Neglect? Or Poverty?

 

The Daily Mail today highlights the story of how a mother-of-four who 'let her children live in appalling conditions' who has been 'spared' jail. How kind of the court not to imprison a mother who has in all likelihood just lost all her children!

'The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was handed a suspended jail sentence after she admitted four counts of child cruelty at Hull Crown Court. The children, aged two, four, six and eight, were discovered dirty and lice-infested in their home after teachers at their school became concerned for their welfare.

An investigation by Social Services found that living conditions on the first floor of the Hull house were 'appalling'. The children's bedding was soaked with urine and the beds broken, with springs sticking out of the mattresses. They were forced to sleep without covers as no proper bedding was provided, and there was excrement on the floor and in open trays on the landing. In addition, the floors were strewn with rubbish and debris, and the rooms infested with flies.

The children were described as 'unkempt' and 'incredibly dirty' when they were found.
They were lice-ridden, and there was a lack of food provided for them. Prosecutors described the living conditions as entirely unsuitable for young children and hazardous to their health and welfare. Conditions on the ground floor, where the mother is believed to have slept, were said to be 'a little better'. The mother was given a nine-month prison sentence suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.

Speaking after the sentencing on Monday, Jon Plant, head of safeguarding and development at Hull City Council, praised the school for raising their concerns about the children. He said: 'In this case, the swift action of the school meant that children's social care and the police were informed as soon as possible and able to take action to protect the children. 'The teachers' actions must be praised and this is an example of how agencies across the city work together to safeguard the well-being of children and young people in Hull.'

At ATD Fourth World we heard from many, many mothers who had experience of living in squalor like the pictures above and who raised children in it. In years gone by, the squalor and degradation generated by grinding poverty was the focus of such great writers as Dickens and Orwell. Their writings were fused with compassion for the poor. The grinding poverty they described evoked shock in the British audience at the time that such living conditions could exist. Yet they still exist. But that was then? This is the 21st century! Perhaps what shocks polite society is that squalor exists still today and that the very poor still exist, yes even in the United Kingdom. Living on next to nothing is not easy. Living in poverty is not easy. The mother of these children may have had serious depression and could not cope with the responsibilities of raising her children. 

Yet Social Services in this case might have quite a lot to answer for. Social services are now the enemy of every poor family struggling to raise their children, of every family whose children are 'at risk' of neglect according to social services. These children have doubtless been taken into care and 'rescued' from an 'unfit' mother.  Yet, not only have these children been removed from their mothers care and probably been put into foster care with strangers, or worse a care home, but the poor mother had to stand trial for neglect of her children and only narrowly escaped a jail sentence. 

What I wonder, did social services do for the family? What support network did they put in place for the mother? Where was the home help she needed? Where was the counselling and medical help for depression? Where was the help?! Social services remind me of the Pharisees who Our Lord rebuked so strongly for putting heavy burdens on the poor and who 'don't even lift a finger to help them'. I expect, having heard so many stories from mothers who have had all their children taken into care due to 'neglect' that social services did nothing to support the mother who in all likelihood could not cope. What they probably did do was barge into the home and swipe the children away only to spend money that they could have spent in family support on paying a foster carer or a care home instead. Add onto that the amount of money the State will have spent in actually prosecuting this desperate and now publicly maligned human being and you have a serious amount of cash that they could have spent in trying to keep the family together. Did they bother? No, they did not.

Mothers and families are afraid of social services now. Even if mothers and fathers ask for help, it is often when they ask for help that they fall into a system which actively works against them, which instead of helping and assisting them in areas in which they are struggling to care for their children, grinds them down even further, forces them into a corner and then finally takes the children away when certain conditions and criterion have not been met. These social services workers will have judged only by appearances. They are unjust judges who look at the living conditions of the poor, and instead of evoking within them some compassion for the family, and the mother who is finding it hard to cope, only see the protection of the child as a priority and swipe them away, leaving both the children and the mother absolutely devastated and heartbroken.

The Mail also reports on a mother who is now having her 13th child, having had her previous 12 children removed by social services, most probably at birth. Mail readers, of course, are condemning her, as do the social services, for continuing to try to be a parent. Doubtless middle Britain wants 'people like that' sterilised so they cannot have children. Yet, all she wants is to be a mother and fulfill the right to have a family, after so many years of having her children taken away and put into care. Social services do not allow people the grace to be able to change, or improve their parenting abilities. Like the Mail almost always does with the very poor, they blame the poor for their own plight, condemn them and do all the things Our Blessed Lord told us not to do. 

I could bang on about this for a good hour or two and then some. Suffice to say, we have not progressed as a society as long as we continue to blame the poor for their living conditions created by grinding, deep and long-term poverty. At the End of Time, social workers, as well as myself and all will stand trial before the Face of God at the Last Judgment. What, I wonder, will Our Lord say, to those who ripped apart families when they could have given the family support in order to keep them together? Instead, they chose the 'easy' option. Do not the tears of mothers and children ripped apart from each other by a callous mob of judges cry out to Heaven? Do not the tears of the very poor ascend to the Throne of God who has compassion for the poor?

The woman concerned cannot be named for legal reasons. I, for one, would be very interested to know what her side of the story is. I fear, however, that I have heard it so many times before.