Fair Start Movement

Category: Child Development & Welfare

  • Having Kids Seeks Court Order to Prevent Neglectful Couple from Having Additional Children

    Having Kids Seeks Court Order to Prevent Neglectful Couple from Having Additional Children

    Sharon Helene Robinson and Bradley Dwight Hill of Tennessee have been accused of criminal child neglect after their severely autistic child was found naked, and covered in both human and dog feces, which he was eating. Excrement was also found in the child’s bed. The police reported: “Ms. Robinson stated that she is a meth user and this also contributed to her not caring for her autistic son.”

    Having Kids is petitioning state authorities to seek a Fair Start court order, in the event the couple are convicted, temporarily prohibiting them from having additional children during the pendency of any probation in order to facilitate the couple’s rehabilitation and recovery, and also to prevent the neglect of any future children. Having Kids will eventually also call for specific legislation to authorize Fair Start orders in Tennessee. Having Kids is targeting Tennessee because the state is currently considering legislation HB 2520 / SB2133, regarding coercive family planning and sentencing. The model Fair Start order is noncoercive and seeks to strike a balance between the rights of parents and the needs of future children and the community. The charges against Robinson and Hill show a clear need for that balance, and Fair Start orders can make clear the state’s compelling interest in the welfare of future children, counteracting any dangerous and inadvertent signal HB 2520 / SB2133 might send.

    Learn more about Fair Start orders and why they can help us change a dysfunctional family planning model based solely on what parents want, to a better family planning model based on what all children need.

    National statistics, despite underreporting, estimate that 1,670 to 1740 children die from parental or caregiver abuse and neglect in the U.S. annually. And many of the perpetrators continue to have and abuse additional children. The recent opioid crisis in the U.S. has only accelerated the problem. State child protection systems around the country are in crisis, with multiple state systems failing and clear linkages to increased child abuse. Foster care cases involving drug-using parents have hit the highest point in more than three decades of record-keeping, accounting for 92,000 children entering the system in 2016, according to data by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

    “If even one fewer child is abused, that represents a better world,” said Anne Green, Executive Director of Having Kids. “We can do so much more to protect the most vulnerable.”

    UPDATE: Having Kids has already received a response from Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam. After review of our letter, he forwarded it to Commissioner Hommrich and the Department of Children’s Services. Therefore, Having Kids is now urging supporters to contact Commissioner Hommrich Department of Children’s Services only to respectfully request that action be taken to ensure better family planning that protects parents, children, and the community.

  • Having Kids Protects Kids from Abusive Parents

    Having Kids Protects Kids from Abusive Parents

    Having Kids is working to replace parent-centered family planning with the child-centered Fair Start model.

    Why?

    Some of the worst consequences of parent-centered family planning are the many abused and neglected children it creates and subsequently ignores. Because the parent-centered approach prioritizes the parents’ desire to have any number of children, in any conditions – irrespective of what children need – this approach leads to some horrific results for kids.

    For example, parents who have abused and/or neglected their kids – and as such are prohibited by law from having custody of any children – will often continue to have more kids. These kids are then taken in by the state – oftentimes right from the maternity ward. They are left in limbo – raised by failing state systems rather than loving and caring parents.

    These kids do not get anywhere near a fair start in life. They lead lives none of us would choose for our own kids. The abusive and neglectful parents often suffer as well, separated from their children. The rest of us suffer, too, in failing communities funding a failing system of public childcare.

    In the face of this horrible situation, some judges have stepped forward and said, “Enough is enough.” In certain cases, they have issued orders prohibiting abusive and neglectful parents from having more kids. These judges take the position that:

    • Society cannot care about children – the most vulnerable citizens – and not also care about the conditions into which they are born.
    • There is no ethical or legal conception of parenthood that would allow abusive and neglectful parents to create children for the state to raise (and raise poorly).

    These judges’ orders clearly protect future children. Their orders also protect individuals who can’t parent, and society as a whole.

    Having Kids is working to improve and expand the use of such orders – what we’re calling “Fair Start orders.” We are working to make sure they are constitutional, and are used under specific guidelines and in egregious cases.

    To improve our efforts and accurately reflect our memberships’ views, we sought your opinion, using a survey that was based on a real-world case.

    As you can see, Having Kids’ membership strongly supports our efforts to protect children from being born to abusive parents.

    This is the survey and results:

    A Florida couple with four children stands accused of abusing at least one of the children by shocking him/her with a stun gun and forcing him/her to eat dog feces. The other children were present during this abuse. Some courts are conditionally limiting the right of abusive parents to have more children in order to protect the children those parents already have, as well as future children.
    .
    If the charges prove true:
    .
    1. Should the couple be allowed to retain custody of their four current children?
    .
    Yes:     18 (6.98%)
    No:      240 (93.02%)
    .
    2. Regardless of whether they are allowed to retain custody of their current children, should the couple be conditionally limited by court order from having more children, under penalty of fines/jail time?
    .
    Yes:      193 (75.39%)
    No:       40 (15.63%)
    Other:  23 (8.98%)
    .
    3. Regardless of whether they are allowed to retain custody, should the couple be conditionally limited by court order from having more children, but there would be no penalty assessed for violating the court’s order?
    .
    Yes:      43 (16.86%)
    No:       170 (66.67%)
    Other:  42 (16.47%)

    Your opinion really matters to us – thank you for taking the time to respond to our survey. We will take the results into consideration as we develop and promote model Fair Start orders.

