Dr. Phil on separting polygamy sect children from their mothers
Is separting 416 children from their mothers to place them into foster care a good idea - ever? Dr. Phil doesn’t think so. A few quick statistics on the foster care system can erase any notion that these children could have a normal, healthy life once separated from their mothers. Clearly, the polygamy sect puts authorities in a difficult situation. But separating hundreds of children from their mothers and purposefully sending them into a such a potentially turbulent existence - which will likely land the majority of them on the street or in prison - is enough to make any concerned citizen think twice.
King: Let’s turn to the polygamy matter. If the allegations of abuse are true, do you see any problem with all of these children in foster care? 
Watch Dr. Phil talk with Larry King about the removal of the FLDS children »
I think we’re in a situation here that there is not necessarily a good option. Now, think about this: there are only a certain number of these children that were believed to be at risk. But, yet, all of the children were taken out and put into foster care.
Now, I’ve said this before, the statistics tell us that 73 percent of all children that go into foster care wind up on the street or in jail. So, that means that if you apply those numbers to these 416 children, 304 of them would be predicted to wind up on the street or in jail. Is that a good alternative? And I don’t think it is. And I don’t think that it makes sense to take all of the children out of this situation without doing a case-by-case study, to see which one of these children are at risk and which ones are not.
Now, clearly, the principles that seem to govern the FLDS would be imminent danger for these children. But somehow or another, you have to figure a way to train these people, create an open door policy, get monitoring, get access and try to get these children back with their biological mothers, but with protection, and monitoring.
Watch Dr. Phil talk with Larry King about the removal of the FLDS children »
This story just breaks my heart. I couldn’t even read the whole story. I just feel so bad for those mother’s and their children. NONE of them deserved any of what the government has done to them. It really sickens me.
Why didn’t they just go after only the children that were abused, and the men that did the abuse? Why torture all those other women and children??
Our government can’t do a darn thing right anyway, so how on earth are they going to handle all of those scared little children? I pray for them every night, just thinking about how sad they must be, how scared they must be, how confused they must be and the DAMN government says it is for “the best interest of the children”- GIVE ME A BREAK!!! The government doesn’t know what is best for anyone!!
I do agree though, that any child that was abused should be taken out of that situation and given to relatives and the person who did the abuse should be held accountable according to the law.
May 5 at 6:34 pm
I sincerely hope that CPS is going to be held accountable for the havoc they have wreaked in those childrens’ lives. There is NO excuse for what they have done.
They could have taken the ones in imminent danger - the girls ages 13 and up - and left the little ones alone. Then, they could have worked with the FLDS - who have promised to do whatever it takes - to change things.
CPS just wants the extra federal money they’ll get for those children. I would like to see CPS up on federal civil rights violations charges and have written to my congressman to request they look into this.
May 5 at 9:08 pm
So why do we speak only of taking the children from mothers? Why don’t we speak also of taking children from fathers, from families?
May 5 at 9:15 pm
“Now, I’ve said this before, the statistics tell us that 73 percent of all children that go into foster care wind up on the street or in jail.”
This is so true. Two of my children ended up on the street one at the age of about 14 and the other is sitting in jail in Texas. This is thanks to the CPS in Maine. In my opinion they did a worse job of parenting than I could have ever done.
May 5 at 11:43 pm
How can keeping kids at a stadium be better then at the sides of their mothers? Didn’t we learn anything with Katrina and the chaos of Dallas Tx? It just shows that we are not free, we are owned by the state government. Guilty until they are tired of trying or have something else to do. I am amazed by the money the state gets for adopting children out to others… Crimes against humanity are being committed!
