I am absolutely dumbfounded over this. The parents were warned that if the children didn’t lose weight, they would lose them forever. Now the State intends to carry through with its threat. I am of the opinion that this is why one needs the second amendment, it gives these monstrous bureaucrats some pause.
Four obese children are on the brink of being permanently removed from their family by social workers after their parents failed to bring their weight under control.
In the first case of its kind, their mother and father now face what they call the ‘unbearable’ likelihood of never seeing them again.
Their three daughters, aged 11, seven and one, and five-year-old son, will either be ‘fostered without contact’ or adopted.
But despite subjecting them to intense scrutiny, social workers did not impose rules on what food the children should eat, and there was apparently little or no improvement.News of the decision to remove them was broken to the couple, from Dundee, on Tuesday. Critics called it a disgraceful breach of human rights and a chilling example of the power of the State to meddle in family life.
In an emotional interview, the 42-year-old mother said: ‘We might not be the perfect parents, but we love our children with all our hearts. To face a future where we will never see them again is unbearable.
Over my dead fat body.
September 5, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Patrick, the Daily Mail is a tabloid. You'd probably be dumbfounded by things in the National Enquirer, too, but you would never read that junk. Why are you reading this?
September 5, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Sorry, I just confirmed this story, it's everywhere in the UK news. Unbelievable!
September 5, 2011 at 3:43 pm
The British (along with us) beat the German Nazi's in WWII. Now they have to rise up and beat the home-grown ones! Scotju
September 5, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Come on guys- you don't think this is where Michelle O & the Cassette Sunstein regulators are going here in the US? 2nd A is right!
September 5, 2011 at 4:59 pm
What if the parents were letting the kids drink? Smoke drugs? Or just every once in a while punching them out?
You do know that being overweight is unhealthy right? That when kids are brought up fat they're most likely to live fat and die younger. From diabetes to cancer fatties have a lower life expectancy if not quality of life.
So I think it's more a case of the state seeing child abuse and acting appropriately because children, they're not property, parents don't "own" them and I don't think it's unreasonable for society to set limits and standards within a framework of due process.
All they had to do was the right thing; keep their children healthy and if they're not going to do it than someone else has to.
September 5, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Salvage:
May I respectfully suggest that you put your emotions aside for a moment and stop and think about what you are saying?
The parents don't "own" the children? Well, do you then mean that the State owns them? If that's what you mean you are sadly misguided. I suspect that is indeed what you mean since you apparently cheer on the actions of these mindless bureaucrats. And, as a matter of fact, the parents DO own the children, until they are old enought to live on their own. If you cannot accept that simple principle of justice then I'm not sure how to proceed with you.
Tearing children away from their fathers and their mothers is not a pretty sight, my friend. I've seen horrors like that and I can tell you it is a traumatic, shocking experience for all concerned – except the robots from law enforcement, of course.
Your concern for due process is a little hollow sounding if for no other reason than the fact that due process isa thing of the past, especially in the tyrannies of the USA and now England.
You might want to wake up and smell the coffee.
September 5, 2011 at 6:09 pm
What's next? Parents who raise their children in a religion contrary to the secular state (ie. Catholicism)? Scary possibilities.
September 5, 2011 at 6:27 pm
To back up Salvage a little bit, where does one draw the line? If a child was 4 feet tall, weighed three hundred pounds and was fed nothing but Big Macs and Twinkies most of us would agree that the child was being neglected and abused. On the other hand, what if the child was only 10-15 pounds overweight? Again, where do we draw the line? For me, I tend to side with the parents unless the case is extreme.
September 5, 2011 at 6:59 pm
I'm wondering how the nanny state decided to investigate this couple.
Did a social worker spot the children outside their home? Were they
reported by their school or by their state-employed pediatrician? Who
was the state's stooge? Who is it that British parents should fear?
