Poll | 03/02/2009 12:00 am
Should Nadya 'Octomom' Suleman undergo psychological evaluation before she is allowed to bring her newborns home?
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Dear Margo: When Dad/Gramps Just Ain't Interested
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I don’t know if she is insane. I heard she was out house shopping last week so it is assumed that she is making money off of the pictures. Maybe she has a deal in the making, I would not know and arrangements for help with those babies. Beats me
She certainly has mental health issues. Unfortunately, the state needs to step in and have her properly evaluated as to her mental health and the well being of her children.
Her dependency on having (so many) children to compensate for being an "only child" in a "dysfunctional" family was the first clue that she has mental health issues. When a person needs to literally make the brothers and sisters they never had and to go to the extreme lengths that Suleman did in order to get the family that she thinks she wants, then a state intervention is in order. Her expectations on private (mom and dad and cousins?) and public support are pie-in-the-sky!! She clearly was thinking of ONLY herself. She was certainly not thinking of the financial responsibilities that 14 children under the age of 7 was going to cost. She was not thinking of the amount of time that she could give to them as babies. State agencies need to step in and assume responsibilities for the family.
But what I really worry about is the fact that she could get pregnant again. Someone in a fertility clinic will get duped by her again. And they’ll want her money.
And I like the way the male who thinks he may be the father stepped in and said he’d like to help her. What a liar! He’s after the money too!
I don’t think the government should be allowed to randomly choose who gets to parent their kids based on someones idea of morality or insanity or what not. unless this woman demonstrates that she cannot care for her children she needs to be left alone for cryin out loud. don’t people realize that what they think is nuts isn’t necessarily dangerous to a child. i mean come on… I think religion is nuts. do we really BELIEVE that eating little biscuits and drinking red wine in a building called a church gets us some kind of free pass into some place called heaven? and someone else is going to read that statement and think it’s nuts. do we want the government intervening on peoples parenting without probable cause? the act of having or wanting fourteen children is not illegal.
as far as her caring for her children financially… again.. if they arent going hungry or being medically neglected due to her poverty. then legally we have no right to intervene. I just got back from another country where families were happily and healthfully living in what we’d call "shacks" in this country.
the self righteousness of people amazes me. and i think the woman’s nuts! but being nuts and being neglectful or abusive aren’t always one and the same.
She’s on government assistance. She has no job, no means of supporting herself without the government checks, and she lives in her parents home, not her own. Who knows if they’re being fed properly? 420 dollars a month wouldn’t feed 6 children, that’s for sure. Medically, her children are on disability (three), which would barely be covered under Medicaid assistance and now she has 8 more with medical conditions due to being premee. In THIS country, we do have regulations against ‘shacks’ and that kind of ‘support’ of one’s children because we DO have higher standards as to what is neglect, and child abuse. And that’s for very good reason. I highly doubt you’d drop your safe little home to live in one of those structures you gleeful suggested were quaint. One should have higher standards for giving one’s children better than a shanty and stone soup, in this country of opportunity.
Medically, financially, she has Already shown she’s NOT caring for these children ‘on her own’. It is abusive, when one puts a child, or 14 children, into this kind of situation, knowingly, for one’s own gain. Whether that was emotional gain or not, it’s still abusive. And SOMEONE should give a care for it. Government and law officials only become involved because people do these things, and then the world cries, ‘Why didn’t anyone DO something?’. If she let these 14 children be starved to death first, would that make it better on your sensibilities?
I hear what you’re saying. and your coming from a place that a lot of people come from. however… in terms of neglect and abuse. being poor and being stupid are not illegal. thank god or we would not have a system capable of managing all the poor and stupid people we as a group of tax payers and a system would be caring for. there are LEGAL guidelines for when the government can intervene in a family. and their needs to be legal guidelines because otherwise the government would be able to look at your family and say "I don’t like their religion. i think it’s crazy" and come in and take your kids. or say to themselves "I don’t like that couples sexual preferences. their gay and I think that’s wrong" and come in and take your kids. so the legal guidelines for abuse and neglect cannot be taken lightly.