May 6 at 1:56 am
CPS is not in existence to protect children. This is what they would have you believe. The system is set up through SACWIS (State Automated Child Welfare Information System), Federal Title IV, to do one thing — catch child abusers. This is what fills the State budget for CPS along with adopting out children. Now then, you think they are going to be happy with taking a few parents and a few kids? This was a goldmine for CPS! If holding up to the norm, CPS will not only prosecute Fathers, they will prosecute the Mothers right along with them. Then, we’ll have how many people experiencing jail who never should have been anywhere near it? It simply has to end. Put an end to Federal Title IV and we can start over with something other than the Gestapo CPS ruining tens of thousands of families at any given moment.
May 6 at 2:35 am
My husband and I are Christian foster parents in the state of California, and I’m hopping mad! I cannot tell you how many people tell us how ‘wonderful’ we are because of what we do. I cannot tell you how many of them say ‘I couldn’t do that.’ Yes, you can! “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. Philippians 4:13
Granted, it is sometimes difficult because of the restrictions put on us by the state, but we do it becuase we feel the Lord led us to it. We are free to take the children to church (if the biological parents don’t object. None has.) We try to instill Christian principals in the children while they are with us. We teach them about God and His precious Son, Jesus, our Redeemer. What I want to know is, why are we the only foster parents in our church of 500 families? Why don’t Christian families put themselves out there, and take care of these children who have been removed from drug addicted, neglectful, and/or abusive parents? Why don’t Christian families get in there and give the parents who’ve had children removed from their care, support and encouragement? In the 10 years we’ve been fostering, I have not seen one case where the removal was not necessary to protect the children. I’m not an idiot! I know ‘knee jerk’ removal sometimes happens, but the parents we’ve seen really needed the time to go through rehab, or parenting classes in order to get their children back. And, we have adopted several children whose parents gave in to the drugs, and abandoned their precious little ones. We pray for our children (foster and adopted) and homeschool the adopted ones(we are not allowed to homeschool foster children). Christians, instead of screaming about the lousy foster system, get in there and make a difference.
May 6 at 10:12 am
This situation is soooo scary, and so wrong what has been done to these families. There has been NO proof that anything wrong has happened, yet the gov went in on a phone call tip and took these children away from their families. Do you know that the initial complaint call came from a woman in Colorado who has a history of phoning in other complaints of so-called abuse? Where is the proof?? Our founding fathers are surely rolling over in their graves as to what’s happened to this country
May 6 at 10:14 am
Whats ridiculous is the EMPATHY for mothers who BLATANTLY ABUSED their children by subjecting them to a CULT. Why should these same mothers be given the RIGHT to parent their children? These women made the CHOICE to participate in the cult. I am APPAULED that people would sit and defend these people who were living sick and twisted lifestyles. These children SHOULD be placed with other families and I believe are better off with a 27% chance than the 0% chance they had of living a life with these sick mothers participating in the cult.
May 6 at 10:49 am
Concerned Parent,
What about the abuse of the women? I fully believe that these women were brainwashed and under the control of the men in the group. It is obvious by TV interviews of these women that they have been abused, controlled and brainwashed. I strongly feel the men should be punished, not the women and the children. It is very likely that once these women are out of this cult, and yes I believe it is a cult, and they get the help that that they need, they will be fine. But in the meantime, the most important thing is that those children get back with their mothers. Think of the harm and damage that being taken away from their mothers is doing to them! That is an important issue too! If you asked any of those children I can guarantee that they would rather be with their mothers than in the custody of the CPS. They need their mothers.
If you really care for the children then you’d agree that they need to be with their mothers!
