Protecting our Children, Part 2

[Lilka]

Thought I'd start a new thread because the other one was so big

Anyone else going to be watching?

Aah sorry italics fail

Agree with your post entirely Noir and Starlight I though you made a very pertinent comment about living in the East end of London and seeing many Shaun's who were very troubled young men, who just existed on benefits, dog companions and alcohol.....

I don't really understand why people are comparing and contrasting the 2 couples shown thus far. As far as I can see both the men and the women were the victims of an abused/neglected childhood and their problems may have manifested themselves in different ways, but will make them totally incapable of good enough parenting because they didn't know what it was - they had never experienced it.......in the main we pass on to our children the way in which we were parented. To wonder why the Shauns, Marvas, Tiffs and Mikes of this world were struggling to parent, is a bit like wondering why adults who were brought up in a secure, loving homes did not illtreat their own children IFYSWIM..............

I also agree with posters who say Marva did not want to keep her baby - she was completely passive when told the baby would be removed. There was something very child-like about Marva and she would be dominated by Shaun, by still wanted to be with him. Like other sws I have worked with dozens of the MsSsTsand Ms of this world and stayed in the same LA for 25 years, so saw the cycle of deprivation going around and around.

I am a bit loathe to mention the cycle of deprivation because I was challenged on the other thread,that there was a way to break it. I still don't think there is, but if anyone does, I'd be interested on your views.

tiktok i suspect you're right. she passively went along with schaun for years and then passively went along with the ss agenda. they jumped around happy she'd left him, assuming there could now be a happy ending, assuming now she would blossom and all would be rosey and that she wanted the baby - she went along with, said what was expected in the gaps etc (much as i said she would have done when being assessed by the mental health services for release from hospital). she frequently looked totally dissociated (the closing eyes and phasing out she did) and being in the present was clearly hard work for her. i don't think anyone actually really tried to help her work out what she wanted - people pushed and she leaned.

when they abandoned her she went back to schaun predictably. he's the only person who hasn't abandoned her realistically, regardless of how challenging he may be and what problems the two of them have together, he hasn't left her and is there for her and is possibly her only sense of security.

all very sad.

i think in some ways the ss were too enthusiastic about her having the baby just because she'd left schaun and perhaps should have stood back a bit and let her work out and make her own decision as to whether she wanted the baby, what she wanted in general etc. she went from his control to theirs iyswim. they assumed and expected a lot which in the end she couldn't live up to or didn't want to.

I do wonder though whether having been given a chance to keep that baby and having then acted in such a way that then facilitated his removal might at least have a positive impact in that Marva may be spurred into taking precautions against pregnancies in the future?

In the past she had had three babies taken away at birth - she had no idea what it was like to be a parent, and it could be argued wanted to prove herself as an adequate parent by falling pregnant again (although I somehow doubt that any of the pregnancies were planned).

And then she was given the chance to prove herself as a parent and she couldn't.

She's had both worlds now, and she's chosen the path of least resistance. So wouldn't now be the time to gently encourage her that she really shouldn't want to go through this again?

A few posts wondering why Shaun learned about his son 2 weeks after the birth.

This may have been the right decision.

Marva is likely to have been in hospital for several days - maybe more than a week. Baby was very small (5 lbs 1 oz). He was at risk of FAS, of developmental effects of his mother's OD'ing, and prob needed obs in SCBU. Shaun was more than capable of going up to the hospital (he'd know the hospital where she was booked) and creating merry hell - imagine being another mother on the maternity unit/in SCBU when he comes in (drunk? violent?) and imagine being Marva having to deal with him in these early postnatal days.

So they waited until Marva was properly installed with the foster mother, and a little bit less postnatal and a little bit more together, and then told Shaun - fair enough.

Even then he managed to miss his first supervised contact appt.

I don't know NanaNina it's a bit of a personal utopia of mine. I wish I'd worked harder at school, been more motivated etc.. in order to become someone in a position of power in order to address social problems such as these!!!!