Just from what has been reported in the news, and granted that may not be all there is… the octomom has not met a single criteria for even an evaluation by CPS at this time. although I’m guessing everyone in the world is calling CPS on this mom and therefore they probably found a way to fit her into the criteria to do an eval. but my guess is that she will be offered support and services.
the fact that octomom has parents helping her care for her children is actually considered a good thing by CPS. it means she has family support. Which is considered a strength not a weakness. it is much more preferable for families to care for their kids, grandkids and cousins than the government.
there is absolutely NO legal definiticion of abuse in this country anyway (unlike china for instance) that determines how many children someone can have.
"Just from what has been reported in the news, and granted that may not be all there is… the octomom has not met a single criteria for even an evaluation by CPS at this time."
Actually, you’re incorrect about that statement. CPS has been called to look into her 5 times previous to her lil Octo-attention grab. That’s an evaluation. That’s not including the incident where she called 911 after having lost one of her children screaming about how she wanted to kill herself. Just because CPS doesn’t take the children away from her doesn’t mean she’s a good mom, either. My meth using, child neglecting, aunt retained custody of her children ONLY because her husband was there. Not because they, either one of them, took good care of those kids. That woman was able to go through round after round of getting them taken away, placed with a family member, going to counseling, and getting them back. She’s since lost custody, after a full 10 years of going through that crap. CPS has had to go through riggamarole just to get kids when they should get kids, because of the mindset you have, that it’s not fair to ‘judge others’ like that. My cousins had to suffer years of this yo-yoing just because people wanted to give their mother ‘a chance’. I’m sorry. I agree it’s ridiculous (and illegal) for the government to decide things on your sexual orientation or religious preference, but we’re not talking about any of that here. We’re talking strictly about her ability to care for those children, and whether they will be cared for emotionally and physically. Of which, she has shown nothing but lack in ability to do without outside help from others. And she’s only adding on more children and more children, at her parents’, church’s, and taxpayers expense.
As for her parents ‘helping’ to take care of those children, it is a good thing. But that’s not the point of the issue. You wanted to state that it had to do with HER ability to care for those children, not her Mommy And Daddy’s ability. Not the government’s ability. So in that case, she’s not doing it herself, and that would mean the government should look into the issue. Just who IS going to look after 14 kids? Grandma and Grandpa? Are they ABLE to keep up with 8 babies, feeding schedules, etc., at their age? That can be just as bad as Octo-mom’s possible neglective behaviors, they just won’t be able to do it as well due to age.
Abuse is not having a lot of babies. China determines how many children one can have for population density problems, not on the basis of abuse. Abuse is, having a lot of babies, and not having the ability to care for them. That IS a legal definition, it’s Neglect. And that’s a chargable offense. I’m simply not in favor of waiting ‘till the child has suffered to stop them from having the pain that is sure to follow from the basis that stands.
Flat out - having a lot of children is not illegal in this country. having other people believe you cannot care for them is not a legal definitio of abuse or neglect. just like any other crime in this country you first have to commit the crime before you pay any of the consequences. You might not like it but the fact is she has to abuse or neglect her children FIRST in order for the government to have the right to intervene. period. and once again.. the number of kids she has is not anywhere in that criteria. our assumptions that she cannot care for them is not in that criteria. and the fact that her parents are participating is not in that criteria. she’s not required by the state to do it on her own.
i’m not saying i don’t think she’s a neglectful mother. i have stated on other threads that as a prior cps worker i think that having your children diagnosed as disabled in order to get money is a form of both parental and societal abuse and neglect. and i’m guessing (but then again it’s just a guess) that’s what’ she’s done. which means her kids are probably taking all kinds of harmful meds. and without being any kind of a psychiatric doctor i’d also guess that she’s "nuts". and that her kids are not going to have the best most nurturing upbringing. a lot of kids don’t. my point is that the line between being a BAD parent and one that legally abusiver or neglectful is much bigger than most people think. no doubt.. she’s not a good parent. she’s probably a truly bad parent. there are tons of those out there. it doens’t mean they meet the legal criteria for government intervention. a line that in fact needs to not be crossed.