May 6 at 11:28 am
to: Loving, Christian foster/adoptive parent
I can tell you why most Christians don’t get involved with foster parenting and adoption. It is because at the CORE, the very Christian core of their being, they know that many of those kids are ’stolen’ by the state, and to take part in it is something that violates the Christian principles that the founding fathers fought, bled, and died for, that of liberty and the inalienable right of people to their property. Yes, philosophically, according to the founders of our nation, children are the property of their rightful parents testified and bolstered by laws that forbid man- stealing and the resultant punishment of death for violators in the bible. Also, so many Christians have been killed by socialist and communist regimes, that even the “idea” of that state saying they own our kids via their unbridled actions in removing this nations kids smacks of what our people went through in communist countries, and in other horrible places of the earth. My wife and I were in the foster care system for 7 years, and when I witnessed a poor mom lose her kids simply because she was too poor to own or rent a house with enough rooms for her six kids, I knew right then what kind of monstrosity I was participating in. And although we did adopt a little girl who might have had a horrible life if she was left with her harlotrous drunk mother who conceived her at a party where several men took turns having sex with her, I still felt she was 1 little girl who will come out well, while seeing many many other kids who are being violated worse than any of their parents ever could or did. Simply put, when the foster system has a failure rate of 73 percent, there is no way that they can tell me that there would not be a much lower statistic of tragedy if those kids were left with their “bad” parents. Anyway, I wanted to answer your question regarding why more Christians don’t get involved in foster care.
May 6 at 2:13 pm
I think it’s outrageous that ALL of the children were taken! Even nursing infants , who truely were in no imminent danger . They were well cared for physically & healthier than most.
I agree that only the 12 & older girls & their children should have been removed & the men responsible for the abuse prosecuted. In our country however people are suppose to have freedom of thought & children ought not to be removed due to the beliefs of their parents . That is a very dangerous precident to set , whether you agree with the parents beliefs or not.
Where specific laws are broken , the law should be enforced . Like the under-age marriage thing. However to remove children from their home family & loved ones , because you believe they MAY be abused in 8-10 years is WRONG ! & NOT the way to go about it.
May 6 at 2:25 pm
Also , the IRONY needs to be pointed out , that while the state took these kids who they deemed to be in “immenent” danger of abuse & then ABUSED them.
Tell me it’s not abusive to take these innocent & sheltered children & then INSPECT them for sexual abuse. The INSPECTION itself is abusive & traumatic in the extremes & will have the same side effects for the children down the road had they been “sexually abused”
I remember a conversation I had on an airplane once where the man next to me told me that his teen-age daughter upon seeing a gynecologist was hysterically distrought & had felt extremely violated.
Imagine what this type of physical intrusion would do to these modest children.
May 6 at 2:34 pm
The constitution of our country guarantees the right to practice religion without government interference. The problem comes in when the religion involves the abuse of someone else, as the government claims in this FDLS case. It is not right to say that children should be taken away from parents just because someone else believes that their religion is a cult. That leaves the door open for overzealous government officials to take children away from any home, including stable Christian homes, where they are taught a faith that CPS believes is wrong. And believe me CPS is moving in this direction. Do you want someone else to decide for you what you can believe and teach your children? It is difficult to draw the line between what is okay and what is harmful. Less than a generation ago, young girls where able to be legally married much younger with parent’s consent. Was that abusive? What has changed is public perseption of abuse. Perhaps some of those girls in the FLDS were agreeable to being married at that age. It is the only the cases where forced marriage occurred that are publicized. Marriage at that age is not what I would choose for my children, but I feel that this is very dangerous, shaky ground for the government to be treading on. And how in the world can our government,on the one hand, condemn this practice in the FLDS, and on the other hand, be handing out condoms and abortions to underage girls instead of teaching abstinance? Anyone who thinks CPS’s motives in taking these children is entirely for their protection, is deceived. Our government is not moving in a direction of granting or protecting freedom, it is moving very deliberately and forcefully in the direction of removing even the freedoms protected by our constition. While we certainly cannot ignore individuals, I think we need to very carefully consider the bigger picture… how will the precedents set by this violation of rights of families affect the future freedoms of the families of our nation as a whole?