I think there should be a hell of a lot more voluntary organisations dealing with deprived youths, especially young men. It seems to be a blind spot in many ways.

Your stereotypical young 'hoodie' teenager getting involved in petty crime gets a lot less sympathy than your stereotypical teenage mum.

I have had a brief spell of working with young boys not a million miles away from Saun in a developing country and some experience of deprived youths in SE London. There is no hope for the former. Not even for the little 10 year old who told me that he was going to work hard and become a doctor.

And you go there once a week, teach them to spell a few words, have a laugh with them, but overall the hopelessness of it all is unbearable. Because a couple of professionals can't even begin to chip away at it, it's an effort that would involve the wider society and community.

not sure i'm at all clear there. if i was working with marva as a client it would be very clear that i couldn't be directive at all and that she was hyper sensitive to influence and looked for her cues and scripts from others so that she could just do what they wanted and coast whilst dissociating from any real autonomy or presence in her own life.

ss says, now you'll want the baby won't you? now you can live here, do this, do that and she occasionally pops out of her floaty, eyes closed state to say yes, yes that's what i want, that's what i'll do.

she was following the script before her.

i did feel they were way too excited when she left him and jumped into all these plans. on the one hand very good that she got lots of support and they were positive about her but on the other hand a lot of pressure and no real breathing space for her to actually act with meaningful agency. suicide attempt to life changing decisions, to laying herself at ss's hands, foster home, having a baby etc - she was just a twig on the stream rather than any kind of driver itms.

the alcohol use was a habit of dissociation too. without help to deal with that dissociative trend and to start taking some control and feel centred in her own life she was bound to just run back away from reality - or retreat into dissociation with her favourite weapon of choice.

i wish she'd had some time focussed on her mental health and reviewing her life and where she'd been and where she wanted to go.

these are sad shows to watch aren't they?

Just clarifying I was talking about the young men I worked with abroad.
There is a smidgen more hope in the UK with a freely available educational system. But not a significant amount of hope, based on the school I experienced.

"i wish she'd had some time focussed on her mental health and reviewing her life and where she'd been and where she wanted to go."

She will almost certainly have had some therapy/counselling/support from other agencies....but the problem is babies can't wait, either to be born or for their parents to make sufficient changes to enable them to give proper care.

My guess is that when she left Shaun, the agencies worked super-quick to seize the only open window that existed, for Marva to change.

It wasn't open long enough - the baby came a bit too soon, and once here, he had to be kept safe.

So how do children who have been adopted in these circumstances feel once they get to adulthood.
Are they aware of their lucky escape? Do they carry resentment towards their biological parents inability to provide for them?

Because obviously it was the best possible outcome for the baby, but that doesn't mean he will be able to rationalise it in that way as he grows up?

Just curious.

i know and i'm not saying that the outcome would have been keeping the baby, she may very well have chosen not to for all we know. she was just so adrift and doing what she was told that there was no real way of knowing what she wanted or needed.

certainly makes you realise how many broken people there are out there who fall through the cracks and have such seemingly insurmountable issues.

think it varies from person to person justone. i have a friend who was very grateful for her adoption - she was taken from her mother near birth and in foster care several months before being placed with the parents she grew up with. she did at one stage track down her mother and was appalled by her and how utterly alien her and her values and chaotic life were to her. she knew firmly that the best thing had happened but she was always curious as to how those months before adoption were for her as there was very little info available as to where she was, what happened to her etc and it felt like a gap in her knowledge of her life.

I am sure they didn't tell Shaun about the baby so he didn't roam the maternity wards looking for them. She was placed in a safe house and then with a foster carer secretly. I feel sorry for Shaun, but ultimately, he was a violent, controlling alcoholic who required security for any SW (or other agency) to visit him and for his partner (who was also an alcoholic)to be placed in a refuge to keep her safe.

