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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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jstan
climber
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From the other thread:
As I was taking away the last two truck loads from a homeless camp Yucca Valley had asked the Team to clean up, a young fellow walked up saying "We are homeless. Can we stay here tonight?" His girl friend could not have been more than twenty, she had no coat or blanket, little clothing shielding her from the sun and had not even a pack to carry what little she had. When I said I had not the authority to give them permission, he told his friend to pick up her stuff again as they had to move on.
More often than not a discarded mattress lying on the sand is someone's home. It is all they have. We all cling ferociously to life. Those with luck have a little water and the ability to breathe.
The work I and the teams have been doing here has stripped from me the inclination to make judgments.
Children's toys lying in the sand are the hardest.
Edit:
A photo I took in the Pit five years ago.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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With respect to it hopefully being their biological mother...
What I meant was that it wouldn't be found out that the children were supposed to be with these people, and not something sinister. I could have worded it better, and yes, it could well be possible that the 51 year old woman is actually grandmom or aunt.
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RussianBot
climber
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Thanks!
Or that the 51 year old woman is completely biologically unrelated to the children in a kind-hearted, unsinister way. Thankfully that kind of thing does happen. Are the kids biologically related to each other? We mostly all enjoy privileges (whether of race, class, family origin/makeup, mental health, etc.) that are often opaque to us, and my hope is that to the extent that we’re able to notice them, maybe that can help us help these kids and parents.
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RussianBot
climber
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I’ll bet CPS has a way of helping us judge those kinds of things, unless Trumpians have dismantled it or something. That might be a good place for Pruitt to land.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Wheres the piano...?
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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We know this family. Their kids were on soccer teams with my kids for years. They also took their kids to dance lessons and gymnastics when our kids went. They were a bit odd, but not abusive. I believe they homeschooled their kids;...the kids were nice and sweet and smart kids. We hadn't seen them in a few years. Looks like they ran into some very hard times. I think they screwed up by not asking for help, having 30 cats on the property, and being horders with "stuff." Is it abuse? If you can't take care of your kids, get some help. This family needs help;...not to be jailed or have their kids taken away. The big mistake make was not asking for help. I hope this has a good ending;......it's a tough situation.
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Majid_S
Mountain climber
Karkoekstan, Former USSR
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who gives right to some gov agency to be the judge of the situation to separate the kids from their mom and dad ?
Go to India, Asia, Middle East and that is a normal home for millions of people and Americans can't accept that new America is turning in to homeless country. very slowly but surely. Check, LA, Oakland and all major cities to see it by your own eyes.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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a jury of their peers will ultimately have to take the suitability decision, right? That's our system.
A jury will not decide what happens to the kids, that is a civil matter that will be heard in the context of some sort of guardianship by the state, judge only. California puts a priority of reuniting families. It takes a minimum of two years of "being stupid" to lose your children permanently.
Any criminal proceedings will be about child abuse and will likely defer to the guardianship proceedings, or the parents will enter a guilty plea in exchange for some type of monitoring by CPS.
I appreciate that Todd spoke up for them, we sometimes forget that by the grace of god we do not find ourselves in similar circumstances. The community needs to help them, but as noted above, this is an extreme example of an all to common situation in the high desert.
Sorry majid, but applying Libertarian principles to child rearing is the reason they are a fringe party
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cavemonkey
Ice climber
ak
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Doesn’t seem like a bad life 🤷♂️
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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+10 on what Todd says. Help them don't punish them.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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This family needs help;...not to be jailed or have their kids taken away.
Perhaps the family should move to a more upscale National Park; and the over-reaching cop needs sanctioning.
Too much of nothing
Can make a man ill at ease
One man's temper might rise
While another man's temper might freeze
In the day of confession
We cannot mock a soul
Oh, when there's too much of nothing
No one has control
Note bookshelf. These kids read a lot too.
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RussianBot
climber
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Who gives the government the right to judge? The same folks who give the government the right to imprison or execute people for their crimes. The same people who give the government the right to say what is a crime and what is not a crime. That would be us.
We could go back to smaller sized tribes with more homogenous beliefs and values, but doing so might not work as well for us as we might believe.
