Parenting Daily

If you’ve turned on the news in the last 12 hours or so, you’ve probably heard about what’s going on in Texas. Last month, over 400 children were removed by Child Protective Services  after receiving a call, allegedly from an unwed pregnant 16 year old female who alleged sexual abuse. When workers were sent to investigate, they found what they felt was a high number of young, pregnant girls, and a pattern of sexual relationships between young girls and older men. In Texas, children can only be removed from their homes without going to court if there is a clear immediate danger of further abuse. CPS felt they had enough evidence of all the children being in danger (the girls were in danger of being sexually abused, the boys in danger of being raised as perpetrators of sexual abuse), and removed all of the children. The children are now placed in foster care homes all over the state and hundreds of lawyers are representing the grieving parents, who feel they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

From the start, this is a case that has broken my heart. I think I would have been far less empathic with the mothers of these children, had I not been a mother myself. But knowing that over half of the children removed were under the age of 5, some as young as a few weeks old, is just almost too much for me to handle.

I, too, have harbored some suspicions about certain religions (or sects of religions) and their apparent belief in polygamy. I want no child to be abused or raised as an abuser. But in a compound as big as Yearning For Zion (YFZ for short), I’ve always wondered, statistically, how the number of pregnant minors there compares to the numbers in the rest of the
U.S. I originally heard that maybe 10% of the teen girls were pregnant—a number that is ridiculously high. But in an article I read today on CPS’s decision being overruled by a higher court, the number of underage mothers has been decreased, for various reasons, to just 15– a number that, right now, doesn’t seem as ridiculously out of proportion to the rest of the
U.S.

I am hopeful that this situation can reach a safe and peaceful conclusion very soon.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS