An interesting story caught my ear over the radio this week, I thought it might be of interest to the Dosenation readers;
And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television.
The gist of the story is this: while at a Detroit Tigers game, a University professor allegedly "accidentally" purchased an alcoholic lemonade beverage for his seven year old son, thinking it was regular lemonade. The situation for some reason spiraled out of control, with the son being placed in foster care. More a matter of protocol than prudence, this family has been broken up by a simple oversight. Whether due to the drink's alcoholic content, or the likelihood of being caught, is not clear at this point.
The parents have taken a firm stance that they were unaware the lemonade contained alcohol. But the argument never made is quite compelling: "So what?" I know, it sounds shocking, but fetal alcohol syndrome doesn't apply to children. Back in the day, the cure all for a crying baby was a wee bit of whiskey, to calm the nerves.
So, is this a big deal? Even the police and social services officers involved thought the actions taken by the state were excessive. Are these parents being made an example of, to deter others from similar circumstances? Is this a plot perpetrated by communists to undermine our common sense? Are beer companies pressuring officials to take a firmer stance on alcoholic citrus? What's the real deal here?
It kinda reminds me of a well-known DARE story. A girl reported her parents smoking pot - and due to her age she must have had good will, she must have thought that a policeman will come and ask her parents to quit, because their daughter is worried... It turned out in a total disaster for the family, also for the girl herself - in this case the parents didn't lose custody of her, but anyway their life was turned upside-down, all sense of trust the girl had had was destroyed "for her protection".
And another story from Poland, quite recent - it's more about homophobia, but drugs also do play a role here. J. used to have a drug problem in her teens. For two years her mother didn't noticed it. When J. got out of drugs, she knew she wants to have somebody to live for. Even though she didn't feel interested in boys, she didn't resist when a young man started flirting with her and was happy when she became pregnant. Later she left home, started her studies and formed a happy young family with her daughter G. and her partner M. And then the mother decided that it's not good for the child to be raised by a lesbian couple, so she applied for resticting J.'s custody of her daughter. She claimed that J. is using drugs again, that she is keeping company with "suspicious people"... G. is living with her grandmother and missing her mother and "aunt" a lot. Soon it will be decided whether J. and M. can have their child back. Nice story, isn't it? Very Polish - the topic of gay and lesbian parenthood is very controversial here - but also rather universal in how a child is being harmed "for her own good"... PS. I had to log-in because I was "told" that my comment "looked like spam". Wtf?! Anybody knows what is "spam-like" about my comment?
The comments posted here do not reflect the views of the owners of this site.