My personal preference would be that we help these people, not that we punish them. But if Trump wins the election, then he’s my president. The other Russian bots have other ideas, and those ideas aren’t intended to work in our favor.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Fa·ce·tious. Of course the cop will never be sanctioned. He has a union.
It isn't what Todd Gordon said, it's that he knew the family for an extended period of time.
File your FOIA and take a look at what evidence the cop relied on.
BTW I had no opinion of the matter until I read Todd's quote, so I couldn't have "lurched" another way.'
BTW2: child neglect?
In some ways, this thread has been restorative.
SUPERTOPO: we may not agree on much, but 9/10 times we agree that child neglect is wrong
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thirsty
climber
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From the pictures alone, there is no basis to condemn these people or their parenting. Garbage removal can be an expensive luxury that is reasonably de-prioritized in some circumstances. As a prosecutor, I saw some very real and serious child abuse. I also saw officers come into the office seeking charges where the only evidence was dirty living conditions and garbage accumulation. Here in Arizona we have an ugly history of the government taking kids away from Native Americans because their way of life was deemed to be unhealthy. My father grew up as the youngest of 10 kids in a tiny box of a house on an orchard. When it got cold they used what they had and packed the kids into crates with the ends knocked out and filled with straw for the night. No heater, no fancy sleeping bags. (Definitely no chopping the trees down for firewood.) My dad ended up ok – he came to US to work as a professor at Harvard. All of his siblings succeeded in one way or another (including those who died in combat). That shack has been kept as it was and my cousins and I were all taken there as kids so that we would understand that the stories were not exaggerated.
This is the family after the difficult times had ended My dad is the one in the top middle at age 23.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Todd Gordon,
Good points, thanks for your input.
For those on the outside looking in, it's all perspective.
Some would say not letting them have a smart phone at age 7 is abuse.
I was working a job in Barrow Ak once when the winter temperature shot up to -10F. After school, all of the kids in town were outside playing. We speculated the mothers in town told them "it's a beautiful day, so get outside to get some fresh air". Anywhere else it would be called abuse.
Sanitary conditions are the most important...see how kids live in 3rd world shitholes.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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actually no. I don't think we are excuseing it we have simply shifted from advocateing heads on a platter to help them get their sh#t together. majid has a valid point as well. Probobly 100ds of thousands of people living just like that within a few miles of the last world cup in brazil...
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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+1 - there is a minimum bar to maintain custody of kids and these parents are clearly below it. If you want to live outside those standards, move to another country. We're not a 3rd world hell hole with no welfare system. Feel free to relocate to one, they won't stop you at the border.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-joshua-tree-couple-20180302-story.html
Friends of the family say their situation is not at all one of criminal abuse, but of extreme poverty.
They describe highly intelligent children who were involved in soccer and scouts and who were cared for as best they could by struggling parents.
"The Sheriff's Department is punishing those kids for being homeless," said Leanna Munroe, who has known the family for nine years.
The family owned the property where they lived, records show. There is a trailer on the land, but it appeared to be empty. The shelter where deputies say the children slept was divided into two rooms — a larger one with mattresses, blankets, stuffed animals and food and a smaller one, with a green sofa and dining room chairs stacked on top of each other.
Cat food had been poured out around the property and a number of cats hid inside the trailer.
On Friday, Jackie Klear, of Yucca Valley, visited the property to collect some of the family's things for safe keeping. She said Kirk and Panico were not criminals, but were in need of help.
The children, she said, "were very much loved."
Klear is the leader of the Phoenix Scouts, a local scouting group. The three children were members, she said. They attended weekly meetings, went camping and made crafts together, she said. On Christmas, the children marched in an annual parade with matching red sweaters and Santa hats.
"I know this looks like crap," Klear said, looking at the shelter. "But they were very well taken care of."
Klear met Kirk years ago, when Kirk ran a Mommy and Me group for toddlers at a local community center, she said.
The children were home-schooled, and the mother and her children were constantly at the library and the Hi-Desert Nature Museum in Yucca Valley, Klear said. The children were all well read and educated, she said. Klear described the father as a genius and said his oldest son was "just like him."
How noble the law, in its majestic equality, that both the rich and poor are equally prohibited from peeing in the streets, sleeping under bridges, and stealing bread!