    If you would like more details on the responses, please contact us. And please follow us on Facebook and Twitter to help us with future surveys!

  • A Simple Fact Most Education Policymakers Overlook: Child Development Has More to Do with Family Planning than the Classroom

    A Simple Fact Most Education Policymakers Overlook: Child Development Has More to Do with Family Planning than the Classroom

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    The confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary is only the beginning of what promises to be a loud chapter in the long-running debate about U.S. education policy. Much of that debate will revolve around how to improve our poor-ranking education system. It will relate to heated discussions happening across the political spectrum, from California to Texas, about both how to educate our children and how save the least fortunate of those children from abuse and neglect.

    Watch these debates closely and you will notice a strange nearsightedness. The focus will be on how to improve schooling and child welfare systems, with almost no thought given to changing how we choose to support families and the systems they move through. Imagine a future with smaller families who are able to devote more resources to each child to make sure they have access to the educational support they need. Imagine a future where the community intentionally creates programs that make sure the children they do have are able to access to tutoring, books, extracurricular support, and a college fund that families and individuals around the community can contribute to.

    This is the future we want, and this is the future we see. The Having Kids model helps us focus on what matters most in these debates—the decision to have a child, and the decision as a community to support that child at all stages of her life. In the debates to come, policymakers should keep in mind that there are many factors at play in the process of childhood development. Want to change the system and what happens in the classroom? You have to start by looking back, well before the classroom, and planning ahead.

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  • Child Care Starts with Family Planning

    Child Care Starts with Family Planning

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    The Seattle Times recently joined many progressives calling for bipartisan support for increased child care subsidies. But the proposed policy of subsidies—which would ensure that no more than 10 percent of a family’s income is spent on child care—raises questions.

    First, shouldn’t any policy that provides resources be linked to and synergize with whatever is creating the demand for those resources? In this case, child care subsidies should be linked to family planning policies that ensure maximum and equitable investment in each child.

    Second, while the article cites increased national GDP as the ultimate reason for child-care subsidies, isn’t every child’s right to quality care the real reason we need such a policy? The article’s authors have said that “[a]s moms, we’re not willing to leave $210 billion on the table. Our children’s futures literally depend on it.” Perhaps children’s futures won’t depend on GDP, but rather on our collective decision-making about how they enter the world and develop within it to become the people who will define our shared future.

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  • Early Childhood Matters, So Let’s Get Family Planning Right!

    Early Childhood Matters, So Let’s Get Family Planning Right!

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    We all know intuitively that early childhood experiences shape the rest of our lives. Today, scientists can offer research to back up what we already assumed.

    A recent article in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found:

    that adults with insecure attachments to their parents or caregivers as children tend to perform poorly in tasks and work when under stress or when negative emotions are present. . . .Children whose caregivers don’t respond to their needs or signs of emotional distress learn ‘defensive strategies,’ such as suppressing feelings or using poor coping skills, whose high emotional cost they may pay later in life.

    What does the fact that our early lives matter so much for our adult lives have to do with family planning? Right now, we live in an isolated model of parenting; Families are seen as an isolated unit that chooses to have whatever number of children they want, and then raises those children without outside influences. But without family planning help from the community, families can actually have more children than their time, money, and effort can support. This creates an unhealthy environment for the parents, children, and eventually the community.  

    Because early childhood matters so much for our lives—and the lives of the people with whom we interact—family models should maximize investment in early childhood development that a family and a community can realistically support. Additionally, families should be provided with the family planning resources they need to give their children the best start in life. Then they can work together to give each child the best future possible.

    Let’s change the way we think about family planning. The best models promote smaller families working together to plan a better future for every child.

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  • How Can We Fix America’s Failing School System?

    How Can We Fix America’s Failing School System?

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    NPR’s recent in-depth coverage of America’s failing school systems lays out the problem: because school funding is largely based on property taxes, poor communities have poor schools and wealthy communities have good schools. The proposed solution? Reorder funding to eliminate that distinction and to equalize funding between schools.

    What’s missing from that solution? We think there are a few more questions to ask. Do poor communities always have to have poor children? What other factors (like an increased risk for having special needs) affect the children of poor families? Why not reorder the funding further back in the process, and have smaller families work together to plan for and invest more in each child? Could Family A plan to have their first child after they have put one thousand dollars into their education fund, in exchange for Families B and C adding ten thousand dollars to that fund, ideally from money those families would have been spent on having more kids and larger families?

    Let’s start at the source. Having Kids is all about finding new solutions to old problems.

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  • Parental Regret: It’s Real.

    Parental Regret: It’s Real.

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    When given the chance to anonymously admit to their regret for having kids, many parents shared their stories. Their reasons are varied, and they love their children, but they know they didn’t make the best decision for themselves.

    These parents are in a lose-lose situation: the parents themselves struggle in isolation to provide the basics and to feel fulfilled, and the children struggle to get what they deserve. So what’s the alternative?

    Imagine a system where adults are encouraged (through tangible benefits like tax incentives and through a shift in society’s thinking about children) not to have children until they are truly ready. And when they are ready, they can work together with other parents (through things like small family trusts) to invest more in each child. And if they choose not to have children but instead decide to help other people’s kids, their philanthropy is welcomed.

    These parents’ admissions of regret suggest that we need to look for alternatives to our current system. The Having Kids model can help.

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