And what chance did these parents have? It is the bureaucrats
who unilaterally decree what constitutes obesity, that inability to
bring one's children's weight to a level acceptable to the state renders
one an unfit parent, and that this attempt to enforce the weight loss
must occur within a timeline arbitrarily set by the state. With such
power to set the conditions in a case, the state could easily remove
anyone's child. Anyone's. All they have to do is move the goalposts.
And what monster decided that these parents must lose their children
permanently? Breaking up a family forever, tearing children from
their parents and siblings is better than weighing more than the state
likes? What if the children don't lose weight after losing their family?
I agree with Andrea G, above. Anything the state does not like is next.
I'm not familiar with British laws concerning homeschooling, but I can
easily see some new directive declaring that it's unhealthy, etc. etc.
September 5, 2011 at 7:13 pm
>The parents don't "own" the children?
Correct!
>Well, do you then mean that the State owns them?
Nope.
> I suspect that is indeed what you mean since you apparently cheer on the actions of these mindless bureaucrats.
I don't think you read my post very carefully or you have trouble understanding things. There is nothing "mindless" about what these bureaucrats are doing. Being overweight is unhealthy just as drinking and smoking and being abused is. If the State sees abuse than the State is quite right to intervene to prevent it. Now an argument for overreach can be made in this and other cases perhaps but there is nothing "mindless" going on, quite the opposite in fact.
>And, as a matter of fact, the parents DO own the children,
Really? I own my iPod so if I throw it off a bridge I won't be arrested, if I do the same with my child? I guess you haven't caught up with current events but it's been well over 100 years since a person was anyone's property in America and even longer in the Uk. No, parents do not own their child in that they can do whatever they please with them any more than the State can. There are laws that prevent such a thing for all parties.
Or do you really think that a parent should be allowed to beat or otherwise abuse their children?
>Tearing children away from their fathers and their mothers is not a pretty sight, my friend.
It is if that parent is abusing the child and all but guaranteeing it a miserable life, then it's a rescue and it's a thing of beauty.
> I've seen horrors like that and I can tell you it is a traumatic, shocking experience for all concerned –
Would you like to talk about the horrors of children left with abusive parents?
> except the robots from law enforcement, of course.
Ha! Ha! They are robots and their bosses are mindless! You are the only one with feelings who knows stuff.
>process isa thing of the past, especially in the tyrannies of the USA and now England.
Ha! Ha! Yes! That's what tyranny is, making parents raise healthy children! America and the Uk are just like Germany 1939!
You're not big on reality are you?
September 5, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Obesity is obviously a serious subject but this is ridiculous… what next? kids who don't exercise at least 30 minutes everyday will be separated from their parets too? if they don't have 6 servings of fruits and vegetables a day? If they can't fit into size 2 jeans? The children's weight is probably due to bad eating habits combined with gentics… which is NOT the same as children being given drugs or punched, salvage
September 5, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Moron government goons. Look at the picture, for pity's sake. Yeah, the whole family is a bit on the chunky side – but morbidly obese? Hardly. The state goons are by their very actions scarring and stigmatizing these kids for life. How dare them interfere with this family. Lock and load, I say. Oh, right, this is the U.K. Guess they'll just have to roll over and surrender their kids. Very sad. The fat Nazis need to find a new hobby that doesn't involve child abuse – which removing these kids from their parents most certainly would be.
September 5, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Salvage, the reality is that in cases where families are torn apart, the country as a whole suffers. In addition, I do not think that obesity constitutes child abuse. Yes, there are bad parents; parents who dote upon and spoil their children and they should do better. But do we need Big Brother to stick his nose in? Physical abuse, such as throwing a child off a bridge like an iPod, is quite obviously an act deliberately intended to harm the child, and should be punished by law. But what gives the state the right to tear children from parents in this fashion? There was no immediate threat, no offer to help (i.e. healthy food suggestions, parenting classes), and no sign that the children were not naturally predisposed to weigh more.
