Fathers & Families Calls on Authorities to 'Find, Help the Lost Boys' of the Texas Polygamist Ranch
April 21st, 2008 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & FamiliesFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For more information:
April 21, 2008 Dr. Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S.
Executive Director,
Fathers & Families
(617) 542-9300
nedholstein@fathersandfamilies.org
TEXAS POLYGAMY CASE: Authorities Ignore Expelled Boys, Need to Find and Help the Lost Boys
Boston, MA--Recent news reports about the Texas Yearning for Zion Ranch polygamist group highlight the abuse of young teenage girls who are compelled to marry older men. Yet very little attention has been paid to an equally important issue--the abuse and neglect of the group’s boys.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) removed all children under age 18 -- numbering 416 children -- from the compound. Of these 416, only 27 are teenage boys. Demographics indicate there should have been about 65 teenage boys. Thus there are about 38 missing teenage boys—most of them likely expelled by sect leaders prior to the DFPS raids.
Other communities of this sect have expelled boys as young as 13 from the compound, forcing them to fend for themselves without education, friends, or adult guidance. The order is usually given by the spiritual leader of the compound, and the parents of the boys are too fearful of excommunication to object.
According to one exiled boy, now in his twenties, 70 percent of the boys in his school class were expelled. In a polygamist society in which some men have many wives, simple math tells us that many men will have no wives at all. One way to deal with this inevitable imbalance is to expel the extra men, even if they are still boys.
As indicated by our discussions with DFPS official Chris Van Duesen, Texas apparently has no plans to locate and assist these lost boys. According to Van Duesen, the lost boys problem does not exist in Texas. He offered no explanation for the preponderance of girls in state custody.
This is an unacceptable oversight on the part of public officials whose job is to ensure the safety and welfare of children. Fathers & Families calls upon Texas authorities to address the needs of expelled boys. DFPS must search for the boys, locate them, and provide them with shelter and services.
About Fathers & Families
Based in Boston, Fathers & Families is a non-profit advocacy organization protecting children’s right to the love and care of both parents after separation or divorce. Through education and legislative outreach programs, Fathers & Families seeks to shape public policy and change well-meaning but misguided laws, judicial traditions, and government policies that drive many loving fathers out of their children's lives after divorce. More information on Fathers & Families and its programs is available on the organization’s website at www.fathersandfamilies.org or by calling (617) 542-9300.
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April 21st, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Is Ned holstein, and the fathers and famillies org. the only Americans that are in the least bit concerned enough to simply ask the question, "what about the boys"??
Have the twisted sister's so poisened the minds of these public officials that they too willfully disregard the potential disaster that these scared boys may be going through.
you go girls!!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I keep hoping something about these poor boys will appear in the news, but it does not seem to happen.
I feel I must do my best to raise awareness in any way I can, and hopefully efforts like this will bring it to better light.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:03 pm
"To die would be a grand adventure!" I guess lost boys really don't matter.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:06 pm
menscollegeactivist.org.......why would you believe that the 51% majority would waste their valuable shopping time worrying about the 49% minority? i would go further.......50% of the 49% minority don't lose sleep over the future of boys so as not to be relegated to the long, lonely nights of banishment from the wonderful world of the 51% majority.
women are smarter than men.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:44 pm
But... but... but, if boys are abandoned now, who will support the girls when come of age and want a breadwinner for their shopping sprees?
regards,
MAJ
April 21st, 2008 at 11:44 pm
There is an article on the CBS site about these boys:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/21/earlyshow/main4030628.shtml
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:02 am
Women get equal pay at Wimbledon! (Of course they play 25% fewer matches.)
Woman crossed the Boston Marathon first! (Of course, her time was a full 18 MINUTES slower then the men’s winner.
Woman wins an IRL Indy race! (Of course she weighs 75 pounds less than the average male driver in a sport where the teams pay $500,000 to get 2 pounds out of the weight of a manifold and her teammate was ordered to slow down and let her pass.)