"Flat out - having a lot of children is not illegal in this country."
If you cannot properly, by governmental definition of ‘health & safety, care for them, it IS illegal. And it should be. Just because you can spit them out doesn’t make you a parent. And being a parent is what the child needs, morally. Legally,all they have to do is fit a standard, that is, already, and has been, in place by the government. And that isn’t that difficult, if one is managing parenting correctly. She is not, so she should be investigated, questioned, and made to prove that she can, because everything she’s done so far, says she can’t.
"having other people believe you cannot care for them is not a legal definitio of abuse or neglect. just like any other crime in this country you first have to commit the crime before you pay any of the consequences."
Having other people believe you cannot care for them is only a moral responsibility, in that you are correct. It is a crime to NOT report abuse or neglect, therefore they would be breaking the law set for to ALLOW this woman to try, with the reports she’s already had against her and her previous statements and behaviors held into the light.
She has been reported 5 times, (while most families in this country have never had any contact from those offices), and that lends a basis for the fact she is already in question, it’s just an inevitability. She LOST one child, she’s threatened her own safety to law enforcement officials, she’s stacking child upon child in much too small of a building to house them all sanitarily, her parents are up to their ears in the care for these children to start with. Three of them have medical disabilities and she has 8 more with the same now, and who is to nurse them all with these conditions? And you say this isn’t abuse or neglect? There’s plenty of basis there, to call it just what it is. And it ought to be criminally actionable.
Adoptive parents have to go through more than this just to even be considered, it’s not like it’s ‘so harsh’. Your biological ability to birth a child should not just qualify you as an ‘able’ parent. If you truly worked for CPS, you know, sadly, that is so not the case, and generally just ends up badly. I’m for sparing the KIDS here, not her. Those children deserve better, morally, than what they are getting. Legally, they’ll probably get a wondering white wash and get to spend the next 10 years of their lives bouncing around until someone stops the madness or they’re adults.
And then they get to spend the money on counseling, or live the life their mother taught them to live. Off others.
"unless this woman demonstrates that she cannot care for her children she needs to be left alone for cryin out loud."
Excuse me but she has already said she needs help with these kids. Her family has said the kids can’t survive without their help. I don’t know many people who would do that to their parents. It’s a pretty costly way to give someone a sense of belonging, which she claims is the whole reason she needed to do this. You can get that in a lot of other ways.
Psychological testing? I don’t know.
However, Ms. Suleman is not Mother Goose and her home is not a shoe!
If the children’s grandparents are no longer willing or able to help raise the newborns, including the older six children, and even if they allow their daughter and grandchildren to remain in their home, there might be cause for the Department of Children’s Services to do an evaluation on the home itself. Will the newborns be in any danger if they are brought into a three bedroom home, occupied by 17 people? If the State finds that there is a danger to the children, then perhaps Ms. Suleman could be asked to take a psychological test to determine if she is capable of supervising the well-being of eight newborns, plus her older six…. all by herself.
By then, the decision will have been made by the State to remove the children from her care (not to server her parental rights) and that the psychology test will be administered to add to the evidence against Ms. Suleman retaining custody of the newborns. Ms. Suleman would probably only agree to the test if she thought she was in danger of losing custody.
This is a very dangerous road the State will travel. However, if the primary focus is always upon the newborns and not on whether Ms. Suleman is likeable or even practicable then I think the State should be allowed to test her sanity to determine if her neurosis (if any) are a danger to her children…but only after the State first determines (1) she will be the only caregiver for the children and (2) the home where they plan to reside presents a danger to the newborns.