BS: Starving girls found - absent father

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: dianavan
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 07:11 PM

Kaleea - Where do you live? We have home-schooling in Vancouver but not in "massive" numbers. The choice for home-schooling in Vancouver has little or nothing to do with why parents make that decision. It often has to do with travel.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 06:42 PM

They should be required to present the children to a doctor, as should every foster and adoptive family, heck make it everyone, once a year at the very least, more if there have been suspicions or complaints. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Kaleea
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 06:29 PM

With the massive numbers of children who are home schooled, "authorities" know nothing of the children. The most common reason for choosing to homeschool children is to keep the children away from non"Christians."

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 12:40 PM

Thank you John!

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 11:36 AM

While the original news report is pretty persuasive, subsequent brief local reports indicate the possibility that there may be more, or less, to the story than appears.

Interviews with neighbors found several who attested that they are familiar with the children, observed them regularly, and that they are unconvinced that the children were being mistreated.

The original report is based entirely on what one police officer said, and while he apparently is convinced, it is not known whether he has experience with children, or with any similar cases.

The only description of the inadequate feeding of the children comes from the children themselves, and specifically from questioning by the one officer who apparently gave the story to the news media. Questioning children of this age, and getting answers that can be trusted, is a job for experts(??????) and few parents will assert that they always believe their own well managed kids. No indication has been given that the officer involved has any experience or training in handling the interrogation of children in cases of this kind.

The officer said that the children were "in intensive care" but the hospital has not confirmed that, so far as local media have reported.

That officer says that "a doctor" told "a police officer" about their medical condition; but neither the doctor nor the other officer has been identified. No attributable medical opinion has been released and so far as has been reported the hospital has as yet provided no official "medical assessment" to the police or to child welfare investigators.

The woman was not arrested, and no comment from the husband has been released as of the last reports heard. It does not appear that authorities are making any particular effort to have the husband interrupt his two-week(?) business trip to attend to the matter.

It is entirely possible that the situation is as described in the first reports; but I would suggest waiting for further results from the investigation that is in progress before assuming that everything has been said about this case.

Given the seriousness of the reported condition, it is appropriate that the two "emaciated" children and the other two children have been placed in temporary custodial care. The care facility has a long-established reputation for "trying very hard" to do what's best for children in their care. Unfortunately, when parent's fail, or when such failure must be investigated, there are far too few really good ways to care for the victims.

It is unfortunately true that cases of the sort described are not particularly rare, and concern for what may have happened certainly is justified. Concern and caring for our neighbors, and support for those officially involved, are certainly obligations we all share.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: leeneia
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 11:08 AM

There's a lot we don't know.

What country were these people from? Where was the girls' mother? Were the healthy children boys or girls?

There are countries where, if the other two were boys, then starving the girls and clucking the tongue when they "died of pneumonia (or whatever)" would be considered normal behavior.

There also are cultures where, if the father took the girls away from their mother, then she has absolutely no rights in the matter and no one will tell her where they are. The father could be mistreating the girls in order to punish their mother.

As for the schools, I think we can assume that if they were being kept in a basement, then they weren't going to school.

I'm just so glad that someone sent in the tip and that the children are out of there.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 10:27 AM

Do I hear a small note of sarcasm there Greg????? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 08:59 AM

Don't be sidetracked by issues like starving and abused children.
FOCUS, PEOPLE!!! We're fighting a War On Terror! And we've got to eliminate the Death Tax!

Jesus, get your priorities straight.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 08:25 PM

Yet another horror story but it just ain't all that uncommon. Wanna' hear more? Didn't think so. It happens in Kansas as well as New York.....in Ohio as well as California.......in Alabama as well as Illinois.

Go get involved. The turnover in the child protection business is tremendous. Lots of jobs for all kinds of different talents. Just remember that love won't conquer all and if you make a miniscule and unbelievably tiny difference......then you did a lot.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 07:54 PM

Not a cheap shot at all. I jump all over abusive and neglectful women...in this case I thought it was clearly obvious. The partner who turns a deaf ear, eye, whatever, is just as guilty in my book, and it quite often is the mother..oh but I love him..oh but he is wonderful when he is not drinking..oh I didn't notice he was gone from my bed for hours every night and my teenage daughter is acting strange...WHile they are each in jail, at the very least sterilize them. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 05:54 PM

The story of Cinderella suggests that this is not a new phenomenon.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 05:08 PM

I am sure he did, SINSULL. However, I am talking aboout the nature of the thread title. It just looks like another cheap shot at men in general.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 05:03 PM

Do you really think that Dad did not notice how thin and sickly his children were when they were allowed to dine with the family?

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 04:45 PM

I think the title of this thread is not very good. It's misleading. How about 'RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father, abusive mother

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 04:26 PM

There have been several such cases in the North Texas area in recent years. It defys imagination how people can treat their children this way, except as Azizi says, if you've been around child protective services folks (my mother was an MSW working in that department in Washington State) then you'd be totally depressed at the state of many of the homes where workers are called out to check on children. So many slip through those administrative cracks (the most frequent ones being children returned to monsterous parents or caseworkers ignoring pleas from neighbors to intervene).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Maryrrf
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 03:45 PM

I read that book. It was horrifying. This was also a case where only one child was starved, beaten and humiliated while the siblings were fed and clothed.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: jacqui.c
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 03:22 PM

Read 'A Boy Called It'. It is a very harrowimg book and difficult to believe that anyone could act that way to a child.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 03:04 PM

Do a GOOGLE search on starved children and you will find this is not uncommon. And it seems that some children starve while others are fed in the same household.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Azizi
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 10:54 AM

Yes, you're right Sorcha.

