Breaking the cycle: Solidarity with care-leaver mothers

Jenny Krutzinna

doi:10.21825/digest.v7i2.16574

Abstract

A significant proportion of child protection cases involve care-experienced mothers, which reveals a continuous cycle of mothers who lose their children to social services after having been in state care themselves as children. While the importance of protecting children requires little explanation and forms the justificatory basis for child protection interventions, it is important to remember that care-experienced mothers were once children entrusted to the state’s care, and who arguably have been failed by the state in that their parenting opportunities are significantly reduced. This paper aims to address this underexplored dilemma between protecting children and safeguarding mothering opportunities for care-experienced mothers. Appealing to the concept of solidarity, I argue that the state has an obligation to increase its compensatory efforts to secure the right of care-experienced women to not only become parents but to be able to be parents, with the aim of breaking the cycle of care experience.

Highlights

Securing children’s welfare is a global priority and a key challenge of our times; not in the least because children form the very foundation of a sustainable society as tomorrow’s citizens
Research into child maltreatment met by state intervention in the form of child protection or child welfare services (CPS)2 shows that a large proportion of parents have a childhood history with child protection services (CPS) themselves (Jones, 2008)
Even if some claim that solidarity is an elusive concept (Häyry, 2005, p. 202), the example of care-experienced mothers shows that it can provide a useful tool to conceptualise the welfare state’s obligations towards individuals

Summary

Introduction

Securing children’s welfare is a global priority and a key challenge of our times; not in the least because children form the very foundation of a sustainable society as tomorrow’s citizens They do not explicitly address issues related to children or families, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include several goals that are highly relevant to the lives of children and their families. Maybe it is precisely this blind spot that poses a threat to both women’s and children’s rights, and the example of care-leaver mothers certainly suggest as much.1 It reveals a continuous chain of mothers who lose their children to social services after having been in public care as children themselves. This contradicts the welfare state’s commitment to equalising opportunities, a goal which results inter alia from the implementation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) and which underpins much of the child protection system’s legitimacy through the principle of the child’s best interests (Art. 3, Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989)

Objectives

Conclusion