CPS Took My Kids Because I Don’t Hover

Hi Readers — A long, sad and infuriating story. Here goes:

Dear Free-Range Kids:  I noticed you sometimes talk about Child Protective Services (CPS) or other official intervention and Free-Range children. I have to admit, I did always wonder if I’d get in trouble for being the only mom who doesn’t wait at the bus stop each morning or overbook my kids with extracurriculars, but intellectually I knew I wasn’t breaking any laws or even engaging in any overly questionable parenting. However, it seems the school disagreed, and they compiled a pretty extensive (if weak) case against me with CPS and CPS tried to put my kids in foster care. They’re with my parents now, and our lives have been pretty much destroyed indefinitely.

Long story short: in mid-February, my 8-year-old daughter and I got some ice cream and watched Romeo + Juliet on a Saturday night. Six days later a group of kids cornered her at recess and she got upset and said she wouldn’t be in school Monday because she was going to kill herself. A serious thing, yes, but probably influenced by watching the movie.

The school asked us to get counseling, and I said we were applying for Child Health Plus, which takes up to seven weeks to become active. After three weeks, the school reported us to CPS for “failing” to get counseling, despite the fact I told them four times, in writing, that we did not have money to pay for it out of pocket and were trying to get insurance. (I’m a single mom.) My daughter and her brother (10) were questioned at length, and she said that a single time when she’d had a tantrum, I used a pillow to block her punches. In court documents, this was worded as “on a daily basis, the mother pinches the child’s nose shut while holding her mouth closed and putting a pillow over her face, placing her in imminent risk of death.” This is patently false, but the words were deliberately chosen, because otherwise they could not remove the kids.

CPS workers later told me that the pillow allegation was a pretense to allow them to remove my kids from the home, because the counseling thing had raised a red flag. (I have a recording of the CPS worker saying he did not report the pinching/suffocating allegation, and was surprised to see it in the motion.) I was given a list of other “red flags,” things that are frightening in their averageness:

-That since I work from home, I spend “all night typing on the computer while my kids run wild.”

-That my children walk 300 feet to a bus stop unattended, although I watch from the window. They are 8 and 10 and go together.

-That when my daughter made the suicide threat, close to the end of the school day, I was unavailable by phone because I was on a business call. Apparently, this is a crime worthy of terminating parental rights, because there is an adoption date of 12/2011 on my first court paper. Seems mothers must never be more than five feet from a (non busy) phone at all times.

-That my children “never do their homework,” when in actuality, I don’t do it for them and cut it off at bedtime. If they don’t do it, they miss recess. This happens about twice a month, tops.

-That they “never have school supplies,” because my son lost a notebook once and it stayed lost for a week.

-That I said I could not commit to picking up their homework at the school each day because it would interfere with my work and asked the teachers to email me if there was a problem.

-That I communicate via email, and some of the emails have a timestamp after 2am. This became the “typing all night” thing.

None of the relations I had with the school prior to CPS involvement were hostile or even contentious. I had no reason to believe that such drastic measures would be taken. Never in a million years would I have believed that missing a phone call, allowing kids to walk to the bus stop, letting them go to school with incomplete homework or sending late emails would be grounds to place a child in foster care, but that’s exactly what happened to us.

Since this happened, most people who know us well have reacted with shock and sympathy, but an alarming number have said: “Why didn’t you take them to the bus? ” “Why didn’t you do their homework if they didn’t do it?” “Why are you up late?”

I know all this is insane. No one should be forced to raise their kids in consideration of appearances if the children are happy and healthy. I just hope you don’t get too many emails like mine. — Worried on Long Island

Dear Worried: I am sickened an appalled by the way this has unfolded. What everyone reading this site should know, however, is that I posted this story NOT because it is common — it’s not. I posted it because it shows what can happen if we allow “helicoptering” to become the only acceptable way to parent. If not walking the kids to the bus stop becomes a form of abuse, we will be living in a very different country. So for those of us here, let us keep reminding our friends and associates that our kids are NOT in constant danger, that after a certain age they do NOT need constant hands-on supervision, and that there is a range of parenting styles that work for a range of kids. 

