We could start by adding Fathers back into the equation, and not automatically assuming that a child is in danger if they're not in their Mothers' sphere.
I think this is the worst thing that governments have done for families: the idea that a single-parent (Primarily the Mother) family is anything less than ideal for the children needs to attain mainstream acceptance. Dads need to stay, and Mothers need to move over and make way for it.
>According to the report, a married father spends on average 6.5 hours a week taking part in primary child care activities with his children. The married mother spends on average 12.9 hours. Since two-income households are now the norm, not the exception, the above information indicates that not only are mothers working, but they are also doing twice as much child care as fathers.
Fathers stepping in is one way it'll change. Mothers stepping out is another. To find the balance we have to make room for it.
If we're comfortable letting a criminal go free of prison because guilt can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt (and we should, for the record), we should be comfortable letting a child stay with its parents until the parents inability to care is established beyond a reasonable doubt.
The difference is that in one scenario it’s about punishing something that happened and is done and in the other it’s to prevent ongoing/future harm. If you’ve seen some of the things parents are willing to do to their own kids, you would see why it’s not that simple.
Letting a criminal go free (think serial-murderer, rapist) is just as valid an argument for future harm.
I don't see why you treat these 2 cases differently.
The rights of a child to be abused and the rights of a parent to not have their child be taken away are both very important. It’s my subjective impression that the “child abused” case is much more common than the “child taken away where no abuse occurred” case. I see no reason that our laws should be biased in favor of letting that case occur.
If a child has been living with a mother that (apparently) has 18 drinks a day (getting to 18 drinks a day while still being a functional human is not something you get to overnight, it's a long process) without obviously suffering, this is cause for grave concern, it is a significant risk, but it's not an immediate risk. In this context it's also important to keep in mind that removing a child is possibly the correct answer in many cases, but it hurts the child 100% of the time. That hurt must be less, by a very significant margin, than the hurt of staying put.
This should be treated like a criminal matter, with the same standards of evidence. If we're comfortable letting a criminal go free of prison because guilt can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt (and we should, for the record), we should be comfortable letting a child stay with its parents until the parents inability to care is established beyond a reasonable doubt. Or at the very least, the parents in question should have a court appointed defence lawyer.