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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 2, 2018 - 01:11am PT
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Hmmmm....
"Joshua Tree couple arrested after three kids found living in squalid shelter for four years, authorities say"
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-joshua-tree-arrests-20180301-story.html
So this would be a deluxe setup for a camping trip. Do we need to worry that children will be taken from families if they make them sleep in tents in freezing temps? What about on tarps looking up at the stars?
Is the problem the duration? What if these kids have emotionally stable parents but non-conformist ideas about comfort and lifestyle... what is the exact circumstance that warrants the kids being removed:
1. Long term living in low ambient temperatures? What if the kids have good sleeping bags and clothing? What if they are just tough now from living in cold temps and they feel fine?
2. Lack of flushing toilet or hand washing facilities... is a pit with lime considered unworthy? What if they have hand sanitizer or jugs of water and soap?
3. Is it the idea of doing stuff that would be "normal" for a brief camping trip but the problem is just too long of a duration? Who decides how long is too long? What about families that live in vans and tour around multiple continents for years? They would have similar circumstances, but just not have the appearance of as much poverty.
I have lots of mixed feelings on this one for not knowing where the line would ultimately get drawn if you adopt a permanent camping lifestyle and still provide for the kids' emotional and physical needs. It is creepy that soft squishy nature-phobic people (i.e. the majority of our society) can project their values with sufficient force to take away kids.
Maybe there are more issues at play here and I'm over-reacting or mis-interpreting the situation, but this seems worthy of discussion and different viewpoints.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Did you ever watch that documentary film about Dorian Paskowitz? I suppose the way his kids were raised could have bordered on abuse and some of them carried hard feelings about their upbringing. I'd never raise a kid that way. But I also have apprehensions about an overzealous state jumping in to intervene. The generally accepted idea of what counts as abuse has changed a lot since I was a kid.
Edit to add: the film is called "Surfwise" and I watched it on Netflix.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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In my mind it completely depends on how they are being treated. If their parents love them and treat them well and share their living conditions why not help them instead of tear them apart. If the parents are douch canoe tweakers its a whole different ball game. There was a nice family that came to our church when I was a kid. they invited us to dinner a few times. He was an artist, she was probably full time mom and gardener. They lived way up in a holler in a bunch of randomly connected shacks. some of them with tarps for walls and roofs. Grew all their own food, Drank red wine and likely smoked weed?
Kids seemed reasonably well adjusted to a preachers kid who had home made hats and mittens, home brewed lye soap which seriously does NOT work in my memory but that may well be my reaction to rock hard yellow brick that makes zero suds... home grown food, bread, butter, milk cow etc.. We always brought them a sh#t ton of food when we visited and the adults drank wine...
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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This being a Cali centric site I will likly make waves with this one. I ran into a 9 year old kid on tour living with his parents in a buss who had been to 250 shows... I have a much bigger problem with his than I would with them living in the country in the same buss growing and raising their own food.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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yes jebus. that looked like a shithole. You can live frugaly and primitively and still be neat and clean...
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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the siblings, ages 11, 13 and 14 ... The children are not enrolled in public schools, and it's unclear whether they were being home-schooled. I'd like to hear more about if they were actually homeschooled, and if it was done well.
I don't really care about the shelter they were living in; seems adequate.
It was reported they were well fed.
Worlds different from the kids in Perris.
[Edit:] Home schooled and doing fine.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-joshua-tree-couple-20180302-story.html
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Interesting discussion. I'm guessing it all "depends"
The J-Tree story clearly in my mind illustrates a situation where it was time for authorities to intervene . I think the tipping points for me in that case would be duration, lack of sanitation and water and at the very least- some kind of outhouse. Heat and cold can often be managed.
I don't know the parents situation. How did they end up homeless and what was the motivation for keeping the kids with them and why didn't they ask for aid?
As for alternate lifestyles... I grew up with a group of kids that their parents did craft fairs for a living. They all lived in Winnebagos, traveled constantly and were home schooled. (a subject for another thread) . Most were really smart and well adjusted. My biggest beef was the parents who neglected the home-schooling. I had teenage girl working for me for several years who did not know how to read or write - which I considered severe neglect on the part of her mother.