Also, if there are any reporters reading this who would like to follow up on this story, or explore the idea that sometimes CPS conflates confident parenting with criminality, please contact me and I can steer you to the letter writer. — L.

Some (Non-Mainstream) Thoughts on the Crib Recall

Hi Readers — I’m going to be blunt: The ban on the sale, resale and manufacture of all drop-side cribs does not make sense. Here’s why:

Over the past nine years, 32 children have died in these cribs. That is tragic. My heart sinks thinking about it.  But — and yes, there IS a but, and this “but” does not make me a heartless bean counter, or a crazed Free-Ranger who laughs in the face of danger (I am, at base, a nervous mom) — we are talking about roughly 3 deaths a year in a country where about 4 million babies are born annually. That is, about one death per million.

That does not prove that the cribs are UNsafe. It proves that the cribs ARE pretty safe. Safer than stairs (1300 deaths/year), safer than eating (about 70 kids under age 10 choke to death on food each year), safer than just sitting there and the next thing you know, you’re bitten by a venomous spider (5 deaths/year).

I realize that these stats are jumbled — they are not the deaths of infants, whose main cause of death is birth defects (5623/year) — but my point is that 3 deaths a year from any cause for any large population is almost something that statisticians call “de minimus.” Not that these deaths don’t count. Of course they do! But when a cause of death is that rare, you can’t base your life on it, or you couldn’t do anything. Go outside? No, there are spiders! Go downstairs? No, you could trip! Eat a sandwich? No, you could choke! (And then would you sue Wonder Bread?)

As for cribs, one reason the drop-side models seem so “dangerous” is because they are so popular. When you have millions of people using anything, no matter how safe, the odds of an accident go up because the odds go up with the numbers. That’s why it’s more likely an American will die in a car accident than a bucking bronco accident. Doesn’t mean that cars are inherently less safe than bucking broncos. The odds also go up because with millions of people assembling these things, some are bound to do it wrong, which seems to have been the case in many of these tragedies.

I don’t want to get into a huge discussion of crib design, but the recall list includes some of the biggest baby-product manufacturers around, like Even Flo and Child Craft. I am sure they tested their cribs because no company deliberately puts dangerous products on the market, if only because they know they could be sued up the wazzoo. And children’s product manufacturers know that better than anyone. Think of all the products recalled for tiny infractions, like a protruding screw.

And yet my own senator, Kristin Gillibrand (D., NY) is quoted in yesterday’sDaily News saying, “These products are deadly, and this critically needed action will prevent further senseless deaths.”

Ah, but what will prevent further, senseless grandstanding? These products are not deadly. There’s a difference between a deadly product (cyanide) and a product that sometimes results in death (a grape). We keep obscuring that difference, and congratulating the folks who act as if it is only a lack of vigilance that allows anyone to die of anything other than old age.

This is the same impossible standard we then go on to apply to parents: The idea that if anything bad EVER happens to ANY child, it is because the parent was “defective.” And what is the result? Helicoptering! Truly, one reason parents today are so obsessive and fearful is that this is society’s norm: Worry about every possible, if extremely unlikely, thing that COULD go wrong and spend your days ACTIVELY trying to prevent them all.

The truth is: I love the idea of the government keeping us safe from dangerous products. It is the definition of “dangerous” that has gone awry. Next the Consumer Product Safety Commission may train its sights on balls because, in their inherent roundness, these sometimes roll into the street, and some kids running out to get them get hit by cars. Moreover, there are millons of balls in Americans’ homes, making balls a far bigger danger than, say, battery-operated guillotines. That is why, if I am ever elected Senator, I will not rest until we redesign the bouncy ball. A slightly boxier one would make our kids safer, would it not?

Elect me and I will make sure our nation has no more balls. – Lenore

Minimize risk? Yes. Eliminate all risk? Impossible.

How the “Underwear Police” Story Relates to Free-Range Kids

Hi Readers! I just got this very legitimate question about what the heck underwear flammability regulations (see below) have to do with Free-Range Kids, and as I was writing up my response, I realized it made sense to share it. So here you go: a Q &A with — me!

