This is one of the most heartbreaking things I've read in recent memory. I've never seen or heard of anything quite like this -- everything I would like to believe about people goes out the window when I hear about such severe cases of neglect as this. It's heartbreaking because it reminds me that people can be ruined -- everyone is broken in their life, in some way, some more than others, and everyone differently -- but people can be ruined the way that dogs can be ruined. You can't train a cat to be so vicious that it has to be put down, but you can do that to a dog. And you can starve a little girl of interaction so badly that she doesn't know how to laugh.
At first they called it "environmental autism," because although there was nothing was diagnosably wrong, she was seven years old and acted like an infant, and was almost completely unresponsive.
The Girl in the Window - St. Petersburg Times
Photos and video of the story
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
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5 comments:
That story is horrific. Something more than horrific. You (well, not you) made me cry at work.
There was a somewhat similar big story recently out of Philadelphia, about another girl named "Danielle" (her name's spelling may have been "Danieal" or "Daniel"??)
In that case, Danielle died.
Copy and paste the following URL to hear the podcast of a radio program on NPR that covered the grand jury report on the case and what turned out to be an utter failure of the child welfare systems. The person interviewed for the program was the district attorney of the district in Philadelphia, who either wrote or was involved in writing the report.
http://search.everyzing.com/viewMedia.jsp?dedupe=1&index=56&col=en-all-public-ep&e=20593357&il=en&format=xml&num=10&scol=pod&mc=en-all&start=50&q=Open+Source&expand=true&match=query,channel&filter=1
It was a really thought-provoking interview that focused on the ways in which the *system* failed the child.
And that's what reading the story you linked to made me think about. In the story you linked, like the story I linked, CPS was called not just once, but mutliple times before any action was taken on behalf of the child other than a brief home visit. In the story you linked, the only services that apparently were offered to the mother as a result of two prior investigations-- a mother who apparently had an IQ of 77-- was free childcare! Worse yet, apparently no follow-up whatsoever was scheduled at any time with the family!
This child was neglected not just by her mother, but in my opinion for a period of several years by the only system that could have protected her.
I want to recommend to those who don't have time to read the article and go see the slides and videos, that they go to the slides and videos you have linked. The audio clips and the timeline provided a new dimmension to the story.
All that said, I found the article and the audio clips to contain some misnomers about the parenting children with special needs and also about current thinking regarding adoption. I was disappointed that Danielle's adoptive parents seemed to lack some fundamental information in both arena.
Still, I am glad she is safe and well.
Found this if you want a non-audio link regarding what happened in Philadelphia:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/08/01/2008-08-01_nine_charged_in_starvation_death_of_disa.html?page=0
Thanks for the links -- I'll check them out.
The system (or, rather, the individuals that make up the system) definitely failed her as well. We'll never know why those calls weren't appropriately followed up on, but it's just horrifying to think that others walked into that house and somehow thought it was fine to leave her there.
I also find the mother's perspective mind boggling. Not as though she's had the best life ever, but she did seem to fall into that classic narcissist category -- it was everyone else's fault, she was doing the best she could, etc. Some of it was disastrous circumstances, yes (and I agree -- the free childcare offer was laughably insufficient), but I think the mother bears a huge amount of responsibility for what happened to her daughter.
I'm not sure what you mean by what fundamental information Dani's adoptive parents lacked. Maybe you could elaborate? (since I'm certainly more in the dark on this issue than Dani's adopted parents are).
I think it is right and useful to hold the mother accountable for the gross negligence of her child, which obviously supersedes the "typical" case of neglect.
However, it is in fact the child protective system which does the job of holding parents accountable for said neglect, and after the fact, I think it is of little use for us to leave the issue at pointing the blame finger on the mother.
I'm speaking only for myself, of course, but I am guessing the mama bear in most of humanity comes out at times like this. *Of course* the mama bear in all of us is going to be shrieking, raging against the trauma this child endured, feeling protective and angry, and wanting to demand answers, demand some sort of resolution that on some level we are sure would (for example) come if only the mother could accept responsibility.
