dear Brown,
You are so wrong about my son's case, you have no idea! You are presumptuous at best, and based on nothing factual. Here are some facts in this case:
My son's dad is an alcoholic, has anger issues (has beaten up two wives, me being one of them), is living with an alcoholic wife currently, smokes pot, throws big parties, and ignores the kids.
"Dad" put my son into Casa because Dad's wife has problems with my son, in addition to problems with her own 3 kids. Dad's wife owns the house they live in, in fact, she even owns the car Dad drives....get the picture yet?
At no time was my son arrested or diagnosed with a drug problem (he was never even given a drug test!) Meanwhile, Dad and wife get drunk and abusive frequently. They never even took him to counseling, much less they would never go to such a thing.
"Dad" took no photos on the bruises and bumps because Dad is quite embarrassed and angry that 1. he sent our son to a place like that without researching it... "gee, I didn't know..."
2. Dad now looks like a fool for choosing this place, and Dad hates looking stupid, his pride is so huge it won't allow such things.
3. Now Dad has to actually do some parenting, something he refuses to take responsiblity for. It will get in the way of his partying.
You know nothing about other people's circumstances and you have no right blasting others' decisions when you know nothing about what prompted them.
I love my son, despite your take on this. I objected when he wanted to live with his dad, because I knew what he'd be getting into. However, what typical 16 yr old wouldn't prefer to live with a parent with no rules as opposed to a parent with rules, and standards? The sad part is that certain states' courts let children essentially pick which parent they want to live with. Too bad the state doesn't pick up when the parent drops the ball.....
Thanks for listening.