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seano
Mountain climber
none
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This looks bad, but is putting the parents in jail on a $100k bond, and the kids in foster care, really the solution? It seems unnecessarily cruel and counterproductive.
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mynameismud
climber
backseat
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I posted this to the other thread on this topic. For those that ask did they go to protective services. I will say this, anyone living in poverty knows that if you go to protective services the first thing they will do is break up the family. So that is the first question these people ask themselves. That statement goes for the children and parents. You just know.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=3066059&tn=20
I can relate to the poverty part. My family lived for 3 years with no electricity or running water. Water was a creek 50 yards from the house. We ate what we raised. As a family of five we started out with an eighteen foot camp trailer and over the years we built our house out of scrap lumber. I remember when we finally got electricity. At a different house I remember coming home to start the kitchen fire and not being able to find the damper, well that was because it was an electric stove, who would would have thunk it. Just turn the knob. I guess one of our advantages was we lived out in the woods so not to many folks saw what was going on.
I think part of the problem is the vast majority of the population have absolutely no idea what poverty is like and what all goes with it. It is difficult to come up with a viable solution when you do not truly understand the problem. It has taken me decades of hindsight to begin to understand.
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Ezra Ellis
Trad climber
North wet, and Da souf
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As the inequality grows in our society, it is increasingly difficult for the poorest of our country to cope.
There by grace go I.
No easy answers here.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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How many people have travelled to South Asia? The income inequality is so high that you see the effects of extreme poverty on a daily basis.
In some places in North America we seem to be heading that way.
How can the US govt and the folks running things be more concerned about tax cuts for huge corporations with healthy profits than about situations like this?
We have problems up here but your system seems to be corrupt at the highest levels.
Paul Theroux wrote a book recently about his travels in the deep South US. He sought out the poorest areas and found conditions that reminded him of living in Africa.
When will folks realize that poverty is not always someone's fault? I see homeless in town who require mental health care but can't get it or maybe they refuse it.
And the poor through middle class should not be subsidizing the rich.
I am a slightly left leaning capitalist who is shocked by how out of kilter things have become.
Sorry for the rant
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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11% of American children between 4 and 17 years have been diagnosed with ADHD and put on Ritalin by Big Pharma, American physicians and parents. Not suitable, it's the horror of business...
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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I don't think people are saying they are fine. We are saying they need help not jail.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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10-15% of the children on Ritalin are well served by it. 85% are not. It's Big Pharma's propaganda, a stupid diagnostic system and physician and parent ignorance that put the rest of the children on the drug.
And the school system contributes.
As working conditions and lack of meaning in life contribute to depression and the "need" for/prescription of anti-depressants based on serotonin propaganda/ideology.
It's a stupid business world...
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Russ Walling
Social climber
from Poofters Froth, Wyoming
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It does not take an income to have some personal pride. Dirtbaggerery to that degree is a loose screw disorder. And yeah, other countries as well as our own have people living in feces with 40 cats... That does not not make it an acceptable practice, and thus, the kids gave been taken away, and I agree.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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"I know this looks like crap," Klear said, looking at the shelter. "But they were very well taken care of."...
The problem that any social worker or Children protective services faces, is that they have to make a decision, on the spot, as to the safety of these children. Potentially, if they make the wrong decision, they could die.
It has certainly happened and been publicized in LA in recent years.
So the right thing to do, is to remove the children on a temporary basis, while the situation is investigated, which is exactly what happened.
The parents were arrested, but we don't really know what the evidence for doing that was, and we won't, until there is a preliminary hearing.
My experience with CPS, et al, is that they are highly empathetic people who only have the welfare of children at heart. They are also massively overworked, and can rarely spend enough time at first intervention.
The parents have not been harmed, the children have not been harmed. The in-depth investigation is happening, and all these community supporters will have a chance to be interviewed and heard, as they should.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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10-15% of the children on Ritalin are well served by it. 85% are not. It's Big Pharma's propaganda, a stupid diagnostic system and physician and parent ignorance that put the rest of the children on the drug.
I'm one of those guys who prescribes drugs, and it was ALWAYS my experience that when it was considered for treatment of a child, it was ALWAYS requested by a parent. Usually inappropriately, but occasionally correctly.
