Last night, I listened to a juvenile court judge describe his job, mentioning how painful it was for him to remove a person’s parental rights or taking away their child.   Before removing a parent’s rights, it is customary to order the individual to go thru psychological counselling or drug counselling.  Failure to do so is grounds for removing the child permanently.  He even mentioned one father who stated clearly that he preferred taking drugs than having a child.

He further remarked that, the more poor the parent, the more likely they are to lose the child, primarily because they couldn’t afford the counselling or transportation to counselling or whatever.  In that case, he normally puts the burden on social workers to find the dollars somewhere, but it usually is not enough to change the outcome.

The discussion reminded me of an old college professor who often remarked that “you have to have a license to have a dog, but anybody can have a kid.”  However, could any action by the government be more intrusive than telling a person they may not have children? 

Still, I am bothered by paying any tax dollars for counselling people who probably never should have had a baby in the first place.   (It is not even clear to me whether this is discretionary spending or entitlement spending.)

Clearly, no child should suffer for the sins of their parent!  But, should we allow parents simply walk away after dumping their kid on the welfare rolls or another parent?  (Should we allow them to have more kids?)  Obviously, we cannot extract money from them (you know, blood out of a turnip), but why not extract labor?  If we can require some offenders to provide a certain number of hours for community service, why not these people?  There is always a roadside with litter to be picked up or something . . .

Maybe, this is unfair as it is more likely to impact the poorest citizens, but there still should be a non-financial penalty other than jail-time.