To think it’s crazy you can parent whatever way you want?!

[ItsGivingJudgey]

This OP will sound judgey has hell hence my username. I’ve NC but long time user.

I know it’s a free country (in the UK at least). I also really support human rights, however I still find it mad that you can have a child and raise them whatever way you want no matter how batshit so long as it doesn’t meet the very high legal requirements for removal.

Examples:

ONE:

My SIL does F all with her child and he’s now 2.5 years old. He literally does not leave the house other than for absolute essentials such as medical appointments. He doesn’t go to nursery despite it being free (she doesn’t work). He’s never been swimming, to feed the ducks, to the beach or the local park. He’s never met other children outside of his cousins. He’s only ever been to soft play twice when I have physically picked them up to take them with me and my dc.
He only ever leaves the house when my in-laws take him food shopping with them just to get him out. He can literally go 1-2 weeks without being outside his front door.
SIL on the other hand goes on holidays, days out with her boyfriend, cocktails with friends etc. She just has the in-laws babysit when she does. Her reasoning? ‘It’s a faff’ ‘the weather is bad’ or she ‘can’t be arsed today’. She was very lazy before becoming a parent but her laziness now has extended to her child who literally lives his entire life within the confines of the house. It’s nothing to do with mental health on her part, it’s pure laziness. She’ll only take him out if a member of the family with a car physically goes and picks them up and drops them back off home. The nursery is less than a 5 minute walk from her house. She was badgered by the health visitor to enroll him so she did it, took him for a week and then never bothered again as it was ‘too much faffing about for just a few hours’.

He lives off microwave meals and tinned food. Wakes up and spends the entire day in front of the tv or with his tablet. When my in-laws went away last year he didn’t leave the house for 3 weeks!!

It doesn’t meet the legal requirements or thresholds for social services. He is fed and clothed and has lots of toys. But it’s crazy that he is able to spend his entire life within the confines of a house and that’s that.

TWO:

My cousin. Very well educated, affluent and has always been a bit eccentric as is her DH. However over the years they have joined a kind of weird religion/cult like group and are massive conspiracy theorists. They homeschool their kids (fine), but have indoctrinated them with mad beliefs. The kids including the baby are vegan. Their unvaccinated. They can only bath in this specially filtered water. The kids are feral and not allowed to watch tv, listen to any type of mainstream music only this specifically selected whale like music. They avoid any type of radiation and limit sources of power so in the evenings the house is lit by candlelight and an open fire. The kids wear this robe like clothing that seems impractical. The kids no nothing outside of their parents beliefs. They have no awareness of the outside world. They only socialise with the other people in this conspiracy group that also homeschool.

My cousin and her husband are well meaning and obviously it’s their right to believe what they wish. But their kids won’t know how to use the internet, any real world references, learn about other religions or cultures. Surely this will do long term harm in some way?

The children couldn’t tell you what spaghetti bolognaise is or what a smartphone/tablet is or that there was ever a world war or even how what a kettle
is for. But they can tell you about crystal healing powers. What if when they get to 18 they want to live a ‘mainstream’ life and join society? How will they manage? Get a job? Make friends with peers?

It’s not that I believe there’s only one right way to parent or anything because I don’t. However I find it mad that you can have a baby and so long as you meet very basic standards, you can literally do as you want with actual human beings.

Please tell me if I’m being unreasonable to think it’s not right and if I am being unreasonable why so? I feel so sorry for these children.

No one is saying that amounts to neglect, I somehow doubt your mother let you sit in your PJs all day and kept you indoors while she was gaming. The nursery argument is only relevant because the mother isn't interacting with the child at all and therefore neglecting the child. I don't think anyone is suggesting children at home with loving families at 2 are being neglected.

TBF Winter is talking about what's currently not taught in schools, not just what (they think; rightly or wrongly, I don't know) isn't taught at home.

I may be wrong, but my feeling is that people who home-ed are more likely to teach the sort of thing and hold the sort of principles Winter is talking about; I'd imagine that as a group they are generally speaking more highly educated and more interested in things Winter advocates teaching on.

Your position on freedom is debatable. I take the point about institutions, but freedom is not simply about freedom from mainstream setups. You could argue that experiencing time away from the family home and learn/socialise with peers in a school setup is freedom too.

What are British values then. Ones where toddlers and babies are beaten, battered, left neglected to live in shit by useless adults?

@Dotjones is extreme but what's the answer? SS resources are stretched, finances are tight and people don't want to pay extra.

I have been thinking about this more and more, I took my toddler to the park this morning, he went on the swings and the slide, went to see the ducks, have a snack on the park bench and then we got some food shopping. I am NOT a perfect parent. But it makes me really sad that some kids will just never do these kind of basic experiences, be talked to and engaged with, see and talk about the different things outside (eg I talked about the different coloured leaves, pointed out aeroplanes in the sky etc). It IS pretty bad parenting if your child doesn’t have this surely.

Just to clarify, do you think a mass programme of compelled abortion and sterilisation would be something we could do on the cheap?

Read the comment. I said I didn't know the answer.

Then what was the relevance of your remarks about finances?

@TrashedSofa Given the circumstances I mentioned what IS the answer?

Instead of having a go at me what are your suggestions?

Asking you why you wrote something isn't having a go. You can ask me questions when you've answered mine. What's the relevance of the comment about people not wanting to pay extra when discussing forced sterilisation and abortion?