Dear Free-Range Kids: How is this a Free-Range issue? It’s about a government safety rule (agree with it or not, it is what it is), and a store that has to comply and a manufacturer who could be sued — and forget could, WOULD be sued because we live in a society where people DO that, for anything that seems to go wrong and could result in money. It’s not “weird,” it’s a perfect example of how the world works.

So back to my question — how is this a Free-Range issue? I thought it was about parenting, about encouraging our kids to be responsible for themselves and not be afraid of the world. Not about a company following a government”s policies.

Dear Reader: Good question! Here’s the deal:

As I look at how parenting has changed in the past generation or so, one of the factors making us more scared is the idea that everything is dangerous. Walking to school, drinking from a plastic cup, buying a used high chair, putting your kid in a shopping cart, eating a homemade cupcake…you name it.

When the government reinforces the idea that very remote dangers are dangers that we should nonetheless address immediately and keep high on our radar, it is adding to the anxiety of the average parent. In effect, it’s telling us, “Your child is almost always unsafe!” It also reinforces the idea that a .00000003 % chance of danger is not an acceptable risk to take.  See the post somewhere below about a nurse who warned parents that a “Baby on Board” sign could decapitate a child.

When we “What if?” to that extent — What if we’re in a horrible accident AND maybe the child COULD survive, BUT  the “Baby on Board” sign becomes detached AND flies horizontally through the air AND hits the child RIGHT in the NECK, THEN how would we feel with a decapitated kid that we could have saved if only we’d been a little more proactive about safety? — when we’re encouraged to think like that, nothing is proactive or protective enough. Society is telling us we should be thinking about the most far-fetched, ludicrous, summer-Hollywood-blockbuster scenarios and planning for them, seriously, or we are bad parents putting our kids in danger.

In the case of the store recalling its pajamas that aren’t up to code (though they WERE up to code when they were labeled underwear), I totally agree: The store had to comply or risk being sued. That’s outrageous, too, and I consider lawyers crying, “Negligence!” when there is none to be part of the problem, too. Excess litigiousness is part of the whole shebang of  dangerizing everything.

Thus we have reached the point where most normal childhood activities, equipment, and, now, pajamas  all seem extremely — and equally — unsafe. And as a result, there is less and less we allow our children to do, especially on their own. We pull them ever closer out of fear of everything, everywhere.

That changes childhood, that changes parenting, and THAT is why this piece is here.

Thanks for asking. — Lenore

Cool, if gratuitous, photo of underwear!

Outrage of the Week: Background Checks Required for IVF

Oh darn! Just when  you thought you could  inject yourself with hormones every day for about 2 months, bloat like a beachball, have your eggs monitored and retrieved (after loads of blood tests) to then be fertilized in a test tube and plunged back into your womb at about $15,000 a pop so you could,  hopefully, get pregnant, give birth and gradually raise a little boy or girl who would be all yours to abuse in just five or ten years, it turns out it’s not that easy!

Alas, Australia is about to pass a law that will require couples undergoing in-vitro fertilization treatments to first pass a background check. Here’s the link, and here’s a bit of the story, sent in by a Free-Range reader:

WOULD-BE parents are outraged at new laws forcing them to prove they are not pedophiles or child abusers before they undergo fertility treatment.

Victorian IVF clinics have started asking patients to submit to police checks ensuring they are fit to be parents.

The new law will affect about 5000 couples each year.

Briony and Lew Sanelle, who completed police checks three weeks ago so they could start trying to have their second child through IVF, said they were insulted by the discrimination.

Me too — and not just because I’m an IVF mom myself. I’m insulted because it feels like the only reason the government is requiring this check of IVF parents is because it CAN. And if it could force every single post-pubescent citizen to undergo a background check, that would be its ultimate goal.

This requirement was apparently included as part of a bill passed last year that “paved the way for single women and lesbians to access IVF.” Because, of course, those groups really pose the biggest possible pedophile threat to children.

We live in a strange, obsessive era when everyone is suspected of perversion for showing the tiniest interest in chidlren. Even, apparently, before they’re born. — Lenore