Fighting for the Family:

(Re-posted from my Hubpages blog)

In the biblical story of the 'Wisdom of Solomon', two women are in disagreement over who is the mother of a baby.
Solomon is attributed with having "great wisdom" for discerning that a mother would rather give up her child to the care of another than have it slaughtered... so he threatens to split the baby in half & duly the woman who is the true mother cries out that she would rather give up the
baby to the other woman, than see it killed...
... the act of self sacrifice which is performed by this woman is considered as such a given, that it's power & beauty are reduced to the purpose of illustrating the wisdom & might of this king over his subjects.

If anything, i see this particular grisly tale as illustrative, not of how wise this particular king was, but more of the way children and parents are often used as pawns in political maneuvering to the point where the state tries to assume 'ownership' of the child's life in order to control both the child & the parent...
but I am getting ahead of myself...

I believe the true moral of this tale is this; no matter how great the sacrifice, a mother will give her all to protect the child she loves; & how neither greed, nor vindictiveness nor the might & power of kings can waiver the unerring strength of the maternal bond.

Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children Schools & Families: Economist,

prominent Fabian Society member & trusted adviser of Gordon Brown!

Over the last 12 months, I have personally been compelled to participate in a war against those who would seek to tyrannically control & oppress the lives of my children and I. (Not to mention thousands of others...& maybe YOURS too!)

"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty!"

"This degrading, downgrading and debasement of parenthood is itself an elite project in order to establish tight control over the lives of a subject people. "Like many other home educating parents, I have awakened to the snowballing trend by politicians & public policy makers of attempting to sever the child from parental ties.

"The state does not wish to protect the integrity of the child: it wishes to ensure that the child internalises the values of the state and not the parent!"

It is typically, although not exclusively, the mother who stays at home & fulfills the role of educational facilitator. In the UK, home educating mothers in particular, have been subjected to offensive misogynistic slurs, such as

"home educating mothers suffer(...) from Munchhausen's by Proxy"

However, the ban upon Home Education in Germany has recently led one US Judge to state:..."the rights being violated here are basic human rights that no country has a right to violate."Yet here seems to prevail a belief system, particularly within governmental departments, that children need protecting from their parents. What is more 'The State' seems to think it can raise children better than parents or at least decide who is to be approved as fulfilling their idea of an 'appropriate' parent.

While this government has been in power, there has been a marked increase in the unwarranted intrusion in family life by agents of the State.
Their sinister social engineering agenda is constantly being pushed forward under the pretext of child protection.
The forced adoption of children in the UK is reaching frightening extremes... Babies are often ear marked as candidates from before birth.
The UK operates secret Family Courts.Parents are gagged from reporting what happens inside them. These closed courts have no juries yet can imprison without an open trial.

"I don't think the public appreciates how low the threshold is. When children are taken from their parents, it is not because there is a certainty of future harm or even that, on the balance of probabilities, those children could be harmed. It is enough that there will be a possibility of future harm. If there is a 70 per cent. risk of a child being harmed and every child with that risk was taken into care then, in 100 such cases, 30 children would be taken from families where they would come to no harm. Sometimes, I wonder whether children are being protected, or whether it is social workers' careers." (...) "There's an unspoken fear that children from poor backgrounds are being freed up for middle-class adopters." (Barrister, Andrew Scott)

The most recent high profile case in the UK media has been that of Kerry Robertson & Mark McDougall.

They were informed early in Kerry's pregnancy that their baby would be removed within days of being born as social services workers did not consider her clever enough to raise a child.
Fife Social Services also prevented her from marrying the baby's father Mark, an act which would have granted him clearer legal custody rights as the father. They again claimed that this was because they didn't consider Kerry to have the mental capacity to understand fully the implications of the act of marriage.

Kerry, who has mild learning difficulties, fled to Ireland with her partner & on 22 January 2010, she gave birth to a healthy 7lb 3oz son who they've named Ben. However, at the behest of Fife Council, Irish social workers took the baby from the couple just four days after he was born.

LibDem MP John Hemming said ‘There is no evidence that Mark and Kerry cannot be good parents and I just hope that the Irish authorities can resolve this as quickly as possible.’

It was reported in the Daily Mail(27/1/10) that, after a court hearing, the parents of Ben were granted access to their child on the proviso that Kerry move into a mother and baby unit, where the 17-year-old will be under under constant supervision. So far Kerry & Mark have been given no indication how long she & Ben will be expected to remain in the Mother & Baby Unit.

Kerry was breastfeeding Ben when he was taken from her. She claims that he was given a dummy & fed formula by the foster carers he was placed with. There was an outcry from breastfeeding advocacy & support groups.