I see lots of Shauns walking up and down our road. They are violent, prone to fighting amongst themselves/others, usually have mutiple abuse issues, and father children they have no way of caring for. It's terribly sad that many Shauns come from the care system, unfortunately, the end result is though that society ends up having to protect themselves from them (having Shaun as a neighbour or SW client is no one's dream), having failed them in the first place.

I am not sure why Shaun appears to have gathered more sympathy than Mike, both were violent to their partners and were aggressive to others Shaun was better looking though, and so people seem not to describe him as 'scary' like Mike.

I WAS that teenage girl. In all but one way. (I was never beaten up by a parent's ^dealers, just by my mother and stepdad...).

I absolutely DETEST the inference by SW's that if you have been abused or seriously neglected yourself, that you will abuse or seriously neglect your OWN children. You may not have had a good model of how a childhood should be, but more often than not, WITH the right support and teaching you CAN become a good parent.

It may mean paying out for residential care for the mother and child/ren, which I know costs more money (that's the reson SS wanted ME to stay in an unsupported bedsit rather than the M&B unit - because it would have to be paid for from the 'leaving care funds' and it was twice as expensive), but gives the right teaching and support.

With that help, I learnt what it takes to run a house, cook nutritious meals from scratch, got a qualification in first aid, went to college and then on to a degree course, what a child's development milestones are, how to access NHS support for special needs children, how to do laundry, they taught me how to PLAY with children of different ages (not something I had ANY idea how to do before that), and many many more things.

Now, 13 years later, I am a Lone Parent to 4 dc, 2 of whom have SN, my 13yo DD is just about to choose her options, I have a 9yo who is preparing to take his 11+, an 8yo, who despite being ready to go to an SN school at 4yo, is now working at the average level for his age group in mainstream school, a 1yo baby who is meeting all his milestones. I help out with reading at the older DS's primary school once a fortnight when DS3 is with his dad (i.e. I pass a CRB check), I have a tidy house, I make and decorate cakes from scratch for my friend's dc's birthdays, I love playing board games with my dc even if DS1 does always thrash me at monopoly. People are happy for me to look after their dc. I volunteer at a support group for dc with special needs. I make sure my dc are clean, well fed, get to school every day, homework done, I make sure that my dc get enough exercise and are a healthy weight.

NOW, I doubt SW's would look twice at my dc. So I get really rather agitated when I hear people say that someone who has been abused or neglected is going to do the same to their own dc like it is inevitable. IT ISN'T.

I suppose I get more aggreived by that insinuation because it was what the SW was trying to use as the REASON for trying to remove my DD. When, in fact, when I managed to get myself a place in a M&B unit through the GP, (Thank god for my wonderful GP IMO), it totally turned my life, and that of my DD and my subsequent 3 dc, round.

WHY placements like that aren't standard for struggling familes is beyond me. MOST parents that have SS involvement, when offered the choice of short-term supported accommodation, or possibly losing their dc, WILL opt for the supported accommodation, and learn a lot from it if it is run properly, just as I did. And the long-term effects are that a lot more parents that aren't adequate WILL become adequate.

NOT all will, I agree. My mother wouldn't have been an adequate parent even with a lobotomy. But it gives everyone a chance to learn, WHILE at the same time protecting the child/ren.

Just MY opinion, obviously.

Intelligence should not be a determining factor. Insight takes a while to gain. Empathy CAN be learnt. Courage, however, I would agree, is needed in bucketfuls.

I don't think it is instantly evident tbh. I think it takes at least 6 months to a year to see if things can change. I know it took me longer than that to get all the way there. I left the mother and baby unit after 2 years, and I needed every day of those two years. But it was worth it, IMO.

I totally agree that more needs to be done to help parents after removal - or they will go on to have more dc without having changed. I HAVE seen that happen. One of the people I came into contact with in the past has had 7 children so far, over 11 years. All have been removed, one by one. She CAN'T change, and much as it hurts her, it IS best for her dc to be removed. But that is FAR from the norm, IME.

