Life as a Foster Child

No matter how long I spend in Family Court, I have never grown accustomed or indifferent to the idea of a child being separated from his or her family.  And yet, each child's experience with this wrenching reality is different.  Take, for example, the story of one girl who is having trouble adjusting to foster care.  The video can be seen here.  It is a remarkable story of the inner workings of a mind of a child going through this momentous ordeal. 

At the end of the day, it is almost inconceivable to imagine the pain, guilt, confusion, frustration and heartbreak that confront these children.  But on top of all that is the death blow to a child's sense of self worth that can sometimes be too much to bear. 

I urge all of you to take the time to watch the video and get a glimpse into the mind and heart of a child facing the prospect of foster care.

Jail Is No Place for Kids

In an article that appeared in the New York Times today, which can be found here, we are once again reminded about how the juvenile justice system both in New York and around the country is ill suited to address the needs of children.  This is why many states have begun to embrace the notion that detention for children does not have the goal of punishment as its primary goal.  Rather, rehabilitation, education and treatment are becoming and should remain the states' top priorities when addressing young people whose behaviors have put them at risk of long term detention.

When a court is faced with a decision as to whether or not to incarcerate a youth, the governing standard is the "least restrictive alternative" which meets the needs of both the youth and the community.  However, up until recent years, when it was fairly convincingly shown that the juvenile justice facilities throughout the State were doing more harm than good, judges often gave little more than lip service to that notion.  That is starting to change.

If you are a parent of a child who is facing incarceration, it is incumbent upon you, with the help of your child's attorney, to identify what your child's needs are and to actively seek out community based agencies, mental health providers, after school programs, etc., that are designed to meet those needs.  Coming to court prepared with a plan is a vital step to preventing your child from becoming yet another statistic, lost in the bowels of a dysfunctional system. 

Believing Too Late

Both in and out of Family Court, women seeking orders of protection are too often confronted with skepticism.  By all who encounter them, police officers, judges, and sometimes even those charged to advocate for them, battered women often have to deal with people who simply cannot accept that they were abused, or that there is "another side to the story".  Such was a case that just ended in New York where the abuser, Jason Bohn, was just sentenced to life in prison for the killing of his girlfriend, Danielle Thomas.  The full story can be seen here.

In Ms. Thomas' case, she already had an order of protection.  Moreover, she had played a recording for the police in which Mr. Bohn had threatened her with even more serious injuries even after the order of protection was issued.  And yet, steps were not taken which may have prevented this tragedy.

It is certainly true that a number of people try to game the system by making false allegations of domestic violence to enable them to become eligible for a number of different city services, including housing.  But as advocates, it is always better to accept the allegations of victims as true, until we are convinced otherwise, if, for no other reason, than to prevent yet another tragedy of this magnitude.

Are Parents Becoming Irrelevant?

An interesting article appeared in the New York Times in which a study found that the value of parental assistance with a child's educational success was deemed to be nominal at best, harmful at worst.  The full article can be found here. 

What is interesting about this is that many of the children I have represented over the years have complained bitterly about the lack of involvement that a parent has shown them over the years.  Which is to suggest that while a parent may not have any tangible benefit on a child's school performance, there is an inherent value in the time parents and children spend together.  That value may not be measured in grades or college admissions, but in a sense of belonging, love, respect and empathy. 

We may not be able to drag our kids to the threshold of success, but we can at least accompany them on whatever path they take and find ourselves better off for the journey. 

The Depth of Suffering

Very few who have spent any amount of time in Family Court would debate the idea that it is a place of tremendous suffering.  There is scarcely any type of case that is handled there that does not have as its genesis some form of profound suffering.  Child abuse and neglect, termination of parental rights, juvenile delinquency, custody and visitation, orders of protection and even child support cases rightly invoke the images of a family that has been fractured and that the familiar places to which we instinctively retreat for safety, our homes, have been torn asunder.  In this void, suffering steps in and can overwhelm us.  It lays bare deep personal and emotional wounds that, unfortunately, may never heal.

