The State as Uber-Parent

CYFS As Intimidator

The power arrogated-to-itself by the State to remove children from their parents is a fearful power.  It is the ultimate sanction dreaded by almost all parents.  It is why the anti-smacking law has diligent and loving parents quaking in their boots and intimidated.

As currently structured, it is an ungodly, evil, tyrannical power.  It usurps the independence of the family, subjugating and subordinating it as an institution to the uber-power of government.  We do not argue that the power and independence of the family is absolute: in Christ's world there are no absolute powers apart from Him.  Some parents sin against their children and abuse them--this is beyond dispute. But the issue is how to determine when abuse becomes a crime.  The power of the state ought only inveigh against a family when parents have committed a crime against their children.

If parents send their children to school without lunch due to their own neglect or incompetence, they are abusing their children.  They are committing an evil deed.  But is it a crime?  If the community cannot be satisfied that it is a crime, then the state ought to have no power or jurisdiction.  But in our soft-despotic society we have gone way, way beyond that.  We have allowed the state to assert a bureaucratic lordship over families.  By means of state determined rules, regulations, standards, and policies the state tells parents what it, the state, requires of them as parents.  If parents fail, they will likely fall into the clutches and attentions of Child Youth and Family Service (CYFS) officers who will then become the uber-parent to the children.  The ultimate sanction if a family fails to comply with the bureaucratic mind is a state enforced kidnapping of the children. Well, that sanction is the ultimate in degree and in the mind of parents--but in reality for CYFS it is more a case of remove first and ask questions afterwards.

We have seen where this tyrannical power can lead.  In Germany faithful parents are imprisoned and their children forcibly removed because they dare to home-school their children.  Germany has determined that such an activity undermines the Volk and subverts the Reich.  It is ironic that the modern Reich has used a law promulgated by the Nazi's, but still on the statute books, to carry out this tyranny. 

Because there is no clear definition in statute of what constitutes criminal abuse, CYFS can operate with  broad latitude.  Abuse is what CYFS says it is, which in turn references back to the current fads or fashions in society.  Abuse is thus a moving feast.  Once criminal abuse was defined in part to be a physical beating; now it is a smack for purposes of discipline and correction.  But CYFS power goes beyond that: children can be removed on suspicion of smacking or other forms of abuse.  Allegations which subsequently turn out to be false or malicious are acted upon without question.  Parents are presumed guilty, and then are often forced to go through a long, eviscerating struggle to prove their innocence. 

Moreover, because CYFS power and lordship over families is not restricted to instances of criminal abuse, but abuse in general, the government has set itself up to act as god over all families in New Zealand.  It is the prerogative of deity to remove sin and make righteous.  It is a prerogative that is now arrogated by the state.  If parents are deemed to do evil to their children, CYFS can step in and take over.  And it does.  CYFS has become the uber-parent.  Yet there are plenty of instances that as an uber-parent, CYFS has been terribly guilty itself of abusing children--even criminally so. 

The issue of child abuse is back in the news again with several horrendous cases now before the public.  Criminal abuse of children will always exist in society, just as crime in general always exists.  It is part of what it means to live in a sinful world.  Abuse in general in families, whether criminal or not, will likewise always exist in society.  But we believe the overreaching of the state and the institution of CYFS, which operates with fearsome powers and sanctions, and is mandated to correct abuse in general, and not be restricted to criminal abuse contributes greatly to the problems. 

As with so many bureaucratic institutions set up to make people righteous, CYFS inevitably ends up trying to help, correct, sustain, educate, and train parents to do a better job.  It can't remove all children from all parents that come fall under its gaze.  Therefore, it ends up attempting to shore families up.  This creates a perverse incentive for some families to want to fall under the care of CYFS.  They can excuse their own failures; they can passes off the responsibility to government; the government brings more money and resources which they can manipulate for their own devices.  We suspect that CYFS thus indirectly creates more child abuse, or makes bad situations worse. 

We would go a long way toward correcting this situation if CYFS were broken up, or were restricted to dealing with cases of criminal abuse only.  Then the police would also be involved; then rules and procedures of evidence would apply; and then the courts would be adjudicating.  In other words, children should only be removed from homes and parents when arrests are made.  The future of the home and children in such cases would depend upon the outcome of cases before the criminal courts, not the do-gooding of CYFS. 

Would such an approach prevent all instances of parental abuse, criminal or otherwise?  Of course not.  But it would accomplish something far more important: it would help limit the draconian power of the state, as is the case at present, to exercise standover tactics against families.  That, we believe, weakens and undermines the institution of the family itself.  Families cannot be strong and self-reliant and resourceful and independent when they live in fear of the government--that is, of CYFS.