It was something that came off my prescription pad perhaps once a month. Generally, it's effect on the situation was nearly miraculous. When it wasn't, it was stopped. I required social service/psych evaluation and co-management in every case. I also required a "rest" from the medication every year.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Being poor is really a seperate subject to what is happening here.
For comparison, the guy with the 13 or whatever kids shackled up in what appeared to me as similar living conditions to this situation - seperate from any abuse issues - that guy was supposedly making $140k / yr.
Really - living in these conditions is abuse. There’s no excuse for it. The intervention was correct and just. I’ve been to some of the poorest, most squalid places on the planet - most looked better than this. Just a few minutes a day to care about hygiene and your surroundings - it’s free - you don’t need money for it. All I see here is mental illness and an inability to care for themselves, much less children.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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+1 for Russ
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RussianBot
climber
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I wonder what percentage of adults have prescribed coffee or alcohol for themselves? I’ve kind-of-scientifically concluded that 85% of them are not well-served by it. Could be as high as 86%.
Being pretty focused on what’s wrong with other people myself, I’ve concluded that what’s wrong with other people is that they’re just too focused on what’s wrong with other people.
Just ask me and I’ll tell you what’s wrong with you. Or if you want an answer more to your liking, just ask yourself.
Sure, you’re welcome kids! I’ll bet that helped them be better.
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RussianBot
climber
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Just a hunch, but what the kids say when we ask them will probably not be as important to us as what we say when we ask ourselves. I won’t be surprised if they’d both prefer to have more resources and mentally healthy parents, and they feel loved and cared for by their parents.
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RussianBot
climber
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Same for my upper middle class daughter. It’s embarrassing to not be as rich as her friends’ families. Where’s the pool?
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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To a kid, their parents are god, literally, and this is what is meant for them, and that's going to be the gist of their story.
This is why a decision, an obvious one, was made without their input being needed.
Ask them about this when they're 30, and whether it was good a change was forced upon the situation.
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Maybe those of you who post here and who live near JT could organize a work party to clean up the property for the parents, give the kids a bit of informal help.
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RussianBot
climber
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Parents are gods to kids? I must be doing it wrong.
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RussianBot
climber
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Me? No way! I’m working on the pool thing. I’ll bet those kids wouldn’t mind visiting us though.
Maybe I misunderstood. The source of their embarrassment (the embarrassment that you were referencing as objective information about the inadequacy of their living situation) isn’t the same as the source of my daughter’s embarrassment?
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RussianBot
climber
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My kids don’t need a pool either. Doesn’t mean they’re not embarrassed by not having one.
Were they sick from living near feces? Were they malnourished or abused or neglected or something?
I’m not arguing that they were living in acceptable conditions. I’m just saying we make that stuff up in a way that we prefer, and maybe we could accept that it’s a result of our subjective preference and not an objective analysis of we goddish adults, and if we want to impose our preferences on them, let’s take responsibility for doing so in a way that doesn’t take them away from their parents.
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Risk
Mountain climber
Marooned, 855 miles from Tuolumne Meadows
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the most dire sewage disposal crisis of any place he has visited in a developed country.
With R45 turning our USA into a third world country with poverty such as the box house, who is surprised? As with any third world country, one moves forward with what's available and reachable. Nothing presented tells me this family should have been fractured by a bunch of CPS child trafficker's. Loving parents in a tough situation; ask the children, and they'll tell you they want to go home with mom and dad (not to some subsidized or wage garnished-funded foster home with Walmart fish-sticks and Koolaid for dinner).
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Risk
Mountain climber
Marooned, 855 miles from Tuolumne Meadows
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really? Locker, you been through the CPS system?
I admit, my experience was with a "government sponsored" child trafficking agency here in Washington State that was really only interested in bringing in funds and charging accounts for their "services."
Sorry "social workers" here, now that my kids are out of your evil reach, I'm speaking out, and will continue to divulge what was a sinister and deliberate effort to traffic my children 10 years ago. We survived, but only with the help of God.
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Risk
Mountain climber
Marooned, 855 miles from Tuolumne Meadows
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Locker, sorry to hear that. See above.
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Risk
Mountain climber
Marooned, 855 miles from Tuolumne Meadows
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It took us over 18 months to get partially off of their radar. We are permanently impacted by what they did to us, besides causing the demise of all financial security by the charges uncured by the lawyers we had to hire to defend us. Just recalled tonight my mother's wedding silver sold to pay the lawyer. Never mind, the children's mother is now dead from what they and others caused by their "safety system."