She can't. And she won't. Something normalized this for her to the extent that she could not see the truth. Perhaps it was her challenges with cognitive processing, I am guessing likely combined with a mental illness of some sort. Perhaps a cycle of abuse that was passed down in generation after generation of her family. Perhaps a cycle of desperation that spiraled into pyschosis. Perhaps all of the above, or something else entirely. We'll never know. And none of the answers will ever be satisfactory, to justify the pain and suffering this child endured for seven years.
In my what, is it seven years as a foster parent (?), I've yet to encounter a parent of a child in foster care who, before a significant amount of work, has been able to accept full responsibility for the things they have done, or failed to do, or allowed to happen. Honestly, the way the mother talks in the audio clip sounds so familiar, it hardly caught my attention.
If this mother was trying to get pregnant again (I've seen that), or something of that nature, I think we'd all do her and ourselves some good by our outcry. But unless she is at risk of putting another child at risk, I think the systemic questions will always be the more useful.
Maybe I am jaded. Maybe this story is an extreme version of an all-too familiar story, but I just can't hear the story and focus at all on the mother. All I can think of is, HOW ON EARTH was childcare the only service offered? HOW ON EARTH could any social worker walk away from a situation developing into what was to become without even scheduling a follow-up? HOW ON EARTH could no one have intervened sooner? Why did SEVEN years have to slip away before help could be found for Danielle?
Also, honestly, I am not sure that the mother's special needs in combination with a possible pre-existing special need of the child weren't the real toxic combo. When I hear her saying, "I put clothes on her, she just ripped them off," I can believe there is a grain of truth there. This is a kid who later had to be taught to tolerate sand on a beach. It is concievable that she had a sensory processing disorder of some kind even prior to the onset of neglect. In a situation like that, the child could have found clothing physically painful to wear, and could have not been able to tolerate wearing them. Late toilet learning? Oh, absolutely. It's not uncommon for a child with special needs not to use the toilet consistently even through adulthood.
I am absolutely NOT making excuses for this mother. Believe me. I have argued myself that for far too long, a child's disability has been used as justification for abuse. There is NO justification here. None. And I will never accept that a child deserves or can accept some blame for their own abuse. Never, ever. BUT we have to remember that there is reason to believe that this mother had her own challenges. Knowing that may at least be able to help us better understand what went wrong.
When the mother discovered her child had difficulty eating, the bottle could have seemed in her mind to be a logical substitute. It keeps babies happy and nourished, afterall. Given the mother's own challenges, it may not have even occurred to her that her daughter might have had a sensory or motor issue or other issue with eating that could be helped by some type of therapy. Or that absent the opportunity to keep trying to eat, little by little, the child may come to refuse any other nourishment but the bottle. Or that a dietary plan like liquid feeding requires physician and nutritionist involvement, guidance, and supervision once a child has left infancy.
The report cited that there were poop smears on the walls of the house. Poop-smearing is also not unheard of where special needs are concerned. So then the mother who has little cognitive resources to call on, and for all we know other contributing factors such as depression, doesn't "get" that this is not only a big sign that her daughter needs MORE help not less, doesn't "get" that you have to clean up after such events. Doesn't "get" that there may be professional help available that might reduce the episodes.
I thought it was utterly ridiculous that the physician working with the child ruled out the possibility of anything but an environmental cause for the child's issues. I will lay aside for now the sheer laughability of this doc coining her own new diagnostic category: "environmental autism."
...Clearly there was a genetic family history, and for the vast majority of kids with even profound developmental delays, no cause is ever found despite genetic testing, MRIs, EEGs, and the likes. She can't rule out that the child didn't have special needs before the neglect unless she has a time machine. The way she presents the case is just, well, unscientific, and therefore an afront to reason.
Now granted, neglect on the scale described would cause a great degree of neurological deficit. We know from research on infant and child deprivation that in order even to just stay alive in many cases, infants and children need a whole heck of a lot more than just food and water. So any child, having special needs or not, is going to suffer from neurological stress and impairment under those conditions. I am just saying that there could have been something additional there from the start.
As for the adoption and special needs concerns I had upon reading the article, I'll quote and give a brief explanation, and then you can ask if you are still wondering where I am coming from:
1. "They give an example: When Dani feels overwhelmed she retreats to her room, rolls onto her back, pulls one sock toward the end of her toes and bats it. For hours. Bernie and Diane tell her to stop."
