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Member Since: 6/2008Last Seen: 11/03/2009

Alleged Polygamist Sect Bride, 14, Distraught in Texas Custody | ScrippsNews

News Type: Event — Seeded on Sat Aug 23, 2008 6:17 PM EDT
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Child and siblings distraught that she is the only child being taken back into custody. Heart-wrenching transfer of custody back to state was recorded.

My question is: Who do you think is traumatizing these kids the most?

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{"commentId":2561868,"authorDomain":"KyanaBelle"}
KyanaBelle

I think this particular family has been chosen to serve as the "example" by the State. Although I don't condone what this FLDS sect has practiced, what they have done was socially acceptable in their isolated community. Looking specifically at age, this practice would not have been considered abuse 60 years ago. 70 years ago it would have been rather common. In their isolated community, these children, much like the child brides of 70 years ago, did not consider themselves abused. At least not until the State of Texas started their campaign to terrorize these kids and strip them of any sense of security they had. All probably worried that at any moment they will be snatched from their parents and their parents will be helpless to "protect" them from that danger. Almost any child's worse fear is to be separated from their parents. These kids have seen that fear become reality once already and they know the danger of it happening again at any moment. They will probably bear the emotional scars for life. Real nice work, Texas.

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{"commentId":2561868,"threadId":"338442","contentId":"1778024","authorDomain":"KyanaBelle"}
  • 1 vote
Reply#1 - Sat Aug 23, 2008 6:31 PM EDT
{"commentId":2565136,"authorDomain":"xanthiana"}
Xanthiana

This is really a lose/lose situation. The kids will bear the emotional scars for the rest of their life whether they go to foster homes or whether they stay in that community and get married at age 14. My daughter is 15, she would never be able to cope as a wife at this age.

While this young age for marriage was acceptable 60 or 70 years ago, it is no longer so for a reason. Back then children started to work and help out at a very young age, in essence missing the greater part of childhood. This no longer is the case and thus allows for children to develop slower, which of course means they are ill-prepared for marriage at 14.

So all in all, it is messed up religious believes that are on a collision course with the government, or the other way around, where there are not going to be any winners.

{"commentId":2565136,"threadId":"338442","contentId":"1778024","authorDomain":"xanthiana"}
  • 1 vote
Reply#2 - Sun Aug 24, 2008 2:50 AM EDT
{"commentId":2566653,"authorDomain":"KyanaBelle"}
KyanaBelle
Back then children started to work and help out at a very young age, in essence missing the greater part of childhood. This no longer is the case and thus allows for children to develop slower, which of course means they are ill-prepared for marriage at 14.

I respectfully disagree. Most of today's kids are ill-prepared for marriage at this age. These are not typical kids. These kids were raised under conditions very similar to what those kids of 60 to 70 years ago were. I'm not condoning marriage at 14 - certainly not. But under the conditions these children were raised in, it was no more traumatic to them than it was to those young brides of yesteryear. To them is was normal. It's difficult for people of our era to understand this, but to these kids this was a normal part of the life they were raised in. These kids did have a sense of security, safety and belonging in the culture/community they've known, isolated from the world outside. Sadly, I also believe these kids were probably getting more parental attention, care and nurturing than most of our modern-day kids get. I firmly believe the State is doing far, far more damage to them by removing them than the sect ever did. The State has permanently stripped any sense of security or safety they felt in the confines of their community away from all 400 of them. Worse yet, the State took them and placed them into a culture that was frighteningly different from the culture they knew to be "normal." I can not imagine a worse way of handling this. This one little girl's connection with Jeffs is the reason she is being singled out right now. It is horrible that her 17 year old brother is so fearful for her well-being that he wanted to be taken back into custody with her just so she would not be all alone with no protection out in that strange world. It's heartbreaking.

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  • 2 votes
#2.1 - Sun Aug 24, 2008 11:22 AM EDT
{"commentId":2567004,"authorDomain":"xanthiana"}
Xanthiana

I agree to a point, Kyana. The state went about this absolutely the wrong way. It would have been much better to keep those 400 kids in a similar setting then just dumping them into the year 2008. In addition to the stress of removal they had many more issues. Nonetheless, if I choose to live in a country I have to oblige to the laws. As far as I know you have to be 16 (?) to marry with the consent of your parents? So it would have been up to the parents as well to be law abiding when agreeing to these marriages. I think the state law should be above a religious community's law, but I agree that the state handled the removal poorly. When they removed all the children as well as when they singled out one child.

However, listening to the 14 year old and how much she needed her mother still, I am very doubtful that she is ready to be married off. Either she can stand on her own or she needs the backing of her family. This goes for state removal as well marriage.

{"commentId":2567004,"threadId":"338442","contentId":"1778024","authorDomain":"xanthiana"}
  • 1 vote
#2.2 - Sun Aug 24, 2008 12:21 PM EDT
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{"commentId":2577843,"authorDomain":"cbcourtois"}
Charlie Courtois
Almost any child's worse fear is to be separated from their parents.

To try to assign blame here, KYNABELLE, is a thorny issue. When I,initially, read about the action Texas had taken, I was all for it. What I was for, was that the illegal practice of polygamy was going to be challenged. I still think it is an abomination. I am not sure the moral high ground should be the CHILDREN or THE State of Texas. The whole thing turned out to be a disgraceful mess. NO SOLUTION! CharlieC

{"commentId":2577843,"threadId":"338442","contentId":"1778024","authorDomain":"cbcourtois"}
  • 1 vote
Reply#3 - Mon Aug 25, 2008 1:23 PM EDT
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