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Risk
Mountain climber
Marooned, 855 miles from Tuolumne Meadows
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Our case was based on false accusations contrived maliciously by vindictive feminists/advocates who took to the keyboard with my dear wife, who was mentally impaired, answering leading questions. They crafted and painted a horrific story, long ago settled as 100% false. My wife and my children's mother was thrown to the street by them, and we were unable to help her, by law.
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Risk
Mountain climber
Marooned, 855 miles from Tuolumne Meadows
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Yeah, the reckoning I faced to resolve everything involved a lot of fessing up (going along with them). I could have done better, for sure. Despite their sinister motives, everything worked out. Sounds like you survived it, too!
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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My guess is that the kids would like a little more on the material side, and suffer some embarrassment that the place where they live looks trashy, but there are richer kids who are yelled at a lot, and have parents who are emotionally abusive. Some of them are probably worse off than these kids.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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I am hoping that after all is processed, the authorities will find that it is in the best interest to keep these kids with their parents, with the understanding that they must accept assistance with housing, and that the funds and contacts are there that can set this up.
I heard another person who actually knows the family talk about it the other day, and that person said similar to what Todd has, but was also angry at the way the family was vilified by the press.
I won't debate whether the images we see are subpar; of course they are. The bigger question is whether, with assistance, the parents can provide a safe and healthy home for their children. I would argue to no end that if they can, with the help, that is what should happen. My sister and her husband run a summer Camp To Belong, which reunites siblings in foster care for that small amount of time, one week in camp. In so many cases, the separation of the children from their siblings causes terrible trauma. Sometimes, all they had was each other, and to be separated is the final trauma they cannot overcome.
People who say "I don't want to pay for help for people like this" should absolutely be able to tick off a box on their tax returns that they can't stomach such charity. Ad the day that there is also a box to tick off for those who don't want to pay for politicians benefits that go well above and beyond what the regular folks get, and a box to tick off for those who don't want to pay for anything military related. Until then, for those who don't want to pay the few dollars a year from their taxes, all I can offer is my distaste at your inability to have compassion for those in unfortunate situations.
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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[Click to View YouTube Video]
My son was living in a little cabin with me on land where I was building all kinds of nutty things. I had artists living in a Teepee and it was awesome
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Gorgeous George
Trad climber
Los Angeles, California
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As a practicing lawyer in L.A. it never ceases to amaze me (1) how judgmental people are, and (2) how we criminalize situations where punishment is not in order. The situation demands an effort to give them a HELPING hand and overcome some of their difficulties.
Lot's of ideas come to mind: a GoFund page to raise money to help out, a group of good people that spend a Saturday morning trying to clean up the refuse, a group of carpenters who build a simple shed superior to what they were living in, and social workers that recommend programs and agencies that can help.
Instead, the DA is going to be looking to get good publicity and make these parents get a criminal record.
Worst of all, The Department of Children's Services and the Dependency Court will conspire to put the kids into foster homes and remove them from their biological AND PRESUMABLY LOVING PARENTS.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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The Department of Children's Services and the Dependency Court don’t exactly have a
sterling record of safeguarding the kids they’re supposed to be taking care of. How
many kids have died in abusive ‘homes’ that were supposedly regularly visited?
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perswig
climber
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Mine was actually well deserved...
You're a good dude, locker.
Dale
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there, say, thirsty...
had to go through here, fast... there is a lot of things that folks
have shared...
but-- wanted to say... thank you for sharing your story, and family...
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Cool story about Yoyo Ma visiting the Turpin children
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/yo-yo-ma-performs-impromptu-concert-turpin-siblings-article-1.3859495
"Corona Regional Medical Center graciously thanks @YoYo_Ma for visiting and sharing his love of music with the Turpin Siblings during the Kennedy Center's 'Arts Across America' visit on Friday. Very inspiring!" the tweet read.
The siblings — who range in age from 18 to 29 — have been receiving musical therapy since breaking free from their parent's home in January.
Uffer said they've been learning to play guitar and sing classic tunes like Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly" and John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads."
