[HappyMomAnna]

I agree there can be a fine line between seeing poverty and seeing abuse or neglect.

I can offer you something from this decade to help you understand that in some states children are NOT removed from their parents for poverty. In the state of Oregon it is NOT illiegal to be homeless even with your child. Our Daughter lived for the first four years of her life in a shopping cart---on the city bus, and up in the hills in an abandonded cabin without water, electricity or heat.

Her birthmother had 9 referals to social services due to the fact that our duaghter lived in a Safeway Cart......but, this situation in and of iteslf did not consitiute a reason to remove our daughter from her birthmother. When the birthmother gave birth to a second child and things got very hard for her and it was not as easy to live on the streets as it had been.

The 10-referal was when the birthmother was beat up by some guy---the 11 when the guy beat her up again,---the 12 referal was when they found birthmom and both children in the cabin with the baby under a pile a blankets and the mother passed out. The 13 referal was when they found the birthmother with the guy who beat her up twice before.

Finally, the state removed the children from her care.

She was offered one program after another in order to get her children back. She failed to show up for visits. She refused to get a job. She refused to get rid of the guy who kept beating her up. She failed to show up to her court appearance.

The children were each given an attorney. The mother was given an attorney. The state appointed advocates followed the whole case.

Right now in the State of California I have a brother who has three children. Even after several calls to social services no action is being taken. My brother has failed to provide a home for his children. It is not aggainst the law to be homeless. The state has repeatably told my family that without just reason for abuse or neglect they will NOT take the children. In this situation the ONLY GOOD THING would be for his three children to be in a Foster Home where they will have a bed, clean clothes, dinner and stability. We have witnessed 12-years of my brother wandering around aimlessly and making poor chioces.

I personally do consider it to be neglect to not provide a home for a child. I personally feel it is horrible abuse to expect an innocent child to sleep in the car because the parents have made decisions about their own lives that have lead to the whole family being in the situation.

I agree there are rare instances where unjust situations happen. It happened to me when I was 24 and we were illegally evicted---we did what we had to do---we found a way to move---we paid what we owed and when it was over we sued in small claims and had one heck of a Christmas that year---because we won and we had been unjustly evicted.

I am sorry---I was once a 22 year old mother of 2 children married to an abusive man.....living in poverty. I have 'camped' I have slept in my car and I have accessed the services. No matter what happened I would do whatever I had to do to take care of my children. Anyone who is willing to do whatever they have to do to take care of their children will likely NOT face the children being taken for adoption.

I am now raising a child who has been horribly damaged by not just POVERTy---but by her mothers own lack of ambition or effort to make any change in her life. If you do not believe that growing up in a shopping cart is abuse please feel free to come over and take my daughter with you the next time you go to the grocrie store----Or what about the fact that I have a beautiful five year old who can draw a perfect penis---she claims she saw them all the time when she 'lived on the bus.'

You have no idea what abuse this little girl has suffered and Porverty in itself was terribly abuseive in her life. I am glad she no longer lives the way she did......I hope NO OTHER child ever lives the way she did......and her birthmother just had another baby.......still has no job......still has no home.......and still runs around with a guy who hits her....... to me the birthmother made her own decision and continues to choose to live the way she does.

This past year a woman was arrested and charged with child abuse and indangerments because her 12-year old son lived in utter filth and mess. He could not take it any more and committed suicide. I am sorry it is a parents responsibility to keep the home clean. Not keeping the home clean is abuse and neglect.

I once helped in a kindergarten class for my oldest daughter and there was another child in the class who constantly tossed everything in piles on the floor next to her chair. Any trash, left over snack, projects, whatever it was she tossed it down..... The next year that families home burned to the ground. The fire department condemned the home because it appeared that years and years of trash and everything else had piled up on the floors of the home.....they even found a dead cat smashed flat between junk on the floor...... That is abuse and neglect and even if the parents had never hit her, or hurt her physically they ABUSED this child by not helping her function as a 'normal' person. They abused her by teaching her to behave in a way that was clearly odd even in Kindergarten. It was neglect to not keep the home clean and it was neglect not to teach their child the basic principals of living.

Abuse it not just about hitting someone or hurting them physically. Neglect is not just about purposely depriving a child of attention or food. Abuse is ANYTHING that DAMAGES a child in ANY WAY and neglect is also about not demonstarting sucessful living skills to our children. How many generations have we treid to support with our welfare system? At least three and is there any marked change? NO.

It is very easy to get pregnant and have a child. Giving birth is not a license to mess up a whole next generation. Becomeing parents is EASY. If expecting a mother and father to maintain a job, pay the rent and keep food in the house is too much then these families need to realize this is the situation their decisions brought on themselves. If keeping the home clean and taking care of the objects they do aquire is too much to expect then why on earth would you feel they have the right to contintu to abuse another generation of people who will also become parents?