Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 01:18:02 -0500
From: Aaron Micheau <amaarchy-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: baby food


Message text written by (friend of) Dave Hayman

>Clearly, though, I didn't describe the girls
> very well.  Although there are a few that will listen, many would rather
hurt
> the baby than pay attention to what a counselor says.  They are often
> convinced that the baby is crying on purpose just to aggrivate them, and
they
> often put their needs above that of the child.  For example, if a baby is
> feverish and crying, the mom will say, no she's fine, let's go to the
mall.
> If you try to sit down and "explain" things, you soon learn what a really
> short attention span is, as the girl will most likely end up screaming at
you
> for being so stuck up or maybe for having an ugly haircut or something.  
> 

Hah. and we thought this thread was about baby food!  but if she can't keep
mothers from emotionally neglecting and damaging their children, how is she
going to get them to eat a healthy diet?  All she can do is make the info
available- whoever uses it uses it, and whoever doesn't- doesn't.  Besides,
if the moms are good enough to feed their babies what their parents fed
them, it seems that whether the kids eat baby food is the least of the
potential problems of abuse and neglect.  

She's right, at least as far as i'm concerned, about disapproving of the
institution.  It's bad enough that these women are under supervision.  It
seems even worse that their kids may become so.  Although it seems
altruistic for the group home to mandate a certain standard of care for the
moms' kids, what can they do, in the end? Take the child from its
supervised mother and give it to the state, or to a foster parent who is
totally unsupervised by the state, and quite possibly just as abusive- a
situation which is even more likely to lead to neglect and emotional harm
for black children.

i'm sure your friend would disagree with this, and i don't doubt that the
group home does some good in individual cases, but this issue seems to
illustrate the way that authoritarian 'solutions' to problems just create
new problems.

btw, ask her what's so bad about the mom's maybe cussing out their future
bosses? 

maybe they'll do one better and overthrow them...

-apm