David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, has crafted a beautiful essay that explores the purpose and result of suffering.  The article can be found here.  Mr. Brooks poses the question we have all considered at times in our lives which is: what is the point of my suffering.

Sadly, much of the suffering endured in the Family Court is self-inflicted.  Parents who have come to despise one another inflict lifelong wounds on their children by continuing a battle for custody.  Indeed, in just about every case pending in Family Court, it is the children who simultaneously suffer the most and have the least ability to address the causes.  And so their suffering is without purpose, without end and without justification.  And the repercussions of this suffering are far too wide ranging to address here.  Suffice to say, litigants in Family Court will not, as Mr. Brooks suggests, find the suffering they and their families endure there to be ennobling in any way.  And this is why it is often safest and in the best interests of their families to put an end to it with all due haste. 

Sailing On the Rocky Seas of Child Neglect

Its a dream many of us have: sailing around the world, completely disconnected from cell phones, email, Twitter, Facebook, television and the thousands of other little distractions that make modern life seem like little more than an unending series of minor distractions and aggravations that constantly tug at our ever decreasing attention spans and, in the end, leave us almost feeling less than human.  For Eric and Charlotte Kauffman, that dream became a reality when the boarded a sailboat in Mexico and headed for New Zealand.  The fact that they never made it to New Zealand and instead had to be rescued by the U.S. Navy would have scarcely captured anyone's notice had they not taken their two children, Cora and Lyra, ages one and three respectively, with them.  The entire story of the family's ordeal can be found here. 

The firestorm of criticism set off by this case is both understandable and enlightening.  To be sure, the Kauffmans took an enormous risk when they boarded that boat with two children who were utterly and totally dependent on their parents for virtually anything.  In the event of an accident, the Kauffmans would not only have to figure out how to save themselves, but their children as well.  But the case prompts more philosophical questions as well.  Specifically, is the outrage against the Kauffmans at least, in part, fueled by the fact that they have chosen a different path in which to raise their children?  Do we simultaneously envy and scorn their choice?  These are difficult questions which different people will reach different conclusions to.

One might also consider that those who traveled west during the expansion of the American frontier took just as many, if not greater, chances with their children.  They had no access to medical care and were faced daily with the prospect of starvation, dehydration and attack by wild animals.  And yet we laud these people in our history books and elevate them to the status of heroes.  Is what the Kauffmans did so entirely different?  Their frontier was certainly different, but it offered similar potential for adventure and a life altogether different from the one that many of us choose, one that is filled with conveniences and safety.  And, one that we frequently wish we could escape from. 

Questions of a far less extreme example can be seen everyday in Family Court.  For example, parents who decline medicine or transfusions on religious grounds pose similar and perhaps thornier questions.  The point is that there is almost another side to the story, and quite often, it is important that that story not only be told, but understood by those responsible for casting judgment on persons charged with child neglect.

Child Abuse - Not Always What It Seems

Quite often, we make assumptions about the people who abuse their children.  We assume they were bad people, were abused themselves as children, or otherwise fit into some pre-conceived stereotype.  And the thing about stereotypes is that they are frequently true. 

But there are times when the story does not fit the mold.  Such is the story of Amanda Bishop, who left her two small children in a car whose inner temperature was in the 100s and climbing.  The children were observed crying hysterically by a passer-by who called the police.  The full story of Ms. Bishop can be found here. 

But Ms. Bishop was not out at a nightclub, doing drugs or at her boyfriend's house.  She was without childcare and at a job interview.  It was her hope to get the job that would help lift her family out of years of poverty in which they had been mired.  And while it is certainly never acceptable to leave small children unattended in a car, particularly on a hot day, one can begin to understand the reasons that led Ms. Bishop to this desperate act. 

To be sure, there is plenty of cynicism in Family Courts across the country.  However, having worked with hundreds and hundreds of families over the years, I have found that there is usually another side to the story.  Articulating a parent's side of the story can and often does mean a world of difference in how a parent's abuse or neglect case turns out in the end.