if this mother wasn't coping then wtf didn't she ask for help rather than paying someone 20 f****ing quid to look after her child?

[wannaBe]

so very very for this little boy. here

you seem confused, Crack is cocaine, cocaine is not crack. Different.
No not based on tabloids, but textbooks. I'm not going to give y'all a lesson though.

It isn't about stereotyping. Its about reality.

and what - apart from cost and length of time to peak/effects (actually the powder having the longer lasting effects) are these differences......apart from cocaine powder being used generally by the middles classes and crack being used by the stereotypes?

Um.

you buy some cocaine
you mix it with baking soda
you warm it up
and
BINGO!

The effects are not different to cocaine, they are the same, but more intense.

Yet you claim that crack and cocaine are "very different".

Still at that statement.

... No you need to consider accessibility to the drug - crack cocaine was cheaper and so much more accessible to women.

www.welfareacademy.org/pubs/childwelfare/letsgive-0989.shtml read this]]

"These mothers don't care about their babies and they don't care about themselves," says Dr. Jing Ja Yoon, chief of neonatology at Bronx Lebanon Hospital. "Crack is destroying people - I've never seen mothers like this before."

This article takes the view that children should not be left with drug-addicted parents who cannot or will not care for them.

www.welfareacademy.org/pubs/childwelfare/letsgive-0989.shtml

oops.

I'm sorry I haven't read through the whole thread, and I'm not in the know about the drugs aspect of it, but I came onto mumsnet just now to see if anyone had started a thread about this case in the news. I saw it first last night on, I think, the ITV news, and I just can't seem to get over it. Don't mean to be self-indulgent but I keep finding myself crying over the things I heard and just feeling desperately sorry for the poor mother of this poor, poor boy. I don't know the ins and outs of her situation, but I'm sure it was complicated, and no mother deserves the pain she must be in now.

I just felt I had to write something on here, perhaps as it's a bit cathartic, and my husband doesn't really seem to understand how upsetting I've found this. When I think of cases like this I wish there was a way of knowing about all the children in these desperate situations and gathering them up and looking after them. I'm sorry I'm a bit hormonal and irrational today, but it's really shaken me up.

If you can't see the differences between crack and cocaine, I despair. Different demographic, different reactions, different addiction potentials, different correlations with criminality and sentencing, different correlations with other substance abuse, with mental health issues, with physical health issues, different outcomes.

Thats completely ignoring the fact that you'd be pretty unlikely to get crack uncut with all kinds of toxic or unknown shite.

I'd love to live in your happy-land where drug addicts make great parents and nobody ever conforms to stereotypes.

Well saidrunnybotton IMSONOTTELLING lost me with this:
"Why is there is perception that crack will automatically make you a violent abusive arsehole, in a way that other drugs will not?"

Uhmmmm - because of those who abuse people while addicted to CRACK, such as being responsible for the murder of a 3 year old baby, named Ryan - that is not perception it is a very sad reality.

According to the Guardian, the two women are cousins www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/26/child-murder-west-midlands

thats been said several times above.

Apologies, I didn't think anyone had said cousins.

What a neglectful mother and father, what an awful situation.

Crackaddicts should be removed from Children.

The mother did not assess the risk to her baby.

Where was the father?

Where was social services?

So close to Christmas - that poor little boy.

What a shame as he deserved to be with a loving family.

ooosabeuta don't worry about it - that is the beauty of MN sometimes when somethign affects you so strongly it can be a huge help to talk on MN. I know I have done it in the past.

Otherwise:

"This article takes the view that children should not be left with drug-addicted parents who cannot or will not care for them."

No-one is disputing that.

"If you can't see the differences between crack and cocaine, I despair. Different demographic, different reactions, different addiction potentials, different correlations with criminality and sentencing, different correlations with other substance abuse, with mental health issues, with physical health issues, different outcomes."

Those things are societal or incidental. The drug is a symptom of other wider problems in their lives, not the cause. This drug is thus being focussed on as it is the drug of choice of the poor. While cocaine in its more traditional form, as used by people with more money is what, fine? Illogical.

FWIW all of the people I know who have abused their children have been acoholics.

I just think it is stupid to demonise one substance when what we should be doing is condemning, seeking out and putting a stop to people who are abusing children, irrespective of what particular substance they are addicted to, if indeed they are addicted to anything.

