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Comment by logicalmind | Hacker News Reader

As a parent, one of the things I fear most is DCFS. I live on a large area of land with many natural resources and my children are free to do many things. I inform them of dangers and protect them from realistic dangers. But not every other parent thinks that way or agrees with it. It only takes one fearful parent to place a call into DCFS about their opinion on your parenting style. Once DCFS is involved you are at their mercy with little or no oversight.

So beware implementing some of the ideas presented here as things you shouldn't fear. Because not everyone will agree with you, and those other people can make your life very difficult.

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My cousin's daughter said some sexually explicit things in school, and the DCFS was called. They combed the entire house and computer, looking for pornography, sex toys, etc. My cousin came up clean, but how many people would? I certainly wouldn't.

Even nows my cousin is extremely paranoid about her daughter. At 14, this girl wasn't even allowed to read Twilight; a tragedy, because the girl otherwise refuses to read.

So having a sex toy hidden well in your bedroom that your daughter has never seen before and a daughter that says something vaguely sexual in school could lead to you losing your daughter? Wow.

It depends where that happened. In a few US states (Alabama?) I believe, it is still illegal to sell sex toys! A local raid by CPS (Child Protective Services) that finds sex toys and porn can turn nasty if the local judge, police and other officials feel they can go on a morality campaign, and perhaps choose to find or invent a reason to take the kids away.

They might lose in court but a lot of the damage is already done by then.

I personally feel that a lot parents have been over-protective and irrational lately not because they have started loving or caring for their children more, but because they are afraid of looking like a "bad parent" while this whole media "child threat" frenzy is going on. I am not a parent so this is totally speculative, I have read not studies or haven't done any research on this.

Likewise, times ten. As a parent of three small children, there are certain things I won't say or do around people I don't know very well for exactly this reason.

You also nailed the real issue on the head - it's not that we don't need some sort of child protection services; it's that "you are at their mercy with little to no oversight".

if someone like the DCFS wanted to take my kids, i'd get the urge to poke them off my property with a loaded gun. i mean, US citizens have the right to bear arms, for the exact purpose of defending themselves against the government, or what was that?

Unfortunately that would probably just make things worse. :-/

Believe me, I hear what you're saying. But DCFS has no oversight. If you have guns in your house with kids they will take a very keen interest in you. There are DCFS rules for what you can/will/should do with guns in your home that may exceed what you would do. If the DCFS agent finds your gun not locked by an XYZ lock your kids will be taken from you. I am not joking either.

Every attempt you make to establish your rights will lead you further down the path of their goal. Take heed from the stories above and you will see how it works.

They might just come back with more guns, then what?

That sounds like the bogus kind of worry that the article is talking about. Do you know how often that kind of thing actually happens? My Google-fu is failing me but my guess is it's gotta be in the 1 in a million range.

It happens many times a day. Google news shows about a dozen times in the past 24 hours:

http://www.google.com/search?q=children+removed+from+home#q=...

And these are just the cases that make the news

But, but, but, Bruce said we needn't worry about things that are uncommon enough to be news.

I dont know, I hope you're not advocating allowing parents to beat their kids with machetes like the first news story there. Logicalmind was talking about letting his kids roam free outdoors, that would be an outrage if government stepped in for that. I've been outraged by the nightmare child removal stories just like everyone else, but those stories don't appear very often, I've maybe heard of ten or so ever. It seems to me if it was happening everyday the outrage would be constant and people would be up in arms.

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