Yesterday I got bitch-slapped by social services at the Egedal municipality in Denmark where I live.
I have to pay every month for the next 8 years until my youngest child will turn 21. (The age of majority is 18 in Denmark but that is this particular law known as 498 from 2011.)
The reason is that one of us parents has infected our children with depression. Before we decided to have children we should have considered the risk of infection. After the parent who was hospitalized with depression was released for home treatment, this parent should have purchased a stick with a bell on it so the children could have removed themselves from sight reducing the risk of infection just like people infected with Leprosy did in the old days. Having been poorly counseled I have to admit that we failed to do that.
After 3 years of appeals we lost our final appeal yesterday. Every month for the next years I now have to pay this fine caused by of course our failure but also as result of poor counseling making a total of $41,000.
Had the illness which run in our family been physical we would not have to pay. However as depression is a mental illness the present situation in Denmark is that mental illnesses are kind of degrading and the people suffering from it had the choice to do something about in time, just as people who choose to smoke or become overweight had a choice.
I happen to disagree.
However I live in Denmark and have no plan of living in another country despite the fact that my mother comes from another country. I have to accept the verdict and our customs regardless of how unfair I find it and the suffering it would inflict upon us for the next many years.
I am not writing this to ask for money, just to explain our present situation.