Furthermore, the parents did everything they could to try to meet the deadline, and were reviewed by social workers who have obviously never tried to raise children of their own. If they had, they would not have made snide notes in the trial such as the toddler trying to put dangerous objects in her mouth or crawling through an upturned ashtray; events not uncommon in regular development. Despite doing all they could to comply with the council’s demand, the council declared the trial a failure, and decided to remove the children from their parents and place them in foster care.
The state was, in my opinion (whatever that’s worth to you) out to get this family from the very start. Even though the incident they were called to investigate (a forehead injury on the child; later admitted to be an accident) was resolved, the social workers, instead of closing their briefcases and going home, decided to target the family for the weight of the children. The parents didn’t object, but decided to play the council’s game, which was crooked from the start. They only gave the parents three months to reduce the weight of their children.
Though the attempt was consistently referred to as a trial, the council decided that failure was to be punished regardless. If insufficient data existed to determine whether or not the treatment should be effective, then the trial should have been used as a measuring stick, not a whipping post! The council treated said trial as if the mathematics were determinate, and the family as if math could solve all their problems.
One factor that the council seems to have overlooked is observation. People act differently when they know they are being watched, and so observation itself skews the results. Any basic psychology course will tell you this! The family repeatedly demonstrated that the strain resulting from the knowledge of the observations was tearing them apart! The father left the house since he couldn’t stand being watched all the time, but the family still tried to keep together, resulting in one of the most ridiculous notes on the file: that the imposed curfew was broken because the mother left a sleeping child at the father’s residence because she didn’t want to wake her! She apparently broke the meal observations because she took the children to see their father, and she stated that the children have “‘two parents, not one.’”
The test itself was tearing the family to pieces long before the council decided to make it formal. You, Salvage, are being unfair to the family and to those that defend them, making ad hominem and non sequitur logical fallacies in your refutations. Also, I do not see any sign that this family was abusive in any way; rather, I see them as trying to stay together no matter what it took or how many government officials they had to succumb to. However, insofar as the family is concerned, the time for words is over. What self-respecting man would stand by while the nanny state goes from babysitter to owner of your family?
“Oh, it is excellent to have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.”
-Shakespeare, William (Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene 2)
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
September 5, 2011 at 10:17 pm
@Andrea,
I agree with you, perfectly. The state is criminalizing a condition that may be outside the parents' control and may well be outside the state's control or even foster parents' control. What will the state do when the children's condition does not improve? or the children fail in other ways? Why not sue the advertizers and producers for putting all that junk into our food. Will the state be taking children with Downs syndrome? Diabetes? I think the state needs to prove criminality and needs to spend more resources catching criminals and not criminalizing persons doing the best they can.
September 5, 2011 at 10:40 pm
Salvage, you seem to be suggesting that parents who let their children drink or smoke or overeat are guilty of child abuse just as much as if they beat them and therefore they forfeit their right to care for their children.
Those activities are legal, however. If I give a beer to my neighbor's 12-year-old, that's illegal. If I give a beer to my own 12-year-old it's not. I may be a bad parent or I may be a parent who thinks it's best to gradually expose my children to alcohol on my own terms and my own timetable. The point is that the state shouldn't get to make those decisions. Do you really think those kids are better off now as wards of the state? Do you think they will thrive? We're 5-10 years behind England. This crap is coming like a freight train.
Oh, and Salvage, a couple of my kids struggle with their weight. They are the most wonderful, brilliant, loving, intelligent, productive, prayerful kids I have ever seen. You stay the hell away from them.
September 6, 2011 at 12:06 am
I can't wait 'til that starts happening where I live.
We've got some kids in our neighborhood we can't wait to unload on the State.
These kids are demons from Hell.
Wait until they start setting fires, stealing, tearing sheetrock off walls, breaking windows and stealing cars, not to mention the things they do when they get liquored up!
