In the beginning, the builders of what would become a system of massive intrusion into families, and, ultimately, the separation of millions of children from their parents, all in the name of “child welfare,” insisted that poverty had nothing at all to do with what they labeled “child abuse” and “child neglect.”
“Child
abuse crosses class lines” was the mantra in the 1970s and 1980s. In the effort
to pass the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA),
discussion of poverty was suppressed. Unless parents — and not economic
inequality — could be blamed, there was no way CAPTA was going to pass. Not
surprisingly, the result was a law that has led us in the wrong direction for decades.
But
then, when people noticed that nonwhite families were surveilled and had their
children removed at vastly disproportionate rates, the child welfare
establishment had a problem. There was no way they were going to admit to
racial bias, so they said: It’s because those families are poor! (Spoiler
alert: it’s actually both.)
