While CPS protestors share many characteristics of estranged parents, the movements couldn’t be more different. Estrangement is private. One person breaks off their relationship with another person. Their reasons for doing so are their own; how long they stay away is their decision; whether and how they reconcile is a negotiation between the people involved. If the state gets involved, it only reinforces restraining orders, manages property disputes, and so forth–comparatively brief interactions that begin because one party invited the state in, end when the dispute is resolved, and make no attempt to reconcile the parties.1 From beginning to end, estrangements are driven by two adults disagreeing about their roles in each other’s life.
CPS cases are a brutal intrusion of the state into a family’s life, instigated from outside, monitored from outside, ended from outside. The state can unilaterally declare that a family is no longer a family. The state can control where people live, who they live with, even how they spend their days. And the state can do this even if everyone in the family, even the children they intend to protect, does not consent.
The criteria for getting into the system are vague; for getting out, vaguer. The people who make the decisions are often unreachable, often incompetent, often a different class, frequently a different culture. Layers of bureaucracy shield people from accountability and hide decisions and decision-makers from view. When describing the CPS system, the word “Kafkaesque” comes up time and again. It’s accurate.
Estranged parents rage against their entitled children and the eternal puppet-master, My Daughter-in-Law. They develop strange theories about how their children think. But every parent has a different adversary. Parents can commiserate with one another, but they have no common enemy to rise up against.
CPS protestors do.
Two Types of Protestors
There are two clusters of people who protest CPS, and they have very little to do with one another.
It’s tough for me to explain the difference in a neutral way, since every time I try to put my finger on what separates the groups, it ends up being a new way of saying “people I believe” and “people I think are nuts.” For now, I’ll let ‘er rip.
People I Believe
- Experts and activists who are working to change the system
- People who have been found in court to have been wronged by CPS
- People who won their CPS cases and don’t have ongoing involvement with CPS
- People who were involved with CPS for valid reasons, but who have developed insight
- YouTubers who have had CPS called on them by trolls – These people are rarely protestors per se, but their accounts of dealing with CPS are valuable as a comparison
These people tend to have these characteristics:
- No conspiracy theories
- Stories hang together without excessive explanations, and align with evidence that they, reporters, or occasionally even CPS make public
- Calm presentation
- In filmed encounters with CPS, they keep their heads
- Less likely to record meetings, hearings, or phone calls with CPS
- Tend to get attention from mainstream media; their stories pass the sniff test and hold up to investigation
- They have lives outside of protesting CPS
- Less likely to have criminal records or a history of addiction
- Disproportionately white, educated, and middle class
Bias is a problem. The legal system speaks educated-white-middle-classese; the media prefers white-middle-classese; and any government bureaucracy unconsciously defers to the educated middle class. As an educated white member of the middle class, I’m more prone to identify with people like me, which means I’m more likely to believe people like me.
People I Don’t Believe
- People who claim they were wronged by CPS for no good reason, or for conspiracy-theory reasons
- Activists who are heavily into conspiracy theories
These people tend to have these characteristics:
- Stories have huge lacunae, explanations don’t make sense or even justify having their kids taken, and the parent’s version of events doesn’t match evidence
- Unquestioning acceptance of others’ stories
- Often, support for extreme measures like taking one’s children from foster homes and going on the run
- Any attention from mainstream media is skeptical
- Filmed encounters with CPS are filled with circular arguments, rehashing the reasons the children were taken, and hostility toward the social worker
- A sizable minority records every encounter with CPS and the law, even in circumstances where recording isn’t permitted. Some insist on recording even when it costs them visits with their children. Recordings that are posted online often include personal information about the person’s spouse and children; if a social worker or other official is involved, the person may add their name and contact information to the video before uploading
- Often the CPS case appears to absorb the person’s entire life, even long after it has ended
- Often a history of mental illness and/or addiction
- Men in particular are disproportionately likely to have a criminal record
- Disproportionately poor, often with a history of homelessness
- Disproportionately black or Latino, but not overwhelmingly so
And also:
- CONSPIRACY THEORIES. Jesus Christ, conspiracy theories.
- CPS gets money for every child they take.
- CPS gets money for adopting out babies.
- Social workers get kickbacks for taking children and for adopting them out.
- CPS is genocide.
- CPS is effectively a government-run child sex ring.
- QAnon, Pizzagate, and every other flavor of “the elite are all pedophiles” conspiracy theory, right down to “The elite are all Freemasons who have sex with babies and then kill and eat them at special banquets.”
- The MKUltra program is still going on, complete with forced breeding. People who were in it as children are targeted as adults because the program wants their babies.
- Sovereign citizen theories, because when you’re in a legal hole, you may as well keep digging.
Notes
Unlike my work on estranged parents, my thoughts on CPS protestors are coming together slowly, in ill-contained chunks that overflow into sovereign citizens, conspiracy theorists, and the very real problems with our very, very broken child protection services. If I wait until everything sorts itself out, nothing will ever get written. This is where I bring together what thoughts will consent to be corralled and put on paper.