"Those who think that society has “gone too far” in supporting breastfeeding, that mothers who formula feed are demonised and breastfeeding mothers aren’t: Show me the women who are losing their jobs for formula feeding. (...) Show me the women who have been ordered to cease or interrupt formula feeding by family courts. (...) Show me the people who, on seeing a bottle pulled out in a public place, will wrinkle their nose and say in disgust, “Are you going to do that here?” (...) Show me the people who insist that all bottle feeding should be covered with a blanket, you filthy sluts. (...) Show me the people who say that formula feeding shouldn’t be allowed in public because they don’t have time to explain such adult concepts to their children. (...) Show me the women who have been accused of formula feeding because they’re paedophiles..." (read full article here)

Breast Feeding, Attatchment Parenting & Co-Sleeping have all had bad press & been subjects of controversy...How have some of the most natural acts of motherhood, including the utmost act of parental input into the nourishment of a child, feeding a baby the way they have been fed since the dawn of time... become such controversial, abhorrent & socially taboo subjects? Since when has feeding a baby or choosing to teach a child become the subversive acts of 'domestic extremists'? Why is it that...

When women use their breasts in ways that don’t centre around men’s desires, women are demonised. And what better way to demonise people than to denounce them for our most despised crime, child sexual abuse?

Parents are finding themselves increasingly attacked for committing the most natural acts of love, child nurture & care giving and these attacks are often instigated
or supported by policy makers & supposed experts in a field & the media... Although breastfeeding & extended or child-led weaning has seen a marked increase in recent years, the onslaught of political & economic control of parenting via marketing, social manipulation & medical misinformation continues to this day. The bad reputation of Co-Sleeping is fuelled by the media hysteria & mis-information about rare instances when a co-sleeping baby has died. Most people who are anti co-sleeping claim concerns about the baby’s safety. However, others claim it's necessary for a baby to be taught from an early age to sleep seperately from the parents. This would be the very antithesis of the idea of 'attatchment parenting', which promotes the ethos that children grow to be more confident and secure when they are allowed to experience the world at their own pace & need a close relationship with their parents to enable that to happen in a positive way.

"The history of our times will show of many broken families, of children without a family to remember, of heartache and tears of fear and a lifetime of terror of that knock on the door at midnight. Of being wrenched from mother’s arms and of brothers and sisters disappearing, never to be seen again. Of men and women wrongfully cast into prisons, tormented for years by the knowledge of their innocence... This will be the legacy of our times for future generations – it is now being written. In newspapers, television documentaries, Parliamentary debates, and most importantly of all, by those who have suffered." (Charles Pragnell, Dip.S.W., L.R.C.C.)

So here we are at the beginning of a new century... a new millenium... and in many ways, the wars waged by parents & particularly Mothers are not that different from in the ancient times of the 'wise' king Solomon...
Those who seek power through public positions & attempt to control whole societies & cultures, really do not seem yet to have a full appreciation one of the most obvious... most basic... most fundamental rules of humanity ...

DO NOT COME BETWEEN A MOTHER & HER CHILD!!!

A woman's special role as 'Mother' dictates that she has both an duty & a right to participate in political & public policy making spheres.
Graham Badman has been heard to foolishly utter that he doubts "the sort of civil disobedience that you fear"...from the parents & young people who are to be affected by his recommendations...Well i say this to you, Mr.(a very) Badman & Mr.(talking utter) Balls... this Labour Government... & any political party or person in a position of authority who tries to manipulate the vulnerability of my children or who wages a dirty tricks campaign to bring violence, coersion & abuse upon my family...

"No public stakeholder loves me or our child" (S.Matthan)

During the greater part of the 20th century, when women’s political & activistic energy had been concentrated on issues of women’s economic rights and status, 'Organized Motherhood', still continued to be the overriding principle at the head of anti-violence movements.

On the 5th September 1981, the Welsh group “Women for Life on Earth” marched from Cardiff to Greenham Common, Berkshire, with the intention of challenging, by debate, the decision to site 96 'Cruise' nuclear missiles there. Thus, beginning a protest that was to last 19 years.

They delivered a letter to the Base Commander which stated...

We fear for the future of all our children and for the future of the living world which is the basis of all life."

After their request for a debate was ignored, they set up a Peace Camp outside the surrounding fence of the Greenham Common RAF Airbase. The camp became known as the 'Women’s Peace Camp' and gained both national and international recognition.

Taking non-violent direct action against movements at the base meant that some women were arrested, taken to court and sent to prison. A 22 year old Welsh woman, Helen Wynne Thomas, even lost her life there when she was hit by a West Midlands Police horsebox, as she stood on the safe zone waiting to cross the road near 'Yellow Gate'. Her name is the only woman's name to be recorded on the site which is now known as The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp Commemorative & Historic Site.

The message from women as 'Mothers', past, present & to come, is clear,