Neighbors need to be alert and aware, too.

While I dislike that over-used proverb, because it has been so over-used, it is nonetheless true that

"It takes a village to raise a child".

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Sorcha
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 10:49 AM

Neighbors too, Zi.....

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Azizi
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 10:46 AM

In my work as a foster care caseworker, I know of too many cases of birth parents-and sometimes foster & adoptive parents-treating children badly.

I hope this Home the "healthy" children were placed is only temporary and all of these children will be placed in one or possibly two foster homes.

Perhaps the Wichita Children's Home is "homelike", and if so, good. But it seems to me that both sets of these children need a lot of tender loving care in well structured, well monitored foster families. And all the better if these foster families are adoption resources because it sounds to me like both the mother and father who was away on business were at fault. I would really hate for either set of these kids to go back to those parents. And, for that matter-where were extended family members???! The newspaper report says that these girls were 6 & 7 years old. Didn't they go to school? Aren't the schools' teachers, principal, or social worker supposed to report this kind of thing???!! How could anyone not have noticed that these kids were emaciated and that one set of children in that family appeared to be well fed and another set appeared like concentration camp survivors???

Also, I hope that the state or county is going to pay for therapy for all of these kids including play therapy now and other forms of psychological therapy later. Imo, they're gonna need it.

And I meant all of the children...For instance, if he is of average intelligence, the 8 year old at least old enough to know that something was wrong with his siblings not eating when he and his other sister were?

How awful this must have been for him and his sister to know that his other sisters were in the basement starving.

One lesson that can be taken from this-we all must be vigilent when it comes to the well being of all children-not just those children we give birth to.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Sorcha
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 09:57 AM

We hear talk about people 'falling thru the crack'. These poor kids didn't even have a FLOOR! Come on Sedgwick County, get a MOVE on!!!!

Do unto others what they have done to children....gods, sometimes I wish we could....

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 08:07 AM

I wonder why it wasn't noticed at school. Assuming they had been attending school.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: John O'L
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 01:41 AM

Something I have often thought myself Sorcha, but then I immediately answer myself with - who would decide on and police the minimum parenting requirements?, and of course, who would then screen them?

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 11:56 PM

JESUS FECKING KEERIST!! Puppy buyers have to go thru a screeening process (if you buy from a reptuable breeder) so


WHY can't humans be screened also???????

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 11:55 PM

Here's a bit longer version of that story:

Police take emaciated girls from house
BY STAN FINGER The Wichita Eagle

Police found two young girls in a basement Friday who were so emaciated that an officer compared them to Nazi death camp survivors. Their two step-siblings were upstairs with their mother, healthy and well fed.

Acting on a tip, state social workers stopped by the house Friday to check on the welfare of the children in the 1500 block of South Wichita. They then notified the police. "It's the worst case of malnutrition I've ever seen," Lt. E.J. Bastian said.

The 6- and 7-year-old girls kept in the basement told police they ate whenever their dad was home. But that wasn't very often.

He was out of town on business this week and he would be gone next week, too --"so they were really hoping they could eat this weekend," Bastian said.

The two girls were so thin "they looked like concentration-camp survivors," he said. The 4-year-old girl and 8-year-old boy belonging to the girls' stepmother were obviously well cared for, Bastian said. The house had plenty of food, too.

Bastian said he was so angry at what he saw that he had to take a walk down the block of the south Wichita neighborhood to regain his composure.

The two emaciated children were taken to Wesley Medical Center for treatment and have been placed in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Bastian said.

A doctor told police that it looked like they hadn't eaten in six days or had anything to drink in three -- days on which the high temperatures hit 108, 108 and 109.

"This isn't a six-day starvation," the doctor told a police officer, Bastian said. "Obviously, these kids have been starved for quite a while."

The two healthy children have been taken into protective custody and placed at the Wichita Children's Home. The hospitalized children will join them there upon their release from the hospital.

The children's stepmother has been taken in for questioning, Bastian said. The father will be interrogated when he returns to Wichita.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 11:49 PM

They both sound criminally incompetent as parents. Do you suppose this guy didn't notice that one set of kids were thriving and the other wasn't?

Most people treat their dogs better.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 10:27 PM

Well of course arrest the stepmother. I presume that has been done or at least she is in custody. Father is not innocent here, with healthy children and starving children in the same house. Assuming he might have thought they had a genetic disease or something to cause this, surely there would have been doctors contacted. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 10:25 PM

The Wichita Eagle. story is on front page.

It hit 109° today there. (I remember 111°...but I wasn't being starved in a basement!)

I hope they survive....and I hope other things.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: dianavan
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 10:15 PM

Mary - Sounds like the stepmother was the one starving them. It says that when dad was home, they ate.

In any event, I'm glad all of the kids were removed from the home.

Subject: RE: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 10:12 PM

"WICHITA, Kan. - Two emaciated girls who told police they ate only when their father wasn't traveling on business were hospitalized after police found them in an advanced state of starvation.

"It's the worst case of malnutrition I've ever seen," said police Lt. E.J. Bastian. The 6- and 7-year-old girls were found Friday in a home's basement, were they were kept.

The girls' stepmother, whose biological children were found healthy and well-fed upstairs, was taken in for questioning. Their father, traveling on business, was to be questioned when he returned, police said."

Maybe talk with him and arrest the stepmother. READ the article.

Subject: BS: Starving girls found - absent father
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 10:07 PM

Take a look at this...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13988087/

Two starving girls in a basement..stepmother..father is on a business trip. The police say they plan to question him when he returns....how about they plan to arrest him when right now wherever he is..certainly the states can cooperate....How about they demand he get right back here immediately or else...this is nuts. mg