulter the other day is anything to go by, there is an attempt to connect heroin addiction with Mexican immigration and Donald Trump playing the part of saviour.
This article has some interesting points:
If the interview I heard with Anne Coulter the other day is anything to go by, there is an attempt to connect heroin addiction with Mexican immigration and Donald Trump playing the part of saviour.
This article has some interesting points:
Heroin abuse is tightly tied to prescription drug abuse. Almost half of people addicted to heroin are also addicted to painkillers. People are 40 times more likely to be addicted to heroin if they are addicted to prescription painkillers. Abuse of prescription painkillers is incredibly common — one in 20 Americans age 12 and older reported using painkillers for non-medical reasons in the past year. While it's true that heroin abuse has skyrocketed in the last years, prescription drug abuse is more common. The number of overdose deaths from prescription pain medication is larger than those of heroin and cocaine combined.posted by asok at 3:06 AM on May 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
One of the main differences between the two issues is that while the issue of heroin is intertwined with border security, the abuse of prescription drugs is largely the fault of our own health system. Enough painkillers were prescribed by American doctors during one month in 2010 to medicate every American around the clock for an entire month.
A majority of those who take prescription pain medicine for non-medical reasons get them free from a friend or relative. In nearly 85 percent of those cases, the friend or relative obtained them from one doctor. One in five users obtain prescriptions themselves from one doctor.
Oh goody, now we're back to drug panics.
Thankfully it's not long before climate change, mono-cropping, uneven distribution of resources and political unrest destroy the global poppy supply, and all the ILLEGALDRUGADDICTS can't get their evil anti-American dope which, (not total despair in light of the above) is the root of their problems.
Then finally the impoverished holders of the last hot potatoes of late capitalism can return to the serious business of turning them into bathtub gin.
posted by aspersioncast at 3:56 AM on May 23, 2016
Thankfully it's not long before climate change, mono-cropping, uneven distribution of resources and political unrest destroy the global poppy supply, and all the ILLEGALDRUGADDICTS can't get their evil anti-American dope which, (not total despair in light of the above) is the root of their problems.
Then finally the impoverished holders of the last hot potatoes of late capitalism can return to the serious business of turning them into bathtub gin.
posted by aspersioncast at 3:56 AM on May 23, 2016
This number is virtually meaningless without knowing the total number of children in 2000 and 2014 (not provided)
Here you go
posted by IndigoJones at 4:57 AM on May 23, 2016
Here you go
posted by IndigoJones at 4:57 AM on May 23, 2016
If the interview I heard with Anne Coulter the other day
Oh, gods, is she still around?
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:32 AM on May 23, 2016
Oh, gods, is she still around?
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:32 AM on May 23, 2016
This would be much less of a problem if maintenance therapy wasn't incredibly limited by the federal government, thus making it expensive and difficult to access. Sadly, if the expense or difficulty in finding a prescriber doesn't keep you from accessing treatment, many people's need for concurrent inpatient or group therapy will doom them to relapse. Most treatment programs and NA groups are of the opinion that being on a controlled dose of methadone or buprenorphine is no better than being on heroin or pills and will not accept patients who are using !maintenance therapy. Never mind that evidence shows that both drugs cut the relapse rate by a huge amount.
posted by wierdo at 7:37 AM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by wierdo at 7:37 AM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's just over 80 years since Dorothea Lange's famous Migrant Mother photo series was taken and its most iconic image published in the San Francisco News. I can't help wondering what kind of reception an FPP featuring that picture, something along the lines of:
posted by Sonny Jim at 8:01 AM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Heartbreaking images from out West: "Ragged, Hungry, Broke, Harvest Workers Live in Squaller."would get around these here parts if it were taken today. I suspect the comments would be very, very similar to the ones in this thread.
posted by DarlingBri (23 comments total) [add to activity] [add to favorites] [!]
posted by Sonny Jim at 8:01 AM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
My comment about the sadly this is becoming an issue now is all about the lack of options for African American families before this. It is good it is becoming an issue but it should have been one 20, 30 years ago.
Also the privalage reeks, giving up returement, yada yada. Not for the many folks who end up taking their children's kids who are already in poverty.
Also in most (all?) states kinship placements in foster care do not come with a child stipend. And things that the children may need , like therapy can be out of reach.
posted by AlexiaSky at 8:29 AM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Also the privalage reeks, giving up returement, yada yada. Not for the many folks who end up taking their children's kids who are already in poverty.
Also in most (all?) states kinship placements in foster care do not come with a child stipend. And things that the children may need , like therapy can be out of reach.
posted by AlexiaSky at 8:29 AM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Not for the many folks who end up taking their children's kids who are already in poverty
This. But it's still an additional strain at a time when you're supposed to be getting a little relief. I've seen this with my dad and step-mom who stepped up for a bit to take care of my step-sister's daughter (who is now in a perfectly loving stable home with her aunt). My parents are over 60, they have no retirement savings, and were just starting to breathe a little since all the kids moved out (and moved out again after they had to move back in). They are older and more tired than when they raised their own children and though they love her very much, were not looking forward to raising human being again.
