Failing Parenting - Seriously

We don't hear much about all those parents whose daily parenting responsibilities result in well-balanced children with healthy attitudes toward life, secure within the family home with supportive, caring parents anxious to provide their children with all the opportunities life affords them; stimulating them to learn and to become responsive and caring individuals, a credit to their society.

And then we read about children being raised by severely deranged parents whose pathological hatred of other 'racial' groups is so deeply entrenched that they must not only convey their dreadful beliefs to their children, but also write in permanent marker on their child's arms and legs incendiarily hateful messages of racist rubbish. Bringing attention to the child on the part of her teacher and the school administration.

The school sent home a seven year old girl when she showed up at her school with a swastika and racist slogans written on her body. Representing personal graffiti of an extremely odious variety. Which the child was meant to be proud of, as a proud declaration of social intent decorating her body, since she knew no better, and felt what those messages conveyed was important and just.

Sent home, she was told she was expected to wash away the markings. She returned the day following with additional such messages written on her body. In permanent ink. Adolf Hitler an exemplary public figure of great esteem, and the message "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children". Children know and believe, after all, what they are taught by those they most trust.

The child and her brother were living at the time with her step-father, the younger boy's natural father. Their mother had abandoned them to the care of her second husband; her first husband lived elsewhere and was estranged from all of them. "Black people don't belong. What people don't understand is that black people should die", the little girl said gravely, when she was interviewed.

Interviewed by a Child and Family Services worker. Repeating to the worker what her parents had carefully taught her. When she was asked if those messages caused her to be fearful, she responded: "No, black people just need to die. That's not scary. This is a white man's world."

The girl's stepfather insists his right to freedom of expression under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been violated. "I don't believe in interracial breeding", he explained, adding that people representing different 'races' should be "separated". He is proud of having membership in the "white pride" movement. And he taught his children that the sign of the Swastika was a sign of "love and peace".

Can't get much more twisted than that. The Court of Queen's Bench in Manitoba has now formally granted Child and Family Services of the Province "permanent guardianship" of the children, even though their mother has returned to the province and stated her wish to be re-united with her children.

The Judge, Marianne Rivoalen, made note of other of the step-father's lessons to his children, setting up a backyard bird feeder to attract and shoot birds and squirrels to feed them to the family dog. She remarked that this kind of atmosphere is not exactly conducive to encouraging healthy minds to prosper.

She concluded that "These children have a right to be protected from these things." And so, justice has been done, but it's sadly possible these children's minds have been warped, perhaps irremediably. Still, we can hope not, we can hope that despite the reality that children very much need the love and protection of their natural parents, some loving and patient adults will help them to develop in ways their parents failed.