Over the last few generations there has been a desensitizing and deliberate brain washing of the citizens of our country into believing that the government knows better that we do how to live our lives, to the point that people just blindly, voluntarily and irrationally hand over their liberties to our gestapo government, and, in their misguided zeal, persecute anyone who stands up and objects to relinquishing their own. People have gradually come to accept a belief that everyone is guaranteed by our constitution that our government will provide a certain quality of life…the truth is,our constitution states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed BY THEIR CREATOR (not the government) with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT (not a guarantee) of Happiness.” We have the God-given right to “go after” happiness, not the right to have it handed over to us by the government.
This attitude of everyone being “entitled” to have a certain type of upbringing, is partially what is behind the shift in public perception of what consitutes abuse. Now parents can be considered abusive if they don’t provide their children with exposure to enough of the trash this world has to offer. The media has depicted these children as deprived because they were protected from what their parents considered to be harmful influences!
May 6 at 3:17 pm
I counsel families, and I can tell you that the kids who are mainstreamed in the public schools are a mess. Believe it or not, the ones that are the best behaved, best educated, and have their heads on straight are homeschool kids. I hardly ever encounter any on mood altering drugs, pregnant, or in trouble with the law. The scary thing is that the media keeps making comments on how the “cult” dresses, the fact that they do not watch television, and that the kids need to be exposed to the culture. Are you kidding me? What’s next, round up the Amish for the same reason? You want to see a cult, go to the average lunchroom of any American highschool and listen to the conversations at the lunch tables. It will curl your hair. I could fill a book with the accounts I encounter in my office of what is going on in our schools.
May 6 at 5:16 pm
Bravo, Dr. Williams!
As a Mom that homeschools, I agree whole-heartedly with your comment about children who are mainstreamed into public (government) schools.
I took my children out, after three years of working in the classrooms with the teachers! I saw first hand what goes on, and I didn’t want any part of it for my children!
Public (government) school is no place for children!
Sorry for going off topic here.
May 6 at 7:15 pm
60% of the minor girls between the ages of 14 and 16 are or have been pregnant. Yeah this sounds like someplace to defend. Im moving my girls there right away!
(adopted 3 kids from cps, all born to drug addicts, all sexually abused)
May 7 at 7:14 am
Amy,
I don’t agree with this sect, but at what point does my disagreement give me cause to dismember their families? I was just talking about this with the lady who cleans my teeth. She said her mother was married when she was 15 (in America). My Baptist pastor’s wife was also 15 when she was married. Her mother was 13. I don’t agree with marrying young, but again, I don’t necessarily think it’s a reason to tear apart their family. Arrest them for polygamy, arrest them for underage marriage. Investigate the domestic dispute between a husband and his wife, ok- but take 417 children from their homes without a probable cause?
May 8 at 7:04 am
We are living in a totalitarian police state with NO Constitutional rights that Hitler would envy. On 1-11-06, 2 of my home schooled, NONABUSED daughters were removed from me with NO court order because their (then) 19 year old sister told CPS she was sexually molested with power tools from ages 8–16, beaten with crow bars and burned in the fireplace. It’s 2 years later, CPS pronounced me UNFIT last year with NO EVIDENCE because there was NO abuse, we lost our appeal to a higher court and my youngest daughter (16)remains in a foster home. http://texasroadrunner.spaces.live.com/
I have never known such pain and anguish. WE ARE INNOCENT!!! Will somebody please investigate CPS corruption in Texas? Pray for the FLDS children…the State will destroy their faith in God, like they did to my girls, who are now Satanists since God didn’t answer their prayers and get them out of CPS captivity. HSLDA couldn’t help us either even though we were with them since 1984.
God help anyone caught in the CPS web…..you are guilty until proven guilty, there is no other option with them.
In foster care, the chances are extremely high, that they will be drugged (for more Federal funds), definitely emotionally abused, and maybe even physically and sexually abused. Check out the stats. on foster home deaths, rapes etc.
May 8 at 7:28 pm
For a great read on this site regarding the PRA, check out the comments here:
http://www.parentalrights.org/blog/courts-the-law/washington-times-op-ed-california-may-ban-spanking
May 10 at 4:08 pm