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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I think it's fine as long as the kids could climb 5.12 or higher. If they don't climb and just live like scummy wooks in JT for no reason then it's child abuse.
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Yury
Mountain climber
T.O.
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Mar 11, 2018 - 01:31pm PT
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Happiegrrrl2:
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/2018/03/10/new-home-joshua-tree-family-living-squalor/413985002/
The community, and people from all over, have donated to that GoFundMe Page, and in less than a week, due to the incredible generosity of a person with a home that has been vacant, to sell it well below market price, these folks have a home to call their own and live in. It looks like a story presented by their friends and a story presented by Children Protection Services are quite different.
Whom should I trust, government employees (whose salary is dependent on the number of children "saved") or generous friends of this family?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 11, 2018 - 01:47pm PT
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This country needs mandatory sterilization.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Mar 11, 2018 - 05:45pm PT
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Yury, you are delusional if you think county employees can shake more money loose by putting more children into the system, it just does not work that way.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Mar 11, 2018 - 11:00pm PT
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Yury...CPS grunts dont get paid sh#t...They work for the government...!!
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Mar 11, 2018 - 11:45pm PT
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How many folks live on the streets of San Francisco [pick your city] without electricity, running water, bathroom facilities?
How many are vets?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 12, 2018 - 10:30am PT
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Is the Pres supposed to take Uber?
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Mar 12, 2018 - 02:25pm PT
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I grew up in a house without running water. I had to go outside to pee and poop. We took baths on Saturday and Wednesday in a zinc tub. There were chickens, dogs and cats running all through the yard.
Should my parents have been thrown in jail?
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Mar 12, 2018 - 04:30pm PT
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Whom should I trust, government employees (whose salary is dependent on the number of children "saved") or generous friends of this family?
Yuri, you keep forgetting you are no longer in the Fatherland. Gov't social workers, if you'd ever met one, are generally the best angels you'd ever meet, doing what they can to protect children of neglect and abuse. They deal with things that would make you fall to your knees and cry. Every day.
I was friends with one who could not get the images and situations out of her mind. Even after quitting her job. I was so sad to learn that she had committed suicide.
The burden is more than you can imagine.
Their salaries are their salaries, which have nothing to do with what you suggest in your ignorance.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Mar 12, 2018 - 04:34pm PT
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It should also be mentioned that social workers never want to take children away, if their care and safety can be assured. They have actual work to do.
The problem is what is actually going on out there. The stories that friends and family tell is always suspect. Think of the mass murderers whose family claims that they were "good boys". The neighbors who say they would have never suspected what was happening. All those bones were just planted, eh?
Only in Russia......
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Risk
Mountain climber
Marooned, 855 miles from Tuolumne Meadows
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Mar 12, 2018 - 06:08pm PT
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Ken, sorry to inform you that social workers selectively choose information to insure that "easy" cases don't get closed. Cooperative and responsible parents that fall victim to false allegations perpetrated by vindictive "service providers" get wages garnished ($600/child per month) to feed the foster care system. There are posters all over town: "foster parents needed." It's legalized and profit motivated child trafficking. I am a victim of their scam, having my kids yanked away on 100% false allegations, and had to spend 18 months fighting their government-sponsored trafficking scheme. CPS and their providers totally propagated my case unnecessarily and deliberately sought false, selective, misleading and derogatory information. It was a figgen nightmare. Only after my $250/hr lawyer said she needed to be present at all meetings did they back down and drop the case. Also, the judge started to see through the bull. It also helped to have an honest CASA.
Meanwhile, and partly because of the whole scam, their mom is dead. Despite all of it, 10 years leter, my two daughters are mostly recovered and succeeding big-time in-school and college (GPA 3.7 and 3.9).
Gov't social workers, if you'd ever met one, are generally the best angels you'd ever meet, doing what they can to protect children of neglect and abuse.
False
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Mar 12, 2018 - 06:15pm PT
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My brother in law has been a social worker for quite a number of years, and y sister just finished her MA, and will become a counselor. Together, they have been running a Camp To Belong in Wisconsin, for the last five years or so. In Camp To Belong, siblings who have been separated through foster care of other legal situations have the possibility to spend one week together in a camp setting. Reason being that research shows that often the bond between siblings was pretty much all they had, and o be separated is a very, very, big trauma.
