Posted on 09/13/2005 3:09:22 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
If some of the citizens of New Orleans had grown up in cages there might have been a lot less problems.
8^)
It sounds awful though it appears to be less gruesome than first reported. OTOH how could social services expect one couple to care for 11 special needs children?
"``There's no followup because you're giving that family the money so they can incorporate that child into their life,'' she said."
Ok, we've got a candidate for dumbest statement by a government employee.
Sounds more like they were being kept safe in bed at night rather than risk them slipping outside or turning on the stove while the parents slept.
What's the problem? They should move on to the "Bunghole Theory of Raising Children."
There are other ways to do that - one would be to not adopt 11 kids so that you feel you have to stack them in cages.
It's no wonder relations are strained at street level.
Obviously we don't know the entire story, but I do have experience with adopting a child who has behavioral problems. He put our family through absolute hell for about two years. We were at our wits' end. At night, he would sneak out of his room, go downstair and hide money, hoard food in his room, all kinds of crazy things (he was only 3!). Once, he caught a doll on fire on our back porch.
We didn't know what to do. He was getting counseling, but in the meantime, what? Wait till he burned the house down and killed us all? Wait until he took a knife to his room and hurt himself (We DID find kitchen knives in his room occasionally)? We made the agonizing decision to lock him in his room at night. Believe me, it wasn't something we did joyfully. We knew we were taking a big risk, and we prayed every night for his safety.
Happy ending, though. We only had to do that for a short time. The counseling and endless hours of me working with him paid off. He still has a little bit of emotional baggage, but most of the things he does now are just bone-headed 11-year-old stuff.
I'm not siding with these parents, but I'm not wholesale condemning them either until I know the entire story.
"WAKEMAN, Ohio (AP) - The 11 special needs children removed from a house where authorities say some of them slept in homemade cages are polite, well-behaved, well-dressed and appear to have been fed well, neighbors and authorities said Tuesday."
Damn, need to try it if I ever have kids.
"Oh, yeah. I bet the Guardian ate this up with a spoon. I've always suspected British newspapers all have a guy whose full-time job is to look for whacked out stories from the States. Even the good papers, like the Telegraph, give you a Bizarro World idea of America, if that's your only source."
Wasn't it a Telegraph poll where they voted Homer Simpson as the greatest American in history?
Just astonishing. When you have four bedrooms, where do you put all those kids? Well, I guess we know the answer.
I'm not siding with these parents, but I'm not wholesale condemning them either until I know the entire story - thank you and God bless you. So often we read these original stories and are horrified; it is nice to have a perspective of someone dealing with the same issues (although it sounds as if you handled it a bit better) - but 11 kids? wow
My son was 9 months old when he first climbed out of his baby bed. I made an appointment with the pediatrician for that day, and we talked about my options: Hub and I could sleep in shifts, or we could put a lid on the crib. I was a first-time mom, and the idea of a lid horrified me until I thought--what happens when we fail to keep a close watch and he gets out of bed?
At 9 months, he was still an infant--very bright, bright enough to get into serious trouble...
We painted some beautiful pictures on the lid of the crib, and each night, tied it shut out of his reach. We did this for about a year. Everyone survived, and he has no phobias--full grown self-supporting married father of two, today...
But the things you go through...
I don't think they are "cages" per se.
From reading the descriptions, it sounds more like homemade cribs, and a jury-rigged set up to alert the parents if the kids go wandering at night (as children, especially autistic children, are want to do).
I couldn't IMAGINE trying to take care of 11 special-needs kids. With our one little guy, it came so close to tearing our family apart (we already had two birth children), we almost didn't go through with the adoption. We're glad we did, but it was real iffy there for a few months.
Neighbor had (has) triplets and was overhwhelmed.
(Mama hightailed it on him; long story.)
My wife introduced him to the concept of the "crib tent."
Wonderful invention.
"I don't think they are "cages" per se.
From reading the descriptions, it sounds more like homemade cribs, and a jury-rigged set up to alert the parents if the kids go wandering at night (as children, especially autistic children, are want to do)."
Admittedly I don't have children, but I dont think of cribs as having lids or being stackable.
The news program I'm watching in Atlanta just said the couple said a psychologis(or psychiatrist) told them to do it.
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