Strollerderby : social services

Save Aaliyah Puts Dad on Trial by YouTube Jury

JeanneSager — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:34:00 GMT

It's a blurry night vision video of a two-and-a-half-year-old talking in two-year-old-ese, but it's enough to have prompted thousands of YouTube viewers to start demanding an investigation into possible sexual abuse of a little girl.

But is Save Aaliyah a hoax?

The video was put online by Connie Bedwell, a California mother who lost custody of her daughter to her ex. A nine-minute rambling example of a situation Bedwell says is typical of the times she spends with her daughter, it includes the toddler referring to "Daddy's worm" and notes that she often tells Daddy "don't do that."

Bedwell's site, Save Aaliyah, also sports a lengthy list of examples that she says are evidence of abuse, including bruises on the baby's back, and repeated mentions that daddy hurt her and "owies."

It's all the evidence a lot of parenting bloggers have needed to demand child protective services yank the little girl from her father's home. A host of YouTube posts have cropped up directing you to the Save Aaliyah site and calling for justice, and a petition site sports more than thirteen hundred signatures calling for help for Aaliyah.

But here's the rub. Connie's local newspaper has done interviews with the police and district attorney's office, and they've all cleared Aaliyah's dad of wrongdoing. I'd like to think that child protective services would be in the right here, would have a clearer understanding of the matter at hand than a bunch of YouTube watchers.

So is the Website fair? Should Bedwell be fighting the good fight (if you really believed your child was being sexually abused, wouldn't you?) or is putting these type of details out on the 'net as part of a custody battle just proof that the judge has made the right decision?

Image: SaveAaliyah

Half of Kids Surveyed Think Rihanna Had it Coming

JeanneSager — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:21:00 GMT

I've read some awful survey results over the years. But this?

Almost half of the kids surveyed by the Boston Public Health Commission said they thought singer Rihanna was "responsible" for the beat-down she received from boyfriend Chris Brown.

Forty-six percent the domestic violence case was Rihanna's fault, and fifty-two percent said it was both Rihanna and Brown's fault. Fifty-one percent blamed Brown. The numbers are particularly shocking after reading the good news about teen responses to the issue reported by my colleague Shannon last week. Kids in Chicago are speaking out in a "Beyond Chris and Rhianna" project there that clearly needs to be transplanted to Boston.

Forget "violence is not the answer." That's obviously lost on these kids. What about the simple lesson that no one can CAUSE someone else to hurt them? That it's always the choice of the person doing the beating?

The survey of kids twelve through nineteen in the Boston does not distinguish what kinds of homes the respondents come out of - so there's no way to determine what sort of homes these kids are coming from. What do you want to bet a fair share of those blaming Rihanna in some way aren't the nicest of homes? Because where does violence start? You got it. Different studies put the number of kids who get their first taste of domestic violence by watching their parents around three million annually.

According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, "Constant exposure to violence in the home and abusive role models teaches these children that violence is a normal way of life and places them at risk of becoming society's next generation of victims and abusers."

It also makes them more likely to place blame on the abused rather than the abuser, and for kids to become abusers or be abused. Which means the Boston Public Health Commission may well be seeing half its survey subjects in a social services setting.

Chilling, isn't it?

Image: People

Chicago Doula Works With Poor Pregnant Teens

Miriam Axel-Lute — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:30:00 GMT

For all those tempted to think of a doula as a luxury who merely provides pampering, it's worth taking a little time to watch A Doula Story.

Loretha Weisinger, the subject of the documentary, a former teen mom herself, works with pregnant teens in a poor area of Chicago. She's really a combination of childbirth educator, doula, lactation consultant, and parenting educator, which is a hell of a job, but clearly a crucial one.

I keep remembering the moment where she takes a cell phone away from a new mom who's trying to breastfeed in the hospital in order to tell her boyfriend that, no, breastfeeding isn't "nasty." Or her careful explanation that she wasn't going to leave the delivery room until one of her "girls" was ready to hold her baby and got to do so. Or her repeated insistence that her girls actually talk to their babies, in utero and out.

It's not exactly a feel-good flick, as the lives of these girls, and Loretha herself, are hard. But it also shies away from what I came to realize, as I found myself tensing for it, must be a stock documentary habit of sticking a tragedy in somewhere around 2/3 of the way through. No deaths or horrendous confessions. Just the day-to-day work of trying to improve the lives of babies and parents.

(Hat-tip: Citizens for Midwifery)

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Woman Makes Up 14 Kids For the Money

JeanneSager — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:08:00 GMT

They were shelling out for foster care for 16 kids, but the Scottish government left Catherine Semple alone for four years. When they finally checked in, social services found 14 of the kids didn't even EXIST!

The Glasgow mom of two began telling the government she was caring for five of her sister's kids and five foster kids in 2002. She told them she had a total of six of her own, then loaded a pile of supposed maladies on the kids to qualify for more money. The government gave her more than 69,000 pounds (in today's market about $120,000) no questions asked over a four-year period. Finally, in 2006, someone got suspicous. Wouldn't you?

Her husband claims he knew nothing about the fraud (or his supposed sown seed, apparently), and he hasn't been charged. Semple has offered to sell her house to make restitution.

I'm not sure which is more disturbing, that she bilked the government by making up a bunch of kids or that no one checked in on 10 supposed foster/adopted kids - many with disabilities - to see how they were faring.