They tell me that keeping the children in the home is almost always the best outcome for families in crisis. Even when the parents fall short on what society would deem to be "appropriate." That does NOT mean that a child in danger is left to fend for theirself, of course. But for fx sake, there are a hell of a lot worse situations a child can be in that what it appears these kids were, in "good looking homes in fine neighborhoods". These people needed help, but you know what? The public exposure probably has made the difference IN their being able to keep the family together in the long run. They actually got lucky.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Mar 12, 2018 - 07:26pm PT
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Risk, I totally know where you are coming from but to paint the entire system as corrupt because of your experience is unfair. You admit that your problems started with false allegations. What is CPS to believe, they do not flip a coin, they start by erring on the side of the children.
I was arrested twice on false allegations, never charged and was vindicated in a week both times by, yep, CPS workers. If I have a beef, it is with the cops automatically arresting the male, despite evidence to the contrary. My sons mother ended up abducting my 3 year old son and fleeing to Shiprock where it was impossible for the authorities to reach him on the reservation. I had a court order giving me sole custody, the tribe ignored it. Fortunately his mother ended up at a Durango hospital (alcohol and blow) and CPS got him and returned him to me the next morning, after I drove all night (800 miles) to get there. Sorry, but I can not bad mouth CPS. Eleven years later my son is a great kid, his mom got her act together and I even let my son live with her while he goes to high school.
CPS is under pressure to save money, not spend it. I am very familiar with the CA system and it is definitely not skewed to screw parents. Some other states court systems are more screwed up. I have seen the good old boy network screw parents, Idaho and Arizona come to mind.
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RussianBot
climber
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Mar 12, 2018 - 08:34pm PT
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An upper middle class friend of my daughters once as a 13 yr old called CPS on her parents for taking her cell phone away. Family values I guess one way or the other.
Meanwhile another white friend is a single mom parenting three adopted African girls, the littlest of whom was given up by her first affluent white adoptive family when she was 5 and those first adoptive parents decided being her parents wasn’t as much fun as they’d imagined it would be.
Being taken away from your parents, like in adoption, is no-one’s first choice, but the best we can do is the best we can do. Needing to be taken away from your parents twice because some rich white jerk was too self involved to do the job they signed up for is f*#ked.
These JTree parents get a lot more sympathy from me than the self indulgent self righteous as#@&%es who think they run the world do. Having money isn’t a cure for being an as#@&%e, but we all have our preferences one way or the other.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Mar 12, 2018 - 08:49pm PT
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"Some of it might have even fallen out and hit old zBrown on the head, lol! Fair nuff."
Yeah sorry that I don't have any personal history of abuse or being abused.
I just hire a porter to carry my bags so no problem there either
BTW, every post here is somebody's fall out.
Funny that some folks think theirs is heavier than others, bro
.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Mar 13, 2018 - 07:06am PT
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but you had a well,
and all your scat was probably in one or two holes?
We had a two holer.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Mar 13, 2018 - 07:33am PT
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without the address of the location they were arrested were left with aerial shots available searching their case. none are close in enough to match the scene the ground pictures shows but it looks like there were on a property that had metal buildings and a home as well
This is a link to a Google "satellite" view of the property:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1252506,-116.2452035,97m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
No buildings. Just a motorhome and some cars parked there.
They said the place looked like hell because the wind had come up and blew their sh#t all over the desert. Must have been another windy day when the Google "satellite" was overhead, because trash was strewn across the landscape when Google got their shot.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Mar 13, 2018 - 12:08pm PT
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Zillow: Last sold: Sep 2002 for $825.
Interestingly, the property NE, touching corners, sold in 2015 for $4500, then again in 5/2017 for $22,500. The developed home across the street is worth $250k-ish. I wonder about the smell and visibility of that trash pile to the neighbors. As we saw in Happi's recent real estate thread - you can't really do what he's doing on that land. Case on point, aside from the raising kids issue.
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Yury
Mountain climber
T.O.
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Mar 13, 2018 - 01:07pm PT
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Ken M:
Yuri, you keep forgetting you are no longer in the Fatherland. Ken M, you make too many assumptions and come to easy conclusions without citing any fact.
