RE: When "Neglect" is Not Necessarily Abuse.
I fully understand that, and I totally agree there are people who should never have been foster parents, my sister and her husband were perfect examples of that so would the 85 foster children who died in foster care for the last year statistics would be available for, obviously those parents should have never been foster parents. Every bureaucracy will find it has offenders in the system, whether it's those who fraud or those who abuse children. We don't have to even go government when you consider the Catholic Church and their abuses.
My main gripe with this site is you have to bash the system for acceptance, you are only allow to be rewarded for portraying the abusive side, when it comes to the stories I have to tell I could only tell one side the story, the rest would be a complete waste of my time. There's no telling of the positives of foster care on this site, I have yet to see it. What I do see here quite a bit is slanting of the stories. I would consider this one a slant even, we all know that rats aren't the total reason for her child being malnourished. Rats can get into a lot of things but unless they can open a refrigerator door her excuse that the rats were eating the fresh foods her doctor wanted her to feed her child just doesn't cut it. There's more to this story, I often times when I go look if a name is provided I find the same result. People on this site scour the internet and leave out crucial information of the parents behavior. They know this is a easy site to make a few bucks quick so they take advantage of it. Yes I find stories that given a name were very much true to the core, I've even taken some crap for pointing out the validity of a claim after looking at it a couple times. (Those I think were based on political bias being involved when someone in politics had shady record towards children) It's so easy to come on here and tell your story incognito, for all we know someone could just be making that up, money is a funny motivator that way. At a minimum these people could redact their identifying information and post pictures of their court record(s), charges or segments that backup what they are saying. How hard could it be to show a paragraph describing one's only charge was a rat infestation?
I could do like someone else on here and scour the internet for profit by picking all the bias stuff out of articles, or make reports based off organizations who have a bias, even find stuff that's been posted on here time and again and I could even make myself another account and come up with a fictitious story of how I lost my children and spend a year making money off it here even though there's no truth behind it at all, but that's not me, just like it's not me to tell the bad side of a story while leaving out the good, it just wouldn't represent me as who I am or who I am as a whole.
I'm with you; when it comes to a lot of media articles, journalists can often grab a part of a story and run with it. There's often a lot more to it than they report. I try to avoid them or at least do more research before quoting anything. It's why I don't post that often in this area. I felt a bit more comfortable with this one as it was coming from a defense attorney who would have had more intimate knowledge of the case. I wouldn't expect them to release details of their client either.
I too wondered about the fridge, but Then remembered that not everyone has fridges. When you're used to a certain standard of living it can be hard to comprehend that there are people in your own country who can't even reach that basic standard of furnishing. It surprised me when I first came across the fact, but I guess it makes sense when the cheapest fridges rarely last and cost more to fix than buying a new cheap one.
I feel your frustration with this site. I try to avoid that side of it and keep our of the arguments most of the time. I don't use this account for earning, all liquid rewards get donated and would whether I get a big vote or not. A big vote on the family protection ones does benefit them, however. I don't often get such big ones for the education ones I do, but it's no skin off my nose either way.
Yes, my bias in this post is towards the faults in the system. It's what I'm trying to bring attention to. It's not an attempt to pull it down, more to address problem areas with the idea of neglect. Not that a few voices could ever bring the system down, but enough noise can hopefully cause them to address matters when things go wrong. I donate to FP because they have no funding to try and help those who do end up fighting the system. The CPS already has funding.
There may very well be people making up stories to try and get some money from the FP votes. You're right, money can make for dishonesty, but if I assume that's what they're all doing then I lump genuine people in with that and no-one's experience should be dismissed.
I have previously read a post about someone's good experience in foster care which was resteemed by FP. I've also read resteemed stories of family abuse from those who didn't go into the system. I believe they would have been pleased to have your story added, but I think it's a bit late for that as it looks like you've been muted. I guess you rubbed someone up the wrong way. ;) I get it, though, there is a preconception that they don't highlight things that have been good about the system, so most people don't think they can tag it for that. Barge tags his posts about child abuse to them and they aren't about the system, only abuse and healing from it.
Actually, I wish you would share you story of you are happy to. I agree that you should write a book. These stories need to be told, or we don't get to know they exist and they can be easily denied. Also, there are more sides to steemit than family protection. Perhaps you could start something along the lines of an abuse support community.