Same old, same old….
DanH
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:50 am
It's not really about child abuse. And it isn't about polygamy. It's about 400 some hired lawyers, State "services", get tough "Law" enforcement and the Courts. The Federal contracts which sustained this compound financially although suspicious; No doubt there is a lot of money to be taken back by the government. It all encourages anonymous tipsters. Don't mess with Texas. It gives Nancy Grace a bully pulpit and serves to further confuse the State of Family Law in America. The Foster Care Business will Boom in Texas. Everything is bigger in Texas. How we doin' Mr President? They only "care" about the female children because the lost boys distract from the charade.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:38 am
Certainly nearly everyone reporting on this story is caught up in what is happening to the girls. Way way to little is beig said both about the young men and the horrible way the Texas authorities have handled the situation.
I have to ask if the young men's story is being marginalized because it clearly shows how 'male privilege' works only for the few? Men as victims of authority misused would probably make too many people's heads hurt and question a few of the fundamental views they hold of the world.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:03 am
I was impressed the other day when the Today show did a whole segment about the "lost boys"...They had 3 former-boys from one of the other camps on and were asking them about their ouster. Of course Meredith (I think that's who it was) wasted no time asked about whether or not these boys saw any girls being married off early.
Yeah, I guess that's equality for you: institutionalized chivalry. Gotta worry about the women and girls at all costs. Don't worry about the boys.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:26 am
A very smart woman said."When we emasculate enough of our men to the point where they are not willing to fight for anything, we will no longer have a country." Check western Europe to see how this is playing out.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:29 am
I have to ask if the young men's story is being marginalized because it clearly shows how 'male privilege' works only for the few?
I think you're on to something Lewis. Its a fact that this Patriarchy that people go on and on about does not benefit all men but don't waste your time telling them that. What has this country become that dozens of lost children are not even a blip on the mainstream radar (not just the news, I mean everywhere)? The coverage I've seen on those boys is what I've seen linked here while everyone goes on about what happened to those young girls. Don't get me wrong they have been treated horribly too but was the treatment so horrible that they deserve 98% of the attention while those boys get (literally) left out in the cold?
There is an article on the CBS site about these boys:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/21/earlyshow/main4030628.shtml
Why are there people in those comments arguing that the girls and women are the true victims in all this? Why does there have to be a true victim?
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:15 am
So What Else Is New?
A feminist expressed anger to me that a Patriarchal culture was benefitting from the welfare state and using Federal monies to fund their lifestyle. That got me to thinking: Hasn't the Matriarchal welfare state been doing this for years?
While young women in inner cities can become housewives of the state and take advantage of a massive social "safety net" by getting pregnant, young boys at the age of 18, or even younger, are on their own. In other words, this is nothing new. Society has turned a blind eye to this for a LOOOOONG time!
And I hate to sound like a nag, but I've bee saying for a long time that chivalry, including the notion of equal rights for women combined with traditional protections and behavior, leads to abandonment of boys and misandry. Two for tea and tea for two...
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
I poked around on the CNN site and found just one story about how the teen boys had been the first to be placed in foster homes. The first to have their disposition determined it seems.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/15/polygamist.ranch/index.html
And as far as I've been able to tell the only young men who are talking about this are from sects not the recently raided Texas one.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
The L.A. Times reported today on the DNA testing being conducted on the children. When explaining why the kids were going to be tested before being returned to the community, the article only mentioned the possibility that girls might be exposed to sexual abuse were that to occur. To the L.A. Times (a relentless curtain of lace), the "lost" boys are simply invisible boys.
====
Donnii w @ "women are smarter than men."
Many women are smarter than many men (even though the VAST majority of the smartest people are men). And those women that aren't smarter than men still have that magical indentation going for them. Ah yes, that magical indentation -- the great stupidifier of men! It's been said that women rule the world because women can wait 20 minutes for sex, while men can only wait 15. So close, yet so far ... .
Welcome, Donnii!
