I know many of you don’t use drugs and this post doesn’t apply to you. This article is an appeal to people who think they can use drugs and be parents at the same time.

You never know how CPS agents will handle drug use. Sometimes they ignore it. Usually they’ll remove a child from the home even for suspected drug use. Sometimes drug-addicted parents can go through rehabilitation and get their children back. Sometimes they go through rehabilitation and still don’t get their children back. I find that the only consistent thing about CPS cases is that they are inconsistent.

If you are a parent and think it is okay to use drugs, even “just marijuana” – please consider this. Suppose that God is looking down on us and compassionately thinks marijuana use is okay. Suppose He put the plant here to be enjoyed, and in His sight you are not doing a bad thing.

However all around you there are people who think marijuana use is not okay. They are trained to report your drug use to CPS, and CPS agents are trained to consider your drug use as a form of child neglect. They think that if you’re using drugs of any kind, even just marijuana, you are not able to concentrate on watching your children. They think you spend your money on drugs rather than on your children. So you are on their list of people to take children away from.

In this scenario, it doesn’t matter what God thinks of you if the CPS worker is here on earth to take children away, and chooses yours.

I’m not saying that I think God approves of drugs. I’m just saying that if you think it is okay, then that’s your decision, for yourself. But once you have children to take care of, you’re responsible for them and if you know that CPS agents are looking for drug users to take children away from, you’re risking your children’s well-being and your own, because being in a CPS case is one of the most devastating things you can go through in life.

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Another type of drug use is that of CPS victim parents who are terribly depressed, confused, traumatized, lost without their children, and miserable. The temptation to turn to drugs during the course of a CPS case is very common. I know of way too many parents who could have had their children back, but instead went out and smoked marijuana during the course of the case… and somehow their CPS agent social workers found out and told the judge. Those children were adopted out to strangers.

Please don’t let this happen to you! If you’re a CPS victim parent, don’t give in to the temptation to use drugs no matter how miserable and depressed you are. This is the worst time ever to start using drugs of any kind, including cigarettes. Don’t do anything the CPS agents can use against you. It simply isn’t worth it.

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While I’m on the subject of drugs – let me tell you how I feel about CPS cases where the parents have lost their children due to drug use. First of all, I feel that drug use while parenting is foolhardy given the current laws in which children are taken away for that reason. But when a parent for some reason doesn’t realize that and doesn’t quit for the well-being of their children, if their children are taken, I do feel some sympathy for them. I want all parents to quit using drugs so they can keep their children. I want parents with children in CPS custody to rehabilitate themselves. I want families to be reunited.

No matter what, I believe it is wrong to adopt out the children of the living. I feel better about legal guardianships than I do about adoptions. I believe it is wrong to tell children to call someone else “Mom” or “Dad”… to tell them they have new “parents”. I believe that children have one set of parents and to tell them someone else took their place is like telling them it is okay to lie about who their real parents are.

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If you’re a parent, don’t use drugs unless a doctor prescribes them. If your doctor prescribes medical marijuana, find out if CPS workers in your state take children from medical marijuana users before deciding to use it. If you’re not a parent, I have nothing to say about whether you’re using drugs or not. Everyone makes their own decisions and I’m a “live and let live” kind of person. But when you have children at home – your first responsibility is to them. Doing something that could get them taken away from you by CPS is not a good idea.

I have owned this site for more than seven years. Before that I did what I could as an anti-CPS activist for ten years, including writing scathing articles about CPS that were published in newspapers. I’ve been publicly known as an activist in this field for about 18 years now, and even though I’ve had my own children living in my home all that time, they were never removed from my custody again.

I want to tell you why.

The main reason why my children were never removed from my home again is that I lived an impeccably straight and upright kind of existence. I lived for my children. I didn’t use drugs, didn’t drink to excess, didn’t do anything that could be construed as abusive. The other reason why my children were never removed from my home was that I was extremely lucky. As most of you know, if a CPS agent really wants to take your child, they can make things up, twist the truth to make you look wicked, or any number of tricks. I was disturbed that a local CPS agent came to my door several times during the last seven years, but despite his apparent interest in me due to my outspoken opinions and this website, he never had a reason to detain my children.

All I am asking, with this article, is to PLEASE not give CPS workers any reasons to take or keep your children. Drugs, whether good or bad, are a reason, so please turn away from the drug using lifestyle if that is how you’ve been living. Cure yourself with that wonderful, amazing will-power deep within you. It is right there in your heart, right next to your love for your children. Cure yourself and be free, and know that you’re doing the right thing for yourself and for your kids.

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Written by Linda Martin for Fight CPS.

This morning I opened one of my Google news alerts on the topic, “foster parents,” and found only two articles listed. Both are about men accused of taking advantage of the foster care system to exploit and abuse children.

Sadly, this is very common. In my years of scanning news articles for inclusion in my blog at FightCPS.Com, I’ve come across hundred of similar stories. The oddest was about a supposed foster mother in Pennsylvania who was actually a transvestite gay child predator.

One of today’s article alerts is about a 48-year-old man who has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for sexually abusing three boys. He denied the charges at his sentencing hearing, saying he would never harm the children he loved. Thirty foster children have lived in his home in Columbus Ohio.

Reference: Foster Parent Sentenced For Sexual Abuse

The other foster parenting article brought to my attention today by Google news alerts is about a 58-year-old Vermont man who is in jail, charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl living in his foster home.

Reference: Foster Parent Charged With Sexual Assault

Last week I was getting news alerts about a similar case in Florida. Next week it will be something else.

It takes no great wisdom to realize that the foster parenting system is a perfect opportunity for sexual predators to get solitary, unsupervised access to the children of others. And while many will say that the answer is to find better fosterers, or to screen them better, I have another solution: If child welfare caseworkers would stop detaining children on marginal neglect charges there would be fewer foster children out there being abused by strangers, with their parents not allowed to be nearby to protect them.

It was about six years ago that I received an email that I remember to this day. It was one of those things I’ll never forget. An Ohio mother who could barely write decent English wrote a long message to tell me that her 10-year-old daughter was being sexually abused by boys placed in the same foster home she was in. I don’t want to get into the graphic details of what she told me, but to be clear, there was visible proof and the child told her mother during a visitation what had being going on. This little girl had been removed from her parents’ home because she had a tiny eraser-sized bruise on her arm that her parents couldn’t explain. They had no idea where she got this small injury. For that, caseworkers took the child away from the home and family she loved and forced her into a foster home where she was abused much more severely than anything she’d ever experienced before.

A few years ago there was a Frontline two-part series about the death of a child in foster care, Logan Marrs. One part of the program featured a former foster child, Rose Garland. Her statement is worth paying attention to: “OK. Now, I know that there are good foster families out there, OK? But I also know that every foster kid that I have ever talked to, including myself, have been abused in foster homes. And I’m talking physically, emotionally and sexually. That may not be the case for every child, but it was the case for me.”

Reference: Failure to Protect – The Caseworker Files

Please, if you are a mandated reporter, an angry neighbor, a non-custodial parent, or any other type of person who might want to make a child abuse or neglect report, consider this. Is the child being abused so severely that risking fosterer abuse would be better? If not, let it go. I suggest being a friend and a neighbor, and helping the family directly instead of calling child welfare. Even if you hate the parents, do the right thing for the children involved.

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