I had friends who should have been taken away from their neglecting parents, but never were. Turns out, if the child is not being literally beaten, all the parent has to do is not open the door when child services comes by.

So if the child's teeth literally rot out of their mouth, they wear filthy clothes to school, they live in a house full of cat shit everywhere, and a rotted away caved in roof, all the parent has to do is continue smoking, drinking and browsing the internet. No one could do anything about it. Those kids' lives were ruined.

There are sadly some places where the courts/CPS will avoid removing them even in such a situation because their temporary care situation available from the state is so fucked that they're better off in literally any situation where they aren't beat/molested. Some parts of the US have truly dire situation with not enough quality foster car parents and basically a lord-of-the-flies temporary home available chock-full of kids with various unique and difficult to live with issues.

That makes sense. But what's bad is they had extended family who would have taken them in, there was just nothing the state could do. The mother brainwashed the younger kids to think their grandmother and aunt were terrible people, so they couldn't even lobby for themselves.

My friend was the oldest of 3 sisters and she didn't even realize how bad her home life was until middle school. Eventually she started dating another of my friends and ended up just living with his family for years to avoid going home. After she turned 18 and was independent, she tried to get her siblings out, but the state said their hands were tied.

Yeah, the subculture of people who get incandescently angry about CPS aren't the kinds of people I'd want anywhere near children.

for those of us who ticked off at CPS, that's kind of the point. who you want "anywhere near children" should have nothing to do with my relationship with my kids.

> who you want "anywhere near children" should have nothing to do with my relationship with my kids.

The laws against child abuse argue against this kind of absolutism.

Do you have something against those, too?

I thought that was obvious.

Yes, they want to beat their kid in peace: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34918902

Why? It seems like those things are directly related. If I see somebody treating their child poorly then I wouldn't want them caring for my children.

Guess I’d better quit as a paramedic since I’m apparently not fit to be around kids, let alone treat them in medical emergencies.

All well and good until you're on the reverse end of the stick. It cuts both ways. Sometimes CPS is direly necessary. Sometimes it's just harassment.

I applaud your parents for staying level-headed. There is a 100% chance I would have gotten into a firefight with the government in the same scenario. And of course that would have been objectionally successful for the government as the children would have been removed from the home.

Turns out, if the child is not being literally beaten,

psa: you can beat your kids in the US. spanking is, fortunately not yet, the same as abuse.

Fortunately?

It is indeed fortunate that certain groups of people have not been successful in equating spanking with abuse, from a legal standpoint.

Reasonable and clearly defined punishments that include spanking as the "nuclear option" are part of a parent's toolkit.

Child rearing is hard. I've been doing it for 24 years straight now with four kids.

Kids are different and don't respond the same to punishments. What works for one may not work for another.

Barring cases of abuse, I believe it's wrong to armchair quarterback parents raising their kids in the best way they know how.

If I (non-consensually) spank another adult, that's abuse. If I spank an animal, that's animal abuse. Somehow spanking a child makes it not abuse?

Your analogy makes no sense. If I ground my child, preventing them from leaving the house, that's a reasonable punishment. If I prevent an adult from leaving my house, that's kidnapping. There are some things you can do to your child that you cannot do to another adult. And that's normal and good.

That's fair, and I don't disagree that parents and guardians should have rights over their children to punish them for discipline. That said, you certainly still can't spank your pets...

Look, I agree that the state should have a lot of leeway in letting parents decide what is best for their children. But in and of itself, spanking is the direct use of physical harm (the fact people even split straws on whether or not it causes "lasting damage" is really the wrong question to be asking) to a child to get your way, whether you feel it's justified or not. And there is this reflexive defense of it because it's just this completely weirdly ritualized punishment where people have completely distanced themselves from the idea that while yes, they are inflicting physical pain upon their children, they've made themselves comfortable with the idea because it's a traditional parenting method.

Inflicting pain (physical, mental, emotional) is an acceptable option when there are no alternatives.

I know a lot of people who were physically abused as children and became screwed up adults as a result of it.

I know a lot of people who were never physically disciplined as children and became screwed up adults as a result of it.

I know many people who were occasionally (1-10 times) disciplined as children and became great adults.

As a result? Who knows? But the line doesn't seem to be 0 vs >0.

When one of my sons, at age 4 or 5 picked up a brick and hit my other son in the head with it "just to see what would happen" he got a spanking.

He got to see what would happen.

And you know what? He never did anything like that again.

I don't think that spanking should be a go-to punishment, but in some cases, especially those involving high danger, a small child needs to have a fundamental fear of breaking certain rules.

I'd rather have to give a child a spanking for trying to run out into the road than to have a dead child and some sort of moral superiority.

Works that way with lots of things. My kid gets a pretty generous existence off ~10% of our post-tax salaries. Not because we are rich, we just don't waste money.

In a divorce, the state says I would need to pay 20% pre-tax (like 30% post-tax) or go to fucking jail. There's no rational reason why the kid is always going to need 3x the money in a divorce, and that reason be so dire it's worth throwing someone in jail for not paying it. The reason turns out the state gets benefits based on both the small administrative cut and based on the amount of child support outlays.

Benefits how? If your kid doesn't waste money, why does it matter whether the money is your account or theirs?

You are forced to give it. If you lose your job or somehow cannot manage your cashflow for a moment, you go to jail.

Or if you just get hijacked by terrorists while ironically working the job to come up with money for the child support [0]. Should have kept mailing the support while a gun was pointed to his head.

[0] https://greensboro.com/ex-hostage-jailed-in-child-support-ca...

Link?

Anyone who wants to spank their children is rather perverted, of course: We all know what it means when an adult spanks an adult.