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Not to be a bitch or anything...but as it happens, women were among the first to step up to the plate to help these boys. Do your research. Women were helping long before the issue got press.
What disgusts me are the crocodile tears of these women in Texas, lamenting the loss of their children. My response? Tell you what, Ladies...when you try to use the media to your advantage, I would suggest you also advocate for the return of your sons!
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Before anyone here just assumes I am heartless, I do understand the plight of FLDS women...I just cannot excuse them.
I’m not willing to give the “Mothers” a free pass. I get their circumstances but cannot totally absolve them from responsibility… because, at some point, some time…every rational and instinctual negative response to their lot in life must have been privately examined. That they were sobbing as they packed clothing for their expelled sons would suggest dissent in complicity of the abuse.
My great grandmother, married at 14, southern, isolated Pentacostal, was pregnant 20 times, and despite incrementally crippling strokes, bore 12, and raised 8 to adulthood, silent and bitter from the final stroke that took any voice she might have had…at 38. My Grandmother committed suicide when my Mom was six rather than continue to live in a culture that despises women. My mother, at 15, graduated valedictorian from her Winnfield LA high school in the mid-thirties, winning a business scholarship to LA Polytech in Ruston, and with her two years of education, fled the inner bayou, to Dallas, to immediate postwar Japan and Germany, subsequently living all over the states…and returning home only to see loved ones. She rarely spoke of her history, but I will always remember her quiet comment…with veiled eyes and lifted chin…”my children would be raised elsewhere.” All five of us.
I cannot believe that these women were oblivious to that inner voice, the voice that tells us SOMETHING is not right. The voice my own Mom listened to…and I am unwilling to allow women to escape their responsibilities to their sons AND daughters. I just can't give them a pass.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Annie Hunter says: "Not to be a bitch or anything...but as it happens, women were among the first to step up to the plate to help these boys. Do your research. Women were helping long before the issue got press."
PK responds: Not to be a sexist jerk or anything, but white males have been protecting and granting rights to women far superior to the rest of the world along with being breadwinners. Perhaps we're not responsible for all the problems of the universe? (Although philosophically, at that scale, there are no real "problems" but you get my point...)
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Annie Hunter says: "My Grandmother committed suicide when my Mom was six rather than continue to live in a culture that despises women. My mother, at 15, graduated valedictorian from her Winnfield LA high school in the mid-thirties, winning a business scholarship to LA Polytech in Ruston, and with her two years of education, fled the inner bayou, to Dallas, to immediate postwar Japan and Germany, subsequently living all over the states…and returning home only to see loved ones."
PK responds: That's a very touching story, Annie, as I'm sure you know and you sound very proud of your mother. But I'm going to say something tough here so please don't be insulted (it's not personal as you'll see in a bit)
Your mother ran away.
Nothing wrong with that but this option is often unavailable or unthinkable to most people men and women alike. I decided that our culture was anti-male and that women raised in it tended to be ambivalent at best and hateful towards men at worst and traveled outside of the USA to find a woman that is reasonable and treats me fairly.
For doing so, I have heard a number of catcalls and still hear some from "tolerant" Americans from time to time. We laugh since we now feel a strong connection to each other and immigrant communities or the old country moreso than the USA and I think that's great. Perhaps your mother got some negative remarks as well. It really is difficult to challenge the status quo even in just WALKING AWAY FROM IT. But coming back, we now set an example.
It takes a special person to pick up and go and I think that there's something genetic about it.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Today's lost boys can easily become the men we live in fear of or arm ourselves against by the time they're 20. That is why "excess" men in polygamous societies were used as cannon fodder in wars to prevent them from fighting back against their plight. Those excess men also raped women among the other side's population as a way of making war on the "enemy," or more aptly, the enemies of those who dominate a society at the expense of everyone else. Polygamy is morally wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin when it comes to condemning it.