Image: Amazon

Source: BBC News

News from Darkest Peru: Paddington Turns 50

Keep Kids From Getting Fat - Get a Dog

Hey Sarah Palin, Make Your Kids Go to School

Dirty Diaper Thief on the Loose in Upstate New York

Angelina Buys Her Kid a Knife. What's Next, Maddox Jolie, Tomb Raider?

Teenager Arrested For Kiddie Porn - The Pictures Were of Herself

Most Wanted Puts Deadbeat Dads . . . and One Mom Online

JeanneSager — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:02:00 GMT

If you're planning a divorce, you might want to move to the South. First it was Tennessee yanking fishing and hunting licenses from deadbeat parents. Now Virginia is placing parents who evade their child support responsibilities atop its Most Wanted criminals list.

They don't play in Dixie.

Pictures of eight deadbeat dads and one deadbeat mother are now posted online at the Virginia Department of Social Services website, along with their dates of birth, number of children, height, weight, occupation and last known address. It's like the list in the back of the newspaper for people who don't pay their property taxes . . . with pictures to double the laughs.

The crappiest dad of the year award goes to Joseph Hollenbach, a quality assurance inspector from Pennsylvania who owes more than $177,000 to his baby mama. The, "Look They Photoshopped My Giant Head Onto a Puny Body and All I Got Was a Spot on the Most Wanted List" award goes to Jad Salah Amra, who we can add to the list of shyster car salesmen with his refusal to pay more than $97,000 to support his three kids.

Want to see the whole list? Be sure to check out Bobby Joe Cannon Jr.'s grinning high school yearbook photo. Hey Class of 1990, look at him now!

Image: Revengemark

Don't Pay Child Support? Bid the Gun Rack Bye Bye

Dad To Step-Daughter: Clean Your Room or I'll Lock Us All In Here

Five-Year-Old Catches STD From Dad's Towel?

They Say: Dads Cheat, but Not for Sex

7-Year-Old Feeds 13 Zoo Animals to Crocodile

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:29:00 GMT

In disturbing news involving small creatures, a seven-year-old boy from Australia broke into a zoo and went on a killing rampage. He scaled the zoo’s fence at around 8 in the morning, and spent the next half an hour smashing rocks on the heads of reptiles and then tossing them, live, into the crocodile’s enclosure (as shown in this photograph from a surveillance camera). The young boy then climbed over an outer fence around the croc’s cage to survey the gory scene of the 11-foot-long crocodile’s feast.

13 animals were killed in total, including a large turtle, rare lizards, bearded dragons, and the zoo’s most beloved animal, a 20-year-old, meter-long goanna.

Since Australian law prevents children under 10 from being charged with crimes, the boy faces no legal consequences—and it’s a good thing. What he needs is serious help. Security videos showed that he was “expressionless” throughout the killings. It is imperative that he receive psychological treatment and that his family receive visits from social workers. He may have a mental illness that requires medication, or he may be in a difficult family situation. Whatever the reason for his destructive tendencies, he must receive adequate care to prevent harming himself or others even further when he’s older.

So I hope that the reaction of the zoo’s director, Rex Neindorf, is not representative of how adults will treat the boy. According to Neindorf, the boy “will just get worse and worse and worse, by the time he’s 10 he will be a hardened criminal.” If that’s the message this seven-year-old gets from the all of the adults in his life, it may well become true.

Photo: Times Online

Teen Mom Tasered by Police Trying to Take Her Baby

Shannon LC Cate — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:00:00 GMT

The Canadian Press reports that "Vancouver police are defending their use of a Taser stun gun on a teenage mom, saying officers took the action to save the life of a critically ill one-month-old baby."

This is the sort of news that puts a damper on my pipe-dream that if McCain is elected, I'll move to Canada. The police claim that the young mother was a threat to her own newborn when she resisted them taking the baby from her. Supposedly, they feared she might smother the baby as they tried to force it from her arms, so they used the taser.

It is hard to imagine how a scenario like this could really have escalated to the point that such dangerous force was actually required.

First of all, I'd be much more concerned about harming the baby with the taser than I would about leaving the baby with its mother for a while until someone with better negotiation skills could arrive at the scene and help. Would it be so difficult to allow the mother and baby to come together with the officials supposedly trying to help?

Tasers, while vociferously defended by their producers and retailers, are far short of 100% non-lethal. There have been hundreds of cases of people dying after being tasered and the connection, while not clearly related to the taser is not clearly unrelated either.

The American Medical Academy, worried about overuse and uncertain about the safety of tasers has called for better study of the effects of being electrocuted in this way. But I don't think it takes a brain surgeon to figure that if grown men have died after being tasered, 16-year old lactating mothers and newborn infants should not be candidates for this type of force.

Strollerderby : social services

Save Aaliyah Puts Dad on Trial by YouTube Jury

Joba Loves His Messy Mom, Do You?

Jon Gosselin a Cheater, But a Good Dad?

Dad Fined $2,000 for Cursing in Front of Kid

Mom Uses Breastfeeding as Weapon in Custody Battle

Half of Kids Surveyed Think Rihanna Had it Coming

UPDATE: Chris Brown's Skipping the Kid's Choice Awards

Teens Talk Back to the Media on Dating Violence

Oprah Gets It Right On Chris Brown

Mom Buys High School Musical Star's Condoms: Would You?

Chicago Doula Works With Poor Pregnant Teens

Woman Makes Up 14 Kids For the Money

Most Wanted Puts Deadbeat Dads . . . and One Mom Online

7-Year-Old Feeds 13 Zoo Animals to Crocodile

Teen Mom Tasered by Police Trying to Take Her Baby