Parents need a voice to provide balance to media coverage of children’s and family issues, says the Canadian Equal Parenting Council (CEPC).
In the coverage of children’s issues, the voice of parents is often missing, and too often denigrated or dismissed as self-serving or self-interest. The “professionals” and “experts” so often quoted have their own agendas and financial interests involved. Without the viewpoint of parents, who do successfully the vast majority of child-raising, the issues are one sided and incomplete.
Courts, child and family services and other state agencies often treat parents as unpaid employees with unlimited work hours and “no rights, only responsibilities.” Parents are stereotyped unfairly as “deadbeat dads” or “lazy welfare moms”. Sometimes a single horrific case of child neglect is generalized to blame and shame all parents. Often, governments refer to professionals in law and social agencies as the only “stakeholders”, while neglecting or refusing equal consultations with parents.
In the native residential school system, children were taken from parents by state agencies and others acting with state authority, ostensibly for the “children’s best interests” but the hidden agenda was removing the cultural influence of the parents. The financial interests of government, Indian agencies and church organizations were not covered by media at the time, and parents’ views were ignored.
Parents are the only sustainable child-raising system. Government-run systems may be necessary in a small minority of cases, but these require huge inputs of tax dollars and show outcomes for children which are significant inferior to untrained and unsupported parents.
The CEPC is dedicated to representing the views of parents, empowering parents to best raise their children, promoting equal treatment of, and respect for parents, while promoting due process and clear standards in any state involvement in removing children from their parents.
Media can call the Canadian Equal Parenting Council on issues involving children for a viewpoint to balance the opinions of those who earn their living from government and quasi-government “child and family” industries.
Glenn Cheriton, co-President, CEPC
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“There are volumes of documented cases where kids are unable to believe in who they are because of the damage a parent/step-parent does by discouraging relationships with the other parent.“
Of all the people one encounters over a lifetime, I didn’t anticipate knowing what type of woman would take my child. Having experienced it first hand, I still cannot imagine how someone would think it was okay to take a boy away from his entire maternal family. Parental Alienation is illegal and morally wrong.
In December 1996, my only boy was born. Although his dad and I haven’t been together for over a decade, he has a mother. My son and I enjoyed a close relationship with family and friends. This was abruptly discontinued in December 2007 when his aunt (his dad’s sister) was killed by her partner.
Poor judgement and actions due to their ineffectual coping skills have caused a rippling affect within the family that cannot be undone. Without one iota of forethought, legal, or medical reason his dad and current partner have worked in pulling my son away from his maternal roots.
Over the past four years endless attempts to contact my son are to no avail. Whether it’s through court, letters, phone calls, or email, we’re met with no response – all our correspondence and gifts returned.
This campaign of hate will minimize the core of who my son is. His entire perspective on women, their role in the family and community is now warped and dysfunctional as a result.
I am his biological parent; while the current partner and her child are an addition, she has a responsibility as his step-parent. Instead of working together, they cut out his mother’s family, and as a result – this kind, caring boy will likely resent his captors.