Marijuana is legal now in Arizona, and we got idiots for Governor and Maricopa County Sheriff.
Come and get 'em, bureaucrats!
*
September 6, 2011 at 1:12 am
@Saint Michael Come to our Defense: "We've got some kids in our neighborhood we can't wait to unload on the State.
These kids are demons from Hell.
Wait until they start setting fires, stealing, tearing sheetrock off walls, breaking windows and stealing cars, not to mention the things they do when they get liquored up!"
Sorry, the state only picks on people who can't defend themselves.
September 6, 2011 at 1:25 am
>Salvage, you seem to be suggesting that parents who let their children drink or smoke or overeat are guilty of child abuse just as much as if they beat them and therefore they forfeit their right to care for their children.
Well it would depend on the age of the children and what "let" means. For instance if a parent "let" a 6 year old child drink whiskey everyday by providing that child with the bottle than yes, I think taking the child away would be a good thing. If "let" is a 16 year old kid sneaking off to smoke than no, taking the child would be a silly thing.
See that's why there are agencies that look after this sort of thing, they see the larger picture and make informed decisions based on training, policy and law.
Now in the case of these fatties we actually haven't heard the agencies side, I suspect because of privacy laws, they've confirmed the case and the broad strokes but not much more. The parent's defence has been what you would expect innocent or guilty; "we didn't do nuthin' wrong!".
Now since this is an isolated case, it's not like they've got vans trolling the neighbourhood scooping up kids to weight and test their cholesterol levels than snatching the fat ones away. I'm inclined to think that their investigation has turned up something that has forced them to take such drastic measures. If I had to guess it could be some variation of "Munchausen by proxy" involving food but that is a straight from my butt answer it could be anything but it is obviously something.
>The point is that the state shouldn't get to make those decisions.
And the state isn't doing that but if you did give your young child beer in his lunch and whisky for dinner the state might step in because that is harming the child and that is abuse.
> Do you really think those kids are better off now as wards of the state? Do you think they will thrive?
Some will some won't, just like some will and some won't if they stay at home in an abusive situation. So you would leave a child with an abusive parent because you don't think they'd be better off someplace else? Really?
>Oh, and Salvage, a couple of my kids struggle with their weight. They are the most wonderful, brilliant, loving, intelligent, productive, prayerful kids I have ever seen. You stay the hell away from them.
Yeah, personally I don't care; stuff your kids with cheese filled sugar balls. I like the younger generation being bloated sacks of suet and grease, less competition for jobs and chicks.
And it's a pretty simple formula if you consume more calories than you burn you gain weight so if you're fat eat less and exercise more. Unless your children are somehow crippled there is nothing to "struggle" with except perhaps gluttony and sloth but if you can't beat fat and lazy who needs you?
September 6, 2011 at 1:50 am
If it is objectively clear the children's health is in real and significant danger, and the parents wilfully refuse them the medical treatment required, then the courts ought to try the case and rule that the necessary treatment is carried out, even without the parents' cooperation, though same shd be sought. Taking children from loving parents, whatever their shortcomings, is the greatest possible evil one could inflict upon the children, not to mention the damage to society, such disregard for family, parents and children, would inevitably cause. The love of a mother and father is not replaceable. Lynda If it is objectively clear the children's health is in real and significant danger, and the parents wilfully refuse them the medical treatment required, then the courts ought to try the case and rule that the necessary treatment is carried out, even without the parents' cooperation, though same shd be sought. Taking children from loving parents, whatever their shortcomings, is the greatest possible evil one could inflict upon the children, not to mention the damage to society, such disregard for family, parents and children, would inevitably cause. The love of a mother and father is not replaceable. Lynda
September 6, 2011 at 1:53 am
Well dang it. I let myself get trolled.
Salvage, your vile remarks have refuted your apologia for the state better than I could. Not only should you keep away from my kids, I'm pretty sure you should keep away from everyone else's too.