So yes it is a little privileged to be talking about giving up their retirement but even people in poverty don't expect to be taking care of a child after they're already in their 60s.
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:44 AM on May 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
This. But it's still an additional strain at a time when you're supposed to be getting a little relief. I've seen this with my dad and step-mom who stepped up for a bit to take care of my step-sister's daughter (who is now in a perfectly loving stable home with her aunt). My parents are over 60, they have no retirement savings, and were just starting to breathe a little since all the kids moved out (and moved out again after they had to move back in). They are older and more tired than when they raised their own children and though they love her very much, were not looking forward to raising human being again.
So yes it is a little privileged to be talking about giving up their retirement but even people in poverty don't expect to be taking care of a child after they're already in their 60s.
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:44 AM on May 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
If the interview I heard with Anne Coulter the other day
Oh, gods, is she still around?
Seems to be being re-animated by the Trump thing
posted by thelonius at 1:10 PM on May 23, 2016
Oh, gods, is she still around?
Seems to be being re-animated by the Trump thing
posted by thelonius at 1:10 PM on May 23, 2016
This is a very, very complicated problem and for every story of a child harmed by the state not acting and keeping him with an addicted parent, there are probably two of the state acting and harming kids by taking them away for things like having parents who are poor and smoke pot and basically can't follow arcane bureaucratic rules that are set up to trap them.
During the crack years, thousands of children who didn't need foster care (along with some who very much did) were flooded into it because it was believed that their parents were murderous monsters on account of having taken crack— and that they would grow up to be "superpredators."
In fact, what turns out to be the case about crack is that it is as damaging to fetuses as cigarettes— ie, increases prematurity, stillbirth and other bad outcomes but doesn't produce devastating birth defects like alcohol does. The data on opioids shows that it's probably about the same or less harmful— there's certainly no "fetal opioid syndrome" and while kids can suffer from withdrawal if their mothers are physically dependent during pregnancy, they can't be "born addicted," because that would require them to know what they crave and seek it despite negative consequences, which they obviously cannot do. And there's no evidence that suffering withdrawal during infancy causes lasting damage.
Indeed, the most important thing to the outcome for children who are exposed to drugs in utero is to provide them a safe, secure, loving home and in the vast majority of cases, this will actually be with their own parents. A program I wrote about in Boston found that 95% of opioid exposed babies can be safely cared for by their parents— the problem is, as someone posted above, we typically do not provide the best treatment for these moms, which is ongoing maintenance.
Indeed, many child welfare systems and workers try to force moms to *stop* maintenance with methadone or suboxone, which is the best treatment for opioid addiction and is the only one that cuts the death rate by 50-70% or more.
posted by Maias at 4:19 PM on May 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
During the crack years, thousands of children who didn't need foster care (along with some who very much did) were flooded into it because it was believed that their parents were murderous monsters on account of having taken crack— and that they would grow up to be "superpredators."
In fact, what turns out to be the case about crack is that it is as damaging to fetuses as cigarettes— ie, increases prematurity, stillbirth and other bad outcomes but doesn't produce devastating birth defects like alcohol does. The data on opioids shows that it's probably about the same or less harmful— there's certainly no "fetal opioid syndrome" and while kids can suffer from withdrawal if their mothers are physically dependent during pregnancy, they can't be "born addicted," because that would require them to know what they crave and seek it despite negative consequences, which they obviously cannot do. And there's no evidence that suffering withdrawal during infancy causes lasting damage.
Indeed, the most important thing to the outcome for children who are exposed to drugs in utero is to provide them a safe, secure, loving home and in the vast majority of cases, this will actually be with their own parents. A program I wrote about in Boston found that 95% of opioid exposed babies can be safely cared for by their parents— the problem is, as someone posted above, we typically do not provide the best treatment for these moms, which is ongoing maintenance.
Indeed, many child welfare systems and workers try to force moms to *stop* maintenance with methadone or suboxone, which is the best treatment for opioid addiction and is the only one that cuts the death rate by 50-70% or more.
posted by Maias at 4:19 PM on May 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
In Vancouver there is virtually no heroin left on the street after it has been pushed out by the cheaper and more potent fentanyl.