When she feels overwhelmed, she retreats and finds a way to calm herself. Self-regulation. That's an important skill, even if a child needs to do it in a unique manner. Yet her parents tell her to stop?!
"Now, when Dani hears them coming, she peels off her sock and throws it into the closet to hide it."
This is cited as an example of progress, and looking at it through one lens, I see what they mean. Yes, it is progress that she can anticipate a reaction and plan for it. But seriously, how awful that the whole thing is centered around her HIDING her methods of self-regulation.
All behavior is communication. When the behavior is no longer needed, it ceases. She wasn't hurting anyone including herself by batting around her sock.
2. "Dani, sit down and try to use the potty," Diane coaxes. "Pull down your shorts. That's a good girl."
So what kind of a girl is she if she isn't able to sit down and try to use the potty in that moment?
3. Of course, some of my feelings about the parents really aren't justified. It is in fact the language the writer uses. Things like: "She's lost inside herself. Again." Typical anti-neurodivergence rhetoric. I wish the author would have done a little more research on the language she should use.
4. "She seems to talk most often when William is tickling her, as if something from her subconscious seeps out when she's too distracted to shut it off. Her brother has heard her say, 'Stop!' and 'No!'?
In the audio clip the brother also says that he tells his sister he won't stop until she says a word. So the brother of this child who has had no control over her environment for her first seven years of life is allowed to tickle torture her into speaking? What value does this serve? Satisfaction for the family, that she is using words?
I am pretty sure tickle torture actually violates foster care policies in the county I come from.
5. "To Bernie and Diane, Danielle's birth mother is a cipher, almost never spoken of. The less said, the better."
This comes uncomfortably close to me to the dangerous territory of you know, for example, not talking with kids about that scary thing they witnessed while walking home from school one day, or the death of their father, or whatever.
When we believe the less said, the better, our kids pick up on that stuff as a big secret.
This is therapeutically damaging, to make these things "unmentionable" simply by never mentioning or acknowledging them, by never giving our children the relief of affirmation that we can tolerate hearing about the awful things they have experienced.
This is stuff people learn even in the introductory foster parent training courses. It's really common sense and common knowledge.
6. "As far as they are concerned Danielle was born the day they found her."
Again, this antiquated thinking about adoption has proven to be of no value really to children, and can in fact be therapeutically harmful in many cases. This child had SEVEN years of life before her adoptive parents came along. SEVEN. Acting as if she was a non-person before that is, whether the parents like it or not, dehumanizing. She already was born. She was a human being. She existed.
Look, foster-adopt parents get to read the files of our children before adoption. It's called "full disclosure." My son's file filled two 3" binders. The files in our state are "family files." This means they include all records on any CPS involvement with a family, including for example, if a birthparent's parents were investigated by CPS at any point when the birthparent was a child. Any siblings in care-- their files are there too. It doesn't matter if it is painful for the foster parents to think about. You sit there and you read every shocking, horrendous, awful, sickening account because as your child's parent, you have to be willing to accept it as a part of your child's reality.
You just do it. The ammended birth certificate (an issue on which I support reform) doesn't mean your child is born unto you. Your child had another set of parents first. And your child has a history that you will never be a part of, will never know or fully understand, but you have to just accept it as a part of the wholeness of your child.
Which brings me back to the first mother. Toward that same point in the article, the author writes about her: "yet this unimaginable woman is out there somewhere."
Again, I acknowledge this was an extreme and horrific and unforgivable case. But this woman is not unimaginable. She is a human being, and she exists. And at some point, as a foster and adoptive mother, I had to look at my son's first mother (who also has special needs) with compassion and, while not setting aside any of my frustration and shock, learn to see her as a neglected and hurt child too. Does this mean I do not hold her responsible? Does it mean she dodges accountability? Absolutely not. But it does mean that my son will never have to feel ashamed of "the stock" he comes from, never have to feel-- when he recognizes something of himself in them, some resemblance-- that perhaps if they are unimaginable, so is he.
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