Taras
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Lewis 'links CNN': April 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
"The decision to separate children 5 and older from their mothers was made carefully and with input from attorneys and therapists, Meisner said. It was decided that the move was in the "children's best interest," she said, adding that children who are victims of abuse or neglect typically feel "safer" and are more truthful if their parents are not around.
DON'T YOU LOVE WHO DECIDES WHAT IS BEST
"Meanwhile, the mothers of some of the children said authorities had denied them their constitutional rights and they wanted their children back."
"The state of Texas has confiscated our children on an alleged allegation that has no facts. And now they're holding our children. And we want the children back," a woman who identified herself as Kathleen told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday night.
SOUND FAMILIAR
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Not to be a sexist jerk or anything, but white males have been protecting and granting rights to women far superior to the rest of the world along with being breadwinners. Perhaps we're not responsible for all the problems of the universe? (Although philosophically, at that scale, there are no real "problems" but you get my point...)
...what does this have to do with the plight of the FLDS "lost boys"?
decided that our culture was anti-male and that women raised in it tended to be ambivalent at best and hateful towards men at worst and traveled outside of the USA to find a woman that is reasonable and treats me fairly.
So you ran away too? Way to miss the point, PK.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:21 am
Annie says: "Not to be a bitch or anything...but as it happens, women were among the first to step up to the plate to help these boys. Do your research. Women were helping long before the issue got press.
Well I don't think that anyone has said women weren't helping have they? But that aside and in the interests of diplomacy I will note that in articles about boys expelled from other sects I noted comments from women running shelters for these young men. Ned links to several well two of the stories in one of his other articles.
There is a lack of comment on the situation from the state authorities whatever gender these authorities might be. While I disagree with the things that the FDLS stands for my primary outrage is at the way this has been handled by authorities.
While the state certainly needs to protect children it also needs to get over the idea that it knows best how to raise them. That the state is willing to confiscate hundreds of children strikes me as great a wrong as what they were protecting them from. That they will turn these children out into a world they are unprepared for and that is unprepared for them? Whose 'best interest' is being served?
I know that everytime the government takes an inch it isn't long before they take another one. Can you still smoke in your own home? What is the phrase? "Quis custodiet ipso custodes?" Who watches the watchmen?
Annie also said: "I cannot believe that these women were oblivious to that inner voice, the voice that tells us SOMETHING is not right. The voice my own Mom listened to…and I am unwilling to allow women to escape their responsibilities to their sons AND daughters. I just can't give them a pass.
I have to agree with that.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:00 am
Annie Hunter asks: "So you ran away too?"
PK answers: Yes.
Annie Hunter comments: "Way to miss the point, PK"
PK replies: You missed the point where I wrote immediately afterward: "Nothing wrong with that ."
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Annie Hunter,
Thanks for sharing your touching story. I hope we are all beginning to recognize that that when men and women suffer, boys and girls suffer, and we all suffer. There are only "people" issues.
April 25th, 2008 at 9:39 am
taras, women, and mothers, kept having these children, and kept feeding them into cannon fodder.
The only way these women can escape responsibillity and any cullpeability, is if they are in some way retarded, and not in full mental capacity?
April 25th, 2008 at 9:55 am
taras, I fear that by not holding these women accountable, we are de-facto, reverting back to the "women as children" mentality of 100 years ago.
Early feminist's fought against this mentality, and i believe there was an earlly feminist who even demanded jail time for a crime she committed, because she wanted women to be treated as equalls to men.
Who stole feminism???
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
http://tinyurl.com/58wlou
Texas Appellate Court rules authorities acted illegally and overturns child seizures!
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,357266,00.html
OOPS! In case shrinking is illegal here... Texas Appellate Court rules authorities acted illegally and overturns child seizures!
I think it's the first of many slap-downs on the Texas DFS system. The question becomes now... how do they undo the mess that they've created?
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Mister-M: "The question becomes now... how do they undo the mess that they've created?"
Agreed...and even more immediate question: are they going to drag this out by appealing it.
This is indeed a good day for those less ethnocentric among us who are in favor of less government intervention into private lives.