Demonise them all if that makes you feel better - but come on - would you let your child be with a crack addict - even if someone else they were with were not using?

Would you let your child be looked after by an alcoholic - even if another child carer was not using alcohol??

Your debating style is bizarre. Who is demonising one partcular substance? This thread is talking about a person who was a crack addict, so oddly enough the focus is on crack. If he had been an alcoholic, the focus would be on alcohol. If you want to widen it out to a larger debate you can, but you's missed several steps before berating people for not joining you.

Its not irrespective, its not irrelevant. Being a drug addict, or alcoholic, impacts on your ability to adequately care for children.
This is not news. It is pertinent. It is important. There is obviously a LOT more to it, but you can't dismiss it.

I'm bowing out here, because its actually upsetting me that people think it reasonable to argue FOR drug addict child abusers and AGAINST those who criticise them.

I'm going to head off now as DH has just got in from work.

In all of this - of course i don;t thin that people who are nasty or violent or abusive or spend their days out of it should be looking after children.

But in this case I do not feel that the mother should be prosecuted - I believe that she genuinely did not realise that her child was being abused.

I also don't like anythign which is "people who are like this do this, and people who are like that do that". There are always people who are not "true to type" and thus stereotypes only serve to bolster our own ideas of what is the right thing. For every person who says "crack addicts are all like this" and probably many of them are, will be someone who says the same of some other way of life, and another, until it is something that you do. It is best not to go down that path IMO but to treat each case on its merits. And in this case, these particular people, were indeed total bastards.

eatsushi please see upthread about alcohol.

If you want to remove children from homes where one of the parents drinks excessively then you will be removing half the children in teh UK.

For eg if you were leaving children with aunt and uncle, sober as judges, and nana who likes a few sherries of an evening, while she reads her mills and boon, are we talking major potential neglectful abusive situation? i think not.

Again you are falling into trap of thinking of alcoholic as staggering sweary aggressive person.

Stacks of alcoholics sit quietly and drink then go to bed, without causing a fuss for anyone. Stacks only drink in the evening after kids in bed. And so on. Not all derelict types starting the day with a gallon of diamond white.

Again it depends on what sort of a person they are, not what substance they are ingesting.

I will ask you again ISNT

Would YOU let your child be with a crack addict - even if someone else they were with were not using?

Would YOU let your child be looked after by an alcoholic - even if another child carer was not using alcohol??

Especially given that in your opinion all the people you know who have abused their children have been alcoholics?

Also I never stereotyped alcoholics as staggering, sweary or agressive but then I never stereotyped half of the uk as being alcohol dependent either.

Where is the harm in leaving children in the situation i described with teh aunt and uncle?

Would you really condemn someone who did that?

It is not a stereotype that half the UK is alcohol dependent. Millions of people are alcohol dependent and many thousands of them are parents. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are bad parents, nor that the household is dangerous or abusive.

I am pretty pissed off that people keep referring back to my family and impying that we are abusive and neglectful TBH.

Yes I regularly leave my DDs with an alcoholic. Not someone who thinks of themslevs as an alcoholic, but still. I will ring my parents immediately and tell them that I do not wish them to look after my DDs any more while I work, on the basis that my dad likes a few glasses of wine in the evening, even though my DDs are not there in the evening. And that my mum and siblings do not drink. Not that that's relevant as everyone is sober when the kids are there.

We do go round for dinner sometimes, and my dad will have a few drinks, and maybe get a bit chattier than usual. While me, DH, mum and siblings are stone cold sober.

This is obviously DANGEROUS and we won't be doing it again. ANYTHING could happen.

Bloody ridiculous.

I do not get the logic of it depends upon the person not the substance.. ofcourse the substance matters!!! Hence my very direct questions about the substance.

However, if you feel the questions posed are of a too personal nature then ofcourse you do not need to answer them.

I would not put my child in the care of an alcoholic or drug user.

I have answered it see above.

I feel that there is absolutely no risk whatsover to my daughters in that situation. They enjoy time with their grand-dad pottering around the garden, looking at the compost heap, helping him in the garage.

I would be genuinely surprised that anyone would think this was a risk. But this thread shows me that people do. Amazing.