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Originally Posted by stevo
Stories I read say they are all adopted from other states. Neighbors say the parents "home school" the kids and have them work abnormally long hours in the yard and garden. They used the cages for punishment and sleeping. Sounds like slavery to me.
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In light of recent information and inconsistencies in media reports I would like to retract this statement.
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Originally Posted by zen_tom
Apart from the sensationalism of the news story, I don't see sleeping arrangements being anything to get worked up about. They may well have had pillows and blankets, there were 11 children and 9 'cages' does that mean that the two eldest children slept in a bed? We don't know because the sensationalism of the story would be lost if that were the case.
Yes 11 children is enough for anyone to look after, and I might have some views over how sensible it is for two private individuals running what would appear to be a back-door, unregulated and state funded orphanage - but the cages I can't comment on because they've evidently been exaggerated by the distorted lens of the media.
For example, I remember my baby brother being put to bed in a cot (a bed with rails to stop him falling out at night), he used to play in a play pen - again, basically a cage. We used to have a gate at the top and bottom of the stairs to stop him being able to fall down the stairs. Cripes, we even had the child-lock switches set to lock on the back-doors of the car so that he couldn't accidentally fall out as we were driving along.
Since we kept him in such blatant captivity, should he have been taken off and put into a foster home?
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I think tom is on to something here.
Obviously there are conflicting reports of the "cages" and no one has yet to provide a picture of them. I just recently heard the "cages" described as bunk-beds built into the wall. Now I don't know about you, but I've never had more than 3 feet in height between bunk beds. Another thing is that if these are cages, they are 3 dimensional. The only reports I've read only provide 2 dimensions, 40inch by 40inch, or 3ft by 3ft. It is possible that the media is leaving out the 5 ft in lenth and just reporting the height and depth of the "cages". Also, I read that only one of the "cages" had a door on it that could be locked, all of the other "cages'" doors could be freely opened. Now if I had 11 handicapped children sleeping at night, I would like to know if any of them got out of bed, so the alarm makes sense.
I also heard that among the various disabilities these children have, one of them has AIDS. And he likes to bite. To me it would make sense, for his saftey and the saftey of eveyone in the house, that this kid not be able to bite other children. I also heard a report that one of the autistic kids was violent.
This could very well be a case of news media sensationalism, and I took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. But then once I read and heard more on it, some things in the media stories just don't seem to add up. The children we well fed, well dressed, and neighbors say well-adjusted. There have yet to be any signs of abuse.
I'm sure there's some distortion going on here, I'd like to know how much.