So, I was abused by my parents but from a naice family where things like that didn't happen and therefore when I tried to report it, I wasn't believed (1990s/early 2000s). I myself am infertile and ineligible to adopt a child because I have comorbid mental health conditions, most likely resulting from my own abuse in childhood.

I absolutely one hundred per cent get, emotionally, where OP is coming from. I've spent years trying to come to terms with the fact that my parents could keep having kids, treat them literally however they liked, and there'd be no consequences for them. None. The consequences fall on the children - as an adult, I've spent thousands on therapy so that I wouldn't pass on the cycle if I became a parent myself. I've spent thousands on therapy so that I could function in society and be completely independent of the people who treated me like that.

Only to get there and find that society deems me the one who shouldn't have a child. Me the one that's unsuited to parenthood, because I have some issues resulting from my own abuse.

And I'm not saying that it's wrong that I can't adopt. I'm genuinely not. I might well be a dreadful parent and a kid that's been through trauma already deserves better.

What I'm saying is that there's literally nothing stopping people like my parents from continuing to have kids and mistreat them, even though they too are seriously mentally ill and addicted to alcohol.

There's no answer to it because the state cannot be allowed to control fertility and family planning, but by God it is enraging to see people who wouldn't be trusted with a plant continue to produce human beings and ruin them, over and over and over again.

Great, your kids will be fine then and society will benefit from their expanded world view. There are others - like those mentioned in the Op - who are not as lucky, and for whose parents home Ed is an opportunity to indoctrinate. Others whose parents ‘home Ed’ because they can’t / won’t get them to school (ie neglect).

and ofc plenty of state educated children who are also indoctrinated at home - removed from PSHE etc, or exposed to racist or homophobic or misogynistic views.

Everyone would benefit.

I concede my post wasn't well written but a) I did say that the original suggestion was extreme b) that I didn't know the answer and what I didn't say as it should be obvious, that since there appear to be a good few feckless adults out there who think it's their right to reproduce, something should change.

So your answer then @TrashedSofa ?

I'm still not sure exactly what your first post meant then? You said you don't think people will want to pay more, what does that have to do with the post about mass sterilisation that you mentioned? I'm not aware of a lower budget option personally, but maybe I will be after you've explained.

Did you actually read the thread? OP isn’t just concerned because the child isn’t going to nursery, but because he doesn’t go out for WEEKS on end or see many other people. And it’s not like the mum is providing a rich learning environment at home either ‘role playing’ or ‘discovering foods’. Come on.

Isn't there basic curriculum or testing for homeschooled children in the UK?
As for situation 1 when is this child expected to start schooling? That will solve some of the issue.

Take the kids away and terminate them?
Fuck me. That's extreme

Both parents don't have to be on UC to get it. Just one parent

If you are concerned, make a referral to the local authority. Certainly a child never being taken out of the house would concern me enough to raise. There are a number of steps LAs can take that are short of removal; early help, child in need plans and support (inc parenting classes)

More generally. Hedley J in Re L (a family law case which is often quoted) said;

“…society must be willing to tolerate very diverse standards of parenting, including the eccentric, the barely adequate and the inconsistent. It follows too that children will inevitably have both very different experiences of parenting and very unequal consequences flowing from it. It means that some children will experience disadvantage and harm, while others will flourish in atmospheres of loving security and emotional stability. These are the consequences of our fallible humanity and it is not the provenance of the state to spare children all the consequences of defective parenting. In any event, it simply could not be done.”

I really feel for this little child - I want to come and take him out myself, but I can't. I guess the one ray of hope is that he will have to go to school - it'll be too much of a faff for her to home school him.

The last sentence is the most important one there.

Your SIL scenario has actually upset me quite a bit, my twins are the exact same age and I genuinely feel like a bad parent if mine don’t leave the house for 1 day!!! And they have each other to play with all day. I know you’ve tried intervention but please try again if you can, has it been outlined to her this is actually very cruel and will most likely cause life long damage to him and his development? This is very neglectful and so unfair on him. What does your DH say assuming it’s his sister?

@ItsGivingJudgey just out of curiosity, your SIL's child, is he behind with milestones? How is he with speech, understanding, following instructions, his gross motor skills etc? Has his development been hampered because of this lifestyle? Poor kid.

Same, breaks your heart to think how bored and lonely he is!

Well you've just described some horrifying dystopia....fuck me.

I’ve scanned through the thread and apologise if I’ve missed it but has no one mentioned Early Help? OP, you can Google and find out the Early Help contact number for your region and speak to someone about your concerns. You don’t have to give your name.

Early Help can then be instigated and the family offered assistance although your family member (sorry was it cousin? Re Scenario 1) .. will need to agree to see an Early Help Worker who may or may not take this as far as an assessment but you cousin can choose not to comply at any time and withdraw consent. However, the fact that she may be offered assistance, in various forms, ranging from help with basic parenting through to the EHW spending time with the child and making referrals to other agencies for further input, may appeal to your cousin? Maybe not but perhaps the “free stuff” might appeal?

Also, although EH requires parental consent to proceed, if the worker is able to at least start to work with/assess the family, they may observe enough to escalate it to some form of intervention that does require consent. Not necessarily heavy handed intervention but mandatory input nonetheless, that has to be complied with and may instigate positive changes for the child.

Mostly EH exists to support parents and children but it is a form of low level social services and the EH workers do work alongside social workers.