Ok.. This may sound a little hypocritical coming from Me..A Social Worker who enjoys reunifying families. The hard ones that require a lot of work..like getting them to understand that children ARE people and have feelings that you have to consider 1st before yours.. But I have to say some parents..Just Don't Need Children.
I know..I know..I shouldn't think this way, but today was one of those days that re-enforced my belief. Well today I was working with a family that I know they love their child, and the child love them. But they just don't get it.
Parenting requires the ability to adapt. As adaptability will prevent the breakdown at Wal-Mart when your little one gets a case of volcanic diarrhea, while in the customer service line, and messes up that last diaper..and guess what? You didn't bring anymore. What to do when you have toxic green colored baby poo running down your arm?
Parenting requires that you can multitask. Because there are times in your parenting life when you are required to feed one child, while making sandwiches for the other, helping with homework, while talking on the phone with your significant about something that (important to them) but not so important to you.
Parenting requires you to be a spy, private investigator, cop, jury, and judge all within the same conversation. How else can you bust, gather data, bring them home, allow for an explanation, and pass judgment when the child misbehaved.
And those are just a few of the qualities you have to have. The problem is my poor parents don't have it. They just don't have the level of functioning that will allow them to be a THAT parent. They are doing their best, but I'm not sure if it 's gonna be enough.
I am trying to provide them with assistance and requesting help from other community resources so that they can learn some of these basic skills, but they require time and practice. However, the system of foster care don't allow enough time for theses skills to be mastered. So should I give up and allow the child to remain in care? Or continue to tread along with them hoping they will get it? They really should not had a child. They were married and I know they love each dearly, but offspring was a mistake. Sometime I feel as a nation we should limit certain couples from reproducing, least until they master the required basic skills. Is that wrong? Should A Social Worker feel this way regarding problem parents? I know proper parenting is really based on who perceives the parenting and I considered this as well when working with all my families, but sometimes it just seem too much of a wish than reality.
So tell me do you think that some people just should not have children? And If they do should we as a society remove these children and place them with more "normal" families?
3 comments:
I would not want to be in your shoes. I was a case manager for 2 years. I quit because it was so difficult for me to go to my "normal" home every evening knowing that the children in my caseload were in a household that was anything but normal.
I've had friends whose children had been taken away because of drugs or abuse. I've seen some turn their lives around and are now much better parents than they were.. and I've seen others go in and out of jail.. on and off of drugs and their kids are in and out of the system.
There are some parents that could have made better use of the birth control options that are available to spare a child the drama and heartache of being tossed between foster care and family members. Sadly some parents are too into themselves and their "missed opportunities" to properly care for their children. Parenting requires selflessness. The worse affect of bad parenting is that some of these children will become bad parents themselves, due to the example that was set for them and repeat the cycle.
I can sympathize with your frustrations. I do believe that certain people should not have children. The problem is that it is often difficult (but not always) to tell who those people are until they already brought children into the world.
The reality is that anyone can have kids and it will be up to people like you to deal with the most dysfunctional. I can't pretend to know the answer, but I am glad that there is someone at least making the attempt to get these misguided parents to improve their parenting skills and help the children who are being harmed the most in these situations.
I definitely think some people shouldn't have children! One of my best friends is now adopting (parents just surrendered yesterday) a child that the parents never should have had.
However, I don't think that you can limit people from having children, sadly. Who gets to decide what makes a person worthy of procreation? I do think that we as a country should be spending less money on certain things and more money on children. This includes education, healthy, and assistance to families, including parenting classes.
But, in the end, I'm a firm believer that if it's a really, truly damaging environment for a child, they should be removed. Sadly, in so many cases, foster care is not much better.
It's a difficult problem with no real answer...
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