My next-property neighbors growing up were hippy artists that lived in a two-room tiny house with their one child. They lived like pioneers- no electricity, wood burning stove to heat the house, cook and boil water for food and bathing. They raised animals and had a garden. The daughter was picked up by a school bus every day and got an education. Basic needs were taken care of.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Looks like Jstan's got another project.
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1252506,-116.2452035,97m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
Happie-G wanted a piece of land there where she could camp, but she found out she was only allowed to camp for three days out of a month.
If that's the rule, then where the HELL was County Code Enforcement for the last FOUR years while these tweakers were amassing all that sh#t?
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dirtbag
climber
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That looks pretty damned squalid.
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Law enforcement probably tries to stay the hell away from these places. It's a big desert to monitor and there are a lot of these encampments with less-than-stable personalities lurking around. The presence of the kids is the only reason they intervened.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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maid. shows and tour = Greatful Dead and NO living on tour with a child is not responsible parenting. especially when that child is learning how to be a candy man.. Our friends the artists and organic farmers who lived up a holler with no electricity were responsible. their kids went to school and seemed pretty well adjusted. parents did not seem to drink any more than my parents and my dad was the local minister...
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Another view...
Thought-provoking issue and responses.
"I have lots of mixed feelings on this one..."
We're all now living in this Era of Mixed Feelings.
Welcome!
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dirtbag
climber
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Family camping (sleeping in the open on the ground in the cold) can be an extremely enriching family experience. I’m having a hard time seeing anything enriching in that photo.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Looks like Camp4. What's the problem?
Joking! Agree with Maidy. Also, likely couldn't avail themselves of shelters/support due to drug use/felony arrests, but like many have said we may not know full facts.
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brotherbbock
climber
So-Cal
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I saw that on the news last night.
So sad....
It makes me really realize how lucky my son is and my baby to be.
That was some gnar conditions for a kid to grow up in.
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RussianBot
climber
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In my neighborhood, the jury of my peers sends the cops knocking on my door if the music is a little too loud at 10:01 pm on a Saturday night.
From what I see, I’m not gonna be too upset if the jury of their peers decides that’s not acceptable conditions to raise a child. But societally, I’d prefer that we help them do a better job at it than that we punish them for it.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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That's not an "isolated" area. There's a well-kept parcel of some substance directly across the road.
They were not "homeless," as law defines the term. The parcel is owned by the man named in the news story.
FWIW, they're in default on property taxes....that property will be in the tax sale probably next year, if I understand the information presented. I won't be able to get it, that's for sure, but it is going to be a good deal for somebody. Unless if course, they were cooking. Then, hazmat nightmare.
But as for the topic at hand.... The man is 71 years old. Is he the legal father of those children? The mom is 51. I assume she is the biological other, god I'd hope at least. A single person living like that is filthy, but a different thing than raising children without clean water to bathe in and some sort of waste containment.
It's interesting that this went unreported. There is a municipal water tank located just down the road. I assume workers go to those on some regular basis.
My guess would be they had "fallen and couldn't get up." The man is 71 - that's an age that one is likely not going to be able to bootstrap it and change the situation, especially if he never gained much altitude in his financial situation. Maybe he lived out there and thought he was lucky to find a woman who wanted him, and the children came along....
Did they go to social services? Or rely on food banks that wouldn't have a more structured checking put of things. If they went to social services....how did the living conditions slip through, unless they didn't report having children, nor the land as an asset.
There's obviously a history here that "explains" things, and it's a sad story whatever it is. Hopefully there will be help for the people, though I would guess those children will go to foster homes, which is often extraordinarily hard on a child, especially when they are separated from their siblings. Maybe there will be a miracle, and some kind couple with the resources will step up and foster the kids together, and give them the support they will need to grow up and thrive.
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RussianBot
climber
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Good points. With respect to it hopefully being their biological mother - sure, we all have biases. Maybe these folks were the kind couple who stepped up for those kids.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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I don't care how much these parents "love" their kids, they are not likely to grow up and be anything other than a drain on society. I don't believe for a second someone who lives as in those photos is somehow capable of providing an education. Therefore I think the intervention was correct.
The parents I associate with take up extra jobs and hours and responsibility to provide for their children. Their "love" does not include putting the kids up in a fuking dirty plywood shack.
I assume missing from those photos is the 3rd world smell that comes with living in your own sh!t.
Associating this situation with primitive family camping is a joke, they are not the same thing at all.
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