But I only realised that I NEEDED to change because I was TOLD by the GP, IYSWIM. And I only got the help I needed because I had a wonderful GP, who suggested it to me, then pushed it through when I agreed.

SS were NOT the insigators of the change, and IMO they should have been. But in a more supportive, less scary way. I was so scared of them, due to the way they were treating me, and holding the loss of my DD 'over' me, and beating me with it like a stick, (which, in the way it was done, was emotional abuse IMO), that they told me I was mentally unstable because I shook with fear whenever they told me that I WOULD lose my DD...Who the hell WOULDN'T? It wasn't a very condusive atmosphere for positive change IMO.

These are C&P from the other thread, about my own, personal experiences. I DON'T believe that the 'cycle of deprivation' can't be broken, with the CORRECT support in place. I believe that in MOST cases, it CAN be, it's just that the CORRECT support isn't available.

This comment came up on Twitter:

"Marva and Shaun are what the children who aren't taken away from their inadequate parents turn into. Cycle of tragedy."

I personally thought that Marva knew that her son would lead a better life, if he was adopted, and that her and Shaun could not care for him. No doubt she loved her son.

justonemorethread - my best friend was a forced adoption. I don't know the circumstances, but she harbours no resentment. She prefers to block the past, won't discuss it, and does not want to meet her natural parents. She's married with two children of her own.

HuntyCat - just seen your comment, so pleased you kept your child. You obviously wanted it really badly, and had the support required. I'm glad you had such a wonderful GP.

"Shaun was better
looking though, and so people seem not to describe him as 'scary' like Mike." I cannot see and so have no idea what either of them look like. I think Mike was not so much scary as completely devoid of emotion. He wasn't capable of interacting with a child and the child in question had already been damaged by his upbringing.

I also don't think Shaun was as much controlling as that Marva had never had anyone to cling to before and couldn't see her life without him - she couldn't be independent because she never had been, iyswim.

I think that if there was evidence that Shaun's influence had somehow harmed children, such as had happened with Mike, the reactions to him would have been different. But as it was we didn't actually know much about Shaun other than that he had convictions for criminal violence (we don't know what they were) and had issues with alcohol abuse (as did Marva). But we don't know what he was like as a parent, whereas we saw first-hand what Mike was like. All we know about Shaun is that he was denied the chance to be a parent, for all the reasons listed above, and that is IMO what generates the greater sense of sympathy. That's not to say that I think Shaun should have been given a chance, I think removing the baby was the right outcome, but you can't judge someone for something they haven't actually done yet, you can only have an opinion.

My comment that the SW Annie should have been punching the air after facilitating the removal of the child seems to have put a few peoples backs up because somehow to say that, doesn't demonstrate enough compassion, or 'sadness' for the overall situation or enough 'pity' for the adults involved.
I am sorry for their situation but I am ecstatic that one child was saved from a future like that - fucking ecstatic - there's no clearer way to express it.
That kid would have lived in hell with them.
I am not going to say "Aw jeez Shaun and Marva, I'm really sorry your kid got taken away" because I'm bloody well not.
And nobody should be.
People should stop going on about the awful backgrounds that they believe Shaun and Mava had, and justifying their behaviour because of those backgrounds and accept that the situation had to be dealt with - as it was presented. A baby in danger and it needed to be removed.
I feel sympathy for their plight as individuals but that does not extend to allowing them to fuck anybody else up.

I believe various addiction groups advocate a 'serenity' prayer which might apply here (this isn't an exact quote but from memory I think this is the gist):

God grant me the courage to change the things I can,
the serenity to accept the things I can't,
and the wisdom to know the difference

The situation for the baby could be changed. Shaun and Marva couldn't.

