Systemically Neglected How Racism Structures Public Systems to Produce Child Neglect

@Jeoffry Gordon posted:

Well said, OIIIMOBY is an important contribution to the problem. At the core sensitive and wise child rearing and parenting are crucial as much as the civic and political investments in basic family support and security. That said, child abuse and neglect are by no means limited to poor and minority families lacking in education. Comfortable families with all the benefits can still contain dysfunctional adults who mistreat their children. Real prevention will involve an "All of Society and Culture" effort.

I didn't mean to at all imply that race specifically is a predetermining factor in which family/household child neglect/abuse will occur. Educational opportunity, however, is likely a different matter. ...

I would like to see child-development science curriculum implemented for secondary high school students, and it could also include racial- and neuro-diversity, albeit not overly complicated. It would be mandatory course material, however, and considerably more detailed than what’s already covered by home economics, etcetera, curriculum: e.g. diaper changing, baby feeding and so forth. I don’t think the latter is anywhere near sufficient (at least not how I experienced it) when it comes to the proper development of a child’s mind.

For one thing, the curriculum could/would make available to students potentially valuable/useful knowledge about their own psyches and why they are the way they are. And besides their own nature, students can also learn about the natures of their peers, which might foster greater tolerance for atypical personalities. If nothing else, the curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood.

However, when I asked a teachers federation official (in 2017, over the phone) whether there is any such curriculum taught in any of B.C.’s school districts, he immediately replied there is not. When I asked the reason for its absence and whether it may be due to the subject matter being too controversial, he replied with a simple “Yes”. This strongly suggests there are philosophical thus political obstacles to teaching students such crucial life skills as nourishingly parenting one’s child’s developing mind.

We humans can be a stubborn species, especially when it comes to the schooling of our own young ones. Still, for me it’s difficult to understand why teaching child-development science would be considered more controversial (and therefore unacceptable) than, as a good example, teaching students Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) curriculum, the latter which is currently taught in public schools in my province.

@Frank Sterle Jr. posted:

Due to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, the prevailing collective attitude, however implicit or subconscious, basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or ‘What is in it for me, the taxpayer, if I support programs for other people’s troubled families?’ While some people will justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the self-serving OIIIMOBY can debilitate social progress, even when social progress is most needed. And it seems this distinct form of societal penny wisdom but pound foolishness is a very unfortunate human characteristic that’s likely with us to stay. ...

Still, if society is to avoid the most dreaded, invasive and reactive means of intervention (e.g. governmental forced removal of children from neglectful home environments), maybe we then should be willing to try an unconventional proactive means of preventing some future dysfunctional home environments. (Maybe child-development science curriculum?) But simply mindlessly minding our own business on such human-urgent matters will not do.

Well said, OIIIMOBY is an important contribution to the problem. At the core sensitive and wise child rearing and parenting are crucial as much as the civic and political investments in basic family support and security. That said, child abuse and neglect are by no means limited to poor and minority families lacking in education. Comfortable families with all the benefits can still contain dysfunctional adults who mistreat their children. Real prevention will involve an "All of Society and Culture" effort.

Due to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, the prevailing collective attitude, however implicit or subconscious, basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or ‘What is in it for me, the taxpayer, if I support programs for other people’s troubled families?’ While some people will justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the self-serving OIIIMOBY can debilitate social progress, even when social progress is most needed. And it seems this distinct form of societal penny wisdom but pound foolishness is a very unfortunate human characteristic that’s likely with us to stay. ...

Still, if society is to avoid the most dreaded, invasive and reactive means of intervention (e.g. governmental forced removal of children from neglectful home environments), maybe we then should be willing to try an unconventional proactive means of preventing some future dysfunctional home environments. (Maybe child-development science curriculum?) But simply mindlessly minding our own business on such human-urgent matters will not do.

@Former Member posted:

1/4 of my pediatrics patients ---- all overwhelmingly white were in foster care because of parental neglect.   It didn't help that many of these kids lost their parents to Johnson and Johnson's Synthetic Opioids and their push along with others to make Pain as the Fifth Vital Sign.  

