Wet Noodle, you make an excellent point regarding parents who were host parents at the 'foster homes'. They had to know that what was going on was abusive---if they didn't think that it was abuse, they are too fucked up to be trusted with a houseplant, much less an adolescent human being. The foster parents were well aware what was going on in the building, if from no other source than the visible evidence of abuse brought into their homes by newcomers each night. Going along with food and sleep deprivation, physical abuse and humiliation (which I recall more than one foster parent participating in with gusto)is fucking criminal, no matter what kind of spin you want to put on it. For a parent to claim "Oh ,jeez, I was brainwashed by Straight, too", well, that's fine, but it doesn't make them any less incompetent as a parent or an adult. We don't let mentally incompetent people drive cars or own guns, and we don't allow them custody of their children if they are incapable of performing their duties as parents. The willful negligence, never mind the abuse they collaberated in, is, in and of itself, evidence that they had no business raising children--their own or anybody else's. Whether their motivation was spite, hatred or revenge, or even with the best of intentions, they demonstrated their lack of ability to be trusted as guardians of minors. They were at best incapable of being parents, at worst, criminal child abusers. For a parent to claim "innocence by reason of brainwashing" is not that different than a Nazi concentration camp guard to say "I was only following orders". Not an excuse, in my mind.