Though, in this case, I DO believe that it was right for the child to be removed. I still think there should have been more support for Marva though. AND Shaun. People with awful childhoods are still people too. TBH, I think that Sean would have been better placed than Marva to make the best useof the FC placement. Why is it instantly assumed that the MOTHER should have the placement? My father was a better parent to me than my mother ever was, despite his MH issues, until his death when I was 10yo. Just because Sean has been violent in the past, if that has not been directed towards CHILDREN, then why should that have precluded HIM from being offered the support that Marva had, when Marva lost that chance?

Why is it instantly deemed that if the MOTHER cannot cope with support, then the father can't?

BUT, tbh, I had FAR and away more sympathy for MIKE, in the first programme. HE was discriminated against on the basis of his LD's.

at the beginning the male SW said clearly that when Shaun and Marva had first been found they were offered extensive help and support, and that especialy Shaun refused to engage with any of it. So I think it's a bit unfair to suggest that they weren't given enough support just because we didn't see it in practice during the programme. You can't help someone who refuses to be helped.

HuntyCat, thank you so much for sharing your experiences. I don't think anyone's saying that abused children will go on be abusive parents, more perhaps that it's hugely important to help and support those children so that they can, like you, go on to be good and loving parents.

On another note I've only just watched last night's programme and despite some experience of working with young people like these it still made me cry. Such a sad, sad story.
The only thing I did wonder about was why, after the drinking / back to Shaun episode, Marva was simply told to move out. No offer of rehousing or support it seemed (though I'm aware this just might not have made it through the editing process) so to expect anything else of her, apart from returning to Shaun and his drinking, was not realistic. Without safe housing and ongoing support she was never going to stay stable and attend those supervised contacts.
Social workers were great this week I agree, really warm, calm, supportive and thoughtful. And good that it showed the emotional impact of this type of work, given that Annie would have had many other similar situations to be managing alongside that one.

Why is Sean getting more sympathy than Mike? Because people see him singing Twinkle Twinkle and forget the alcohol, the violence, the dog...and descend into sentimental tosh. It's ridiculous. And Marva isn't getting the sympathy that Tiffany did because she drank and smoked- if she was a deserving mother she should have stopped. She didn't, so she is undeserving. I bet there are people thinking "well, she should have stopped Sean drinking too". Even "It's probably her fault"

I'll politely agree to disagree with that. I had addiction issues in the past, with alcohol and illegal drugs. I am now teetotal and the only drugs I take are the anti-convulsants prescribed by my GP.

If I had been abandoned to my fates, I wouldn't BE the person I am now. I had serious MH problems, caused by various factors, not least the abuse I had suffered as a 4yo, that I blocked out until very recently - i.e. being raped at 4yo by my mother's boyfriend. I was placed with my father, after being in FC for a time. My father had MH issues of his own, caused by having been sexually abused by his uncle as a child, and ended up comitting suicide when I was 10yo. At which point, I was moved back in with my mother,whose next boyfriend proceeded to beat me while my mother emotionall abused me.

I was that broken person. And I was only put back together again with a LOT of intensive support, that was ongoing for 3 years in total. 3 years of daily, and then weekly,and then monthly visits. 14 years on, a decade since I last had SS involvement, and I look back at the child I was with sadness. Sadness that no-one looked after me the way I look after my dc. Sadness that rather than address the things that were being done to ME as a child, the finger of suspicion was instantly pointed AT me when I became a parent. Sadness that while I had the mental abilities to seek out the help I needed for myself, many many more who endured childhoods like me aren't able to do that, and lose out on the chance to become good parents to their dc in the way that I have.

And YES, there IS an assumption of the 'cycle of deprivation' in Social work. I have first-hand experience of it. Ask ANY SW what their impression of a parent with an upbringing like mine was is. They'll tell you that they doubt the parent will be adequate, and their dc will be on the CP register from birth - there is an automatic assumption of guilty until proven innocent.

Which is blatantly unfair. Someone with a good childhood - innocent until proven guilty. Someone with a bad childhood - guilty until proven innocent.