posted by My Dad at 10:11 PM on May 23, 2016
posted by My Dad at 10:11 PM on May 23, 2016
I'm not totally clear on how the article you linked relates to the OP, Maias. Your article is about mothers whose addition is being treated successfully and whose only offense is that their treatment affected their fetuses. It compares the outcomes for children being raised by their parents with being in the foster care system, citing risks and traumas that don't really apply to children being raised by grandparents. The children in the OP are being raised by grandparents because their parents' addictions are not currently controlled, leading to unsafe conditions for the kids. And the outcomes for kids in stable family placements are a lot better than the outcomes for kids who are fostered by strangers.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:14 PM on May 23, 2016
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:14 PM on May 23, 2016
This reminded me that my oldest daughter's good friend is currently being raised by her grandmother. Similar situation, mother decided to not engage at all, chose the drugs over her daughter, still does (hasn't seen her in many months), even though she has oodles of resources to get better. My daughter's friend is dealing with some pretty strong feelings of abandonment. There are facets of this discussion about whether drugs are harmful to fetuses, but the truth is that it's only a minor part of the equation. The real damage that happens to kids is the lack of emotional attachment or just outright impressions of abandonment from parents who use a drug that has an incredibly high rate of recidivism, and kids end up having to wait out their parents trying to get their life together while courts sit and twiddle their thumbs, giving every opportunity in the world for this to happen. Children spend formative years of their lives detached from significant relationships, wondering where in the world they belong, why their parents chose drugs over them. And parents, because they are so emotionally detached, pat themselves on the back when they have a month or so sober, totally unconnected from the hell that their child has lived, and can possibly never be resolved.
At least where I'm from, courts and social workers taking kids away from struggling families is a bit of an exaggerated trope, and the reality is that the pendulum has swung very much towards reunification, which means that children spend a whole lot of time getting passed around like sacks of flour waiting for parents to recreate, as if by magic of good intention and government programs, a new and healthy home environment. I'm pretty excited when parents are able to reconnect to their children and genuinely recover, but the reality seems to be that parents who have ongoing addiction issues too often are unable to provide long term environments for kids that allow them to thrive, because the shadow of their addiction is often treated like their first born, and relapse is incidious. They are often too busy dealing with their own addiction stuff and their own feelings of temporary (and too often fleeting) accomplishment to create healthy emotional attachments for children who deserve much better. Sounds unfair and not very gracious, I know. But drugs can be hell, and they can create a wake of destruction that have horrible consequences that don't always have good solutions. I've seen it too often to be taken in by studies that want to suggest otherwise.
Rare exceptions exist, of course, and the world would be so much better if those exceptions were the norm; but based on a descriptive analysis of the reality, I'm convinced that the pendulum ought to swing back towards thinking about the best interest of children (sometimes this is with the parent, but sometimes it's not), and how to give them formative years of good attachment, rather than thinking primarily about the rights of parents who squander opportunities to get their children back as if children are property who have no agency or preferences that the court should take seriously.
posted by SpacemanStix at 12:18 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
At least where I'm from, courts and social workers taking kids away from struggling families is a bit of an exaggerated trope, and the reality is that the pendulum has swung very much towards reunification, which means that children spend a whole lot of time getting passed around like sacks of flour waiting for parents to recreate, as if by magic of good intention and government programs, a new and healthy home environment. I'm pretty excited when parents are able to reconnect to their children and genuinely recover, but the reality seems to be that parents who have ongoing addiction issues too often are unable to provide long term environments for kids that allow them to thrive, because the shadow of their addiction is often treated like their first born, and relapse is incidious. They are often too busy dealing with their own addiction stuff and their own feelings of temporary (and too often fleeting) accomplishment to create healthy emotional attachments for children who deserve much better. Sounds unfair and not very gracious, I know. But drugs can be hell, and they can create a wake of destruction that have horrible consequences that don't always have good solutions. I've seen it too often to be taken in by studies that want to suggest otherwise.
Rare exceptions exist, of course, and the world would be so much better if those exceptions were the norm; but based on a descriptive analysis of the reality, I'm convinced that the pendulum ought to swing back towards thinking about the best interest of children (sometimes this is with the parent, but sometimes it's not), and how to give them formative years of good attachment, rather than thinking primarily about the rights of parents who squander opportunities to get their children back as if children are property who have no agency or preferences that the court should take seriously.
posted by SpacemanStix at 12:18 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
At least where I'm from, courts and social workers taking kids away from struggling families is a bit of an exaggerated trope, and the reality is that the pendulum has swung very much towards reunification, which means that children spend a whole lot of time getting passed around like sacks of flour waiting for parents to recreate, as if by magic of good intention and government programs, a new and healthy home environment.
Based only on watching two coworkers go through this as grandparents, this is not a bad description of the process they are going through. Every time the parents start compliance with a recovery program, custody is returned, but they never seem to stay clean all that long and then the kids are back with the grandparents. I guess the trend has been to move away from punitive models, which is probably for the good, but in the two cases I have been able to closely watch the consequence seemed to be to remove consequences and responsibilities from the addicted parents, while passing the kid around and guaranteeing periods of neglect.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:22 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Based only on watching two coworkers go through this as grandparents, this is not a bad description of the process they are going through. Every time the parents start compliance with a recovery program, custody is returned, but they never seem to stay clean all that long and then the kids are back with the grandparents. I guess the trend has been to move away from punitive models, which is probably for the good, but in the two cases I have been able to closely watch the consequence seemed to be to remove consequences and responsibilities from the addicted parents, while passing the kid around and guaranteeing periods of neglect.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:22 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
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posted by saulgoodman at 5:06 PM on May 22, 2016 [5 favorites]