According to some anecdotal evidences known to me Children Protection Services in Russia and US are pretty similar.
Gov't social workers, if you'd ever met one, are generally the best angels you'd ever meet, doing what they can to protect children of neglect and abuse. I agree. In general, you are right.
Their salaries are their salaries, which have nothing to do with what you suggest in your ignorance. Not that fast. In your reasoning you are skipping some steps.
Salaries, influence and overall importance of Children Protection Services bosses do depend on their budget.
It's a common logic of any bureaucratic system.
So when CPS runs out of real cases they start pursuing cases of superficial children abuse to make CPS bosses happy.
The larger is the budget of CPS, the larger is the number of cases of superficial children abuse.
It's the law of supply and demand. :(
BTW, do you have any opinion on CPS objecting to parents allowing their children to play two blocks away from their home unsupervised?
It's essentially what children (including you and your parents) were allowed to do for generations.
http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/23/cps-threatens-dad-who-let-kids-play-at-p
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Mar 13, 2018 - 01:55pm PT
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So when CPS runs out of real cases....
I have a feeling there are enough "real cases" to last for a while. I don't even know what to say to the kind of thinking that believes CPS is a scam to bilk money fro government coffers. How many social workers do you actually know on a basis where you might converse with them as to what their jobs are like? How many kids who have lived in foster care have you been friends with? Ever fostered a child?
For f*#k's sake....no wonder Werner says we're all insane. We ARE!
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Risk
Mountain climber
Marooned, 855 miles from Tuolumne Meadows
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Mar 13, 2018 - 06:09pm PT
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If you're a CPS social worker with a monsterous caseload, what cases would you want to fall off your list: the ones where you need a sheriff deputy with you to knock on the door at a creepy meth-lab-looking house while fending off a chained, snarling dog? Or, the one where the parents or parent are cooperative, safe, clean, and live in a nice house? The motive for abuse by CPS is obvious.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Mar 13, 2018 - 08:25pm PT
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come on Risk, yer just making stuff up now.
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Risk
Mountain climber
Marooned, 855 miles from Tuolumne Meadows
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Mar 13, 2018 - 08:42pm PT
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Jon, my own dear, nightmare, CPS social worker who accused me of lying to the judge (in writing), complained about the sheriff-escorted visits and how more civilized clients (like me) were so much easier.
Want more information? I'm limited what I can disclose, as they have it rigged with non-disclosure conditions/laws; "gag orders." Not to mention their rules of evidence; hearsay, etc. is fully admissible.
Your events sound horrendous, too.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Mar 14, 2018 - 10:52am PT
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CPS is under pressure to save money, not spend it. I am very familiar with the CA system and it is definitely not skewed to screw parents. Some other states court systems are more screwed up. I have seen the good old boy network screw parents, Idaho and Arizona come to mind.
To be fair, I've only experience with the Calif system, and certainly not all of the systems all over the state. I imagine there exists some variation.
I also can imagine that some states/cities engage people with agendas---such as the "need" to get a child into a nice Christian home. you'd have to be a "true believer" to work in a system with that sort of viewpoint.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Mar 14, 2018 - 11:01am PT
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So when CPS runs out of real cases they start pursuing cases of superficial children abuse to make CPS bosses happy.
The larger is the budget of CPS, the larger is the number of cases of superficial children abuse.
It's the law of supply and demand. :(
Except that is not the operative factor. It would be like saying that of SAR, because you know, if you give more money to YOSAR, they will be pulling climbers off of hard climbs who are not having any trouble at all?
Children don't enter the child abuse system by CPS randomly picking names out of the phone book to go check out----the cases are generated by complaints, either by civilians, courts, cops, doctors, teachers (what are termed "mandatory reporters".
They MUST investigate EVERY complaint, and generate a report and recommendation. All removals are finally adjudicated by a judge, and usually involve the district attorney and police.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Mar 17, 2018 - 12:16pm PT
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Yar, Locker, that's gnar.
From the article:
The family in the van had been dead for at least two or three days by the time police arrived and the van was not running, Whitney said.
Maybe fell asleep with the engine running for warmth and there was some sort of leak? Sad.
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SuperTopo on the Web
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mobility of home environment (which affects formation of relationships to non-family members, ability to develop attachments in a societally expected way)
Let us know!