Even my husband who I grew up with who is Indigenous was seriously neglected. His siblings ended up in foster care as did me and mine.   Neither of us, who have real and significant lived experience could agree with any of these excuses.   Teach parents who are having a hard time how to love and how to see and support their children.  This is the only thing that the child wants and it's what the parent wants and needs too.  

Lots of parents abuse their kids and IT IS NOT POVERTY.  That's just an excuse.  

You can grow up in poverty and grow up with the ability to LOVE, SHOW EMPATHY, TO TRUST, TO BE COMPASSIONATE.  To be able to do this, you need to be seen, valued and loved.  

Or, if no one is there for you, or worse, there is only anger, rage, abuse and neglect -----> then you get to live a life of Misery.

It's beyond Cruel to keep making all these excuses instead of showing Parents who never had adequate parenting themselves, how to be there, how to see and how to love their children.

We don't make the lives of the most vulnerable kids better by making excuses.  

The impacts of neglect, especially in infancy are the most serious source of developmental trauma there is and everyone who works with Johnson and Johnson's foundation would do well to understand that J and J knows this.  They have been going into the home studying neglect since the 1970's.

Everything a parent does - or doesn't do with first their infant and then their child is basically neurofeedback.  That Neurofeedback builds that infant and then child's brain for better or for worse.

That parent can build a strong brain or one that is basically set up for Misery. We get to decide.  

You certainly are not wrong. The best solution is "both and." Families need a basic secure foundation and parenting skills.

This is a great document as it outlines the systemic racism in official public policy which works to perpetuate poverty and impair especially Black families. The child welfare system as it is currently constituted contributes to this oppression. Many believe the child welfare system protects children from abuse. But Torn Apart  by Dorothy Roberts (to be published this April) demonstrates how the system is designed to punish Black families. Drawing on decades of research, legal scholar and sociologist Dorothy Roberts reveals that the child welfare system is better understood as a “family policing system” that collaborates with law enforcement and prisons to oppress Black communities. Child protection investigations ensnare a majority of Black children, putting their families under intense state surveillance and regulation. Black children are disproportionately likely to be torn from their families and placed in foster care, driving many to juvenile detention and imprisonment.

We should all work to restructure the child welfare system and social policy generally to guarantee everyone a home, a living wage, child care, universal health care and access to adequate education.

1/4 of my pediatrics patients ---- all overwhelmingly white were in foster care because of parental neglect.   It didn't help that many of these kids lost their parents to Johnson and Johnson's Synthetic Opioids and their push along with others to make Pain as the Fifth Vital Sign.  

Even my husband who I grew up with who is Indigenous was seriously neglected. His siblings ended up in foster care as did me and mine.   Neither of us, who have real and significant lived experience could agree with any of these excuses.   Teach parents who are having a hard time how to love and how to see and support their children.  This is the only thing that the child wants and it's what the parent wants and needs too.  

Lots of parents abuse their kids and IT IS NOT POVERTY.  That's just an excuse.  

You can grow up in poverty and grow up with the ability to LOVE, SHOW EMPATHY, TO TRUST, TO BE COMPASSIONATE.  To be able to do this, you need to be seen, valued and loved.  

Or, if no one is there for you, or worse, there is only anger, rage, abuse and neglect -----> then you get to live a life of Misery.

It's beyond Cruel to keep making all these excuses instead of showing Parents who never had adequate parenting themselves, how to be there, how to see and how to love their children.

We don't make the lives of the most vulnerable kids better by making excuses.  

The impacts of neglect, especially in infancy are the most serious source of developmental trauma there is and everyone who works with Johnson and Johnson's foundation would do well to understand that J and J knows this.  They have been going into the home studying neglect since the 1970's.

Everything a parent does - or doesn't do with first their infant and then their child is basically neurofeedback.  That Neurofeedback builds that infant and then child's brain for better or for worse.

That parent can build a strong brain or one that is basically set up for Misery. We get to decide.