It is a very sad thing to have to remove children from their parents but in the long run, given the right care, the children will typically have a better life

“Given the right care” is the problem – institutions almost always get underfunded and end up giving bad care, even with best intentions, love and effort from the staff. With bad staff they are terrible.
I agree with John that adoption with commitment works, but there are few adopting parents for school age kids. Mum’s latest boyfriend is often a disaster, abusing the kids. I am foster parent of a teenager.

On the other hand, “In many cases they were educated only for farm work” doesn’t sound any worse than rural australian-born kids of the same period.

Be a while before we sort that one out. Just today I saw a doco, Primal Instinct, a program addressing the neurobiology of explosive anger. Data from varying sources is beginning to paint a picture that indicates childhood deprivation has serious consequences for adult behavior. This is not always the case, as they mentioned in this program, it was a combination of certain genes for the serotonin transporter and\or MAOs (these are enzymes which degrade serotoning, dopamine and nore), together with childhood deprivation. In one study the correlation was striking: 85% There are a whole lot of difficult and troubling ethical and legal questions here.

It is a very sad thing to have to remove children from their parents but it the long run, given the right care, the children will typically have a better life. Take for example the recent research by Marion Diamond et al. They found that children from simply deprived backgrounds, not abusive backgrounds, had brain wave patterns similiar to those of brain injury victims. That is deeply disturbing and given such findings it is very easy to see how generational transmission of bad behavior can be mediated as much by environment by genes.

If people wish to seek compensation for past wrong it should done through the courts not the govt. In relation to the Stolen Generation my understanding is the a trial case in the Federal Court in Darwin was thrown out when it was revealed that the children were removed because the aboriginal camp was near a mine so the aborigines were engaging in prostitution and there was clear evidence of child neglect occurring. To my knowledge there has not been a single case brought before the courts at that time.

Step parents are have no particular vested interest in the welfare of a child, adoptees, prepared to treat the children as their own, which doesn’t happen in foster care, make a lifelong commitment. Studies like those on maternal deprivation and enriched environments can cast some light on what is happening here. Just a little light though.

Maybe, but we are talking here about the forced removal of kids who are usually older than newborns.

I think removing people’s children is pretty much the most onerous thing you can do to them, apart from blowing their brains out. It has to be done in certain cases, but ‘inept’ is a broad word and I think that for the state to make a decision that it will use its power to break up a family, in preference to putting in extra support services for example, is just wrong.

Perhaps because of my time in that field, perhaps because I am an adoptee and have read plenty on it, but I maintain the simple ‘quaint’ notion that any kid who has parents who genuinely love them has something priceless, and the chance of finding that elsewhere if the state tears it apart because, for example, dad is a heavy ganja smoker or mum’s a bit dim, is modest.

There are plenty of worse cases that require the priority and resources of the child welfare system…

There’s pretty good research indicating that while children (generally) do better with both biological parents and worse with stepparents, it seems that formal legal adoption cancels out much of the negative consequences attached to both stepparents and fostering. There are a variety of theories as to why, but no-one can pin them down with any causal certainty.

I think some of the opposition to the Stolen Generations apology came from people thinking in a defensive way, “Well I didn’t personally steal aboriginal kids away, why should I say sorry?” Or even, “We thought we were doing the right thing at the time, how can you apologise for something that was motivated by the best interests of the kids?” And I think in some cases, there was a genuine reason why the state took a kid away – but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was the best outcome for the kid. Exactly the same analysis applies to these English kids.

I really don’t understand why there’s not the same debate about the Forgotten Generation apology. Is it racism (easier to apologise to white people than to black)? Or is it just that people can comfortably think, “That’s really England’s fault, not ours,” whereas there’s no way to pass the buck on the indigenous one. Or is it that having made one apology, and finding that the world hasn’t collapsed, we’re more easy about doing it a second time?

Look, I have some sympathy for John’s idea that the whole Stolen Generation apology was a platitude. My problem with it is this. It’s a nice idea in principle, but if it’s not backed up by action, then it’s just so much horse sh!t. So if aboriginal kids are still being charged for receiving a freddo frog, then we still have a problem, and no apology is going to change that.

But on the other hand, once the Stolen Generation apology was made, I couldn’t help being moved by the relief shown by people. So I’m prepared to admit it was more than a platitude – symbolic action can be important. I just also want it to be backed up by MORE than symbolism.

I think I got my comments convoluted. My first was sarcastic, and I went back to my own blog to have a big rant on that point ( vaguely articulated point about the fact that some of the things the news shows were tut tutting about yesterday morning still happen). I support yesterday’s apology completely.

My messily used sarcasm then led to SL thinking I support more removals in the case of inept parents, which I definitely do not.

John I find the construction of this as a pure lefty thing kinda wierd. I don’t have the references but my recollection of the debate around the Stolen Gens apology was that it was often people on the conservative side who were pointing out that it wasn’t just Aboriginals who experienced unpleasant removals into care.

In terms of it just being platitudes though, I don’t completely disagree. I think the look in the eyes of so many older people yesterday said it all though- an apology really can go a long way (and lack thereof can be an immovable hurdle).

Oh grow up. The apology idea was initiated by the recipients of the apology. Why not oblige? I suppose you think the apology to Holocaust victims was also totally unnecessary and all the work of nasty lefty German grandstanders.