Time to Terminate the System's Rights: Holding Child Welfare to the Standard It Demands of Parents

I was born into faith.

Before I took my first breath, my father had already committed his life to Christ. While stationed in Liberia with the U.S. Army, he found his calling in ministry. After retiring from the military in 1983, he returned to Liberia as a missionary, where he and my mother served for 38 years. I was raised in the church, raised on scripture, not just the comforting verses, but the ones that confront power, demand justice, and expose hypocrisy.

And that’s exactly what this blog is about: a system that demands perfection from parents while excusing its own failure every single day.

It’s time we stop asking for reform.

It's time to flip the script.

It's time to terminate the system’s rights.

Luke 12:48 — To Whom Much Is Given…

That verse sits on the homepage of my website: “To whom much is given, much is required.”

Child welfare agencies operate with billions of taxpayer dollars, expansive staff, full legal teams, and the power to separate families in a single court hearing. Yet somehow, these agencies are not held to the same standards they impose on the families they surveil.

In my community, the system has undergone several major transitions. During these shifts, we’re asked to be patient. To extend grace. We're told about staffing shortages, high caseloads, and turnover. But families go through transitions too. A mother may be fleeing domestic violence, recovering from trauma, or simply trying to survive poverty, all without the benefit of financial support or a supportive team.

But when parents struggle? There is no grace.

Parents are forced into complying with services, even when they feel as if the services aren’t beneficial.

A missed therapy session becomes “noncompliance.”

Some parents lose affordable housing when their children are taken away.  Then given a case plan that demands they secure stable housing before they can get their children back.

Being overwhelmed becomes “unfit.”

How is it that the system, with every advantage, expects endless compassion for its delays and disorganization, yet refuses to offer even basic understanding to the families it claims to serve?

This double standard is not just unfair. It’s unbiblical.

Meanwhile, the system itself delays court hearings, fails to comply with court orders, rotates case managers every few months, and routinely violates state and federal law. No sanctions. No accountability. Just another continued court hearing or another performance improvement plan.

So I ask again: How can a mother lose her child for missing a case plan task while a billion-dollar system breaks the law and walks away with its power intact?

Jesus Was Not Polite About Injustice

If you call yourself a Christian, this part is for you.

Jesus didn’t avoid confrontation. He flipped tables. He rebuked leaders. He exposed those who used religion to justify oppression. The prophets did the same: Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah. They didn’t water down their message to protect feelings or preserve comfort.

So let’s tell the truth plainly:

The child welfare system is not grounded in grace. It is rooted in coercion and punishment. And it expects a level of compassion for itself that it refuses to extend to families.

In my podcast, I say what too many are afraid to say:

It’s time to terminate the system’s rights.

That’s not a metaphor.  It’s a demand for accountability. If parents can lose their rights for missing a case plan task, then the system should lose its authority when it repeatedly violates the very laws it enforces.

I’ve seen cases where “reasonable efforts” weren’t even attempted before a child was removed. Investigators project their own unresolved trauma onto the families they’re meant to assess. Case managers fail to appear in court. Court orders go unfulfilled. Parents are punished, not for how they treat their children, but for how they speak to professionals. Family members advocating for support are treated as threats rather than allies.

And still, the system continues. Business as usual.

Statutes are ignored. Administrative codes are violated. Internal policies are broken. Parents are told they have twelve months to reunify, yet services are delayed, deadlines are missed, and the clock is constantly reset. Judges rarely intervene. They just set another hearing.

But time is not neutral. Every delay is a lifetime for a child and a slow, quiet death of a parent’s hope.

Yet only one party is ever at risk of “termination.”

The system, despite its failures, never fears losing power.

Only parents are punished when the law is broken.

Poverty Is Not Neglect. But the System Treats It That Way

Most families caught in the child welfare system aren’t abusive. They’re under-resourced. They need housing, child care, food, mental health support. But instead of offering meaningful help, the system responds with surveillance disguised as services, and compliance disguised as care.

The truth is simple: the more resources you have, the more options you have.

A mother trapped in a violent relationship may want to leave, but without money, housing, or child care, her options are limited. A low-income parent has no lawyer when an investigator shows up at their door. Yes, the law says they have the right to counsel. But in most places, that right doesn’t materialize until after the child has been removed. By then, the damage is done. And in my State, the attorneys which represent parents after removal are outnumbered by those representing the State’s case.  So the parent may not receive the same level of legal advocacy and support. 

Most families involved in dependency court are indigent. Is that because wealthy families never abuse or neglect their children?

Of course not.

It’s because wealthier families can afford private counsel. They can hire therapists, nannies, tutors, and attorneys.

They have the privilege of keeping their struggles private while families experiencing poverty have theirs criminalized.

If we gave birth families the same level of financial assistance that foster and adoptive parents receive, many removals would never happen.

But this system was never built to invest in Black families.

Our nation prospered through the commodification of Black bodies and we see echoes of that economy in child welfare today.

Black parents are denied cash assistance while white foster and adoptive parents receive monthly subsidies and state-supported services.

We are not protecting children.

We are punishing poor families for being poor.

A Challenge to Christians and Everyone Else

If your theology makes room for systems but not for struggling parents, it’s time to reexamine your faith. If you support politicians who preach about “family values” while destroying families through state-sanctioned removal, it’s time to confront your complicity.

The God I believe in doesn’t stand with institutions.

He stands with the marginalized, the wounded, the overlooked.

He would not side with the system. He would call for its reckoning.

Terminate the Lie

This system demands grace for itself and imposes punishment on others.

It fails in ways that would never be tolerated from a parent.

It is bloated with power, and bankrupt of accountability.

And it’s time we stop pretending it just needs better policies.

It needs a reckoning. It needs