Many parents mistakenly believe that they are the legal guardians of their children. I say mistakenly because they are merely enjoying the temporary privilege of being the legal guardian of their children. That privilege, like all privileges, can be revoked at any moment by the state. One may wonder what would convince the state to revoke such a privilege. Most people would likely answer things such as letting a child starve or beating the child. Perhaps that was the case at some point in the past but more and more the state is revoke the permission of parents to be legal guardians of their children for asinine reasons. Now the state has gone so far as to rule that parents need not be at fault of anything to lose their guardian privileges:
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The state can remove an out-of-control child from the custody of a parent even if the mother or father is not to blame for the child’s behavior, a California appeals court said Thursday.
If children face substantial risk of harming themselves, it doesn’t matter whether the parent did anything intentional to put them in that position, the 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled.
When you see the words “substantial risk of harming themselves” you may think about suicidal children and parents not properly securing things like knives, guns, or pills. That’s not the case here:
Thursday’s ruling came in the case of a Los Angeles County mother whose teen daughter repeatedly ran away from home and had a child at the age of 15. The appellate court said the girl remained incorrigible despite her mother’s best efforts, which included looking for her each time she left home, sending her to live with her grandparents and calling the police and Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services for help. The mother was identified in court documents only as “Lisa E.” and her daughter as “R.T.”
“(The) mother in this case was neither neglectful nor blameworthy in being unable to supervise or protect her daughter,” the court said.
Fortunately the state decided to swoop in, revoke the mother’s guardian privileges, and kidnap the child. In the end the state decided to grant guardianship privileges to the child’s grandparents but it could have just as easily decided to be less benevolent and placed the child in foster care or even prison (since the intention was to prevent the child from running away). This case just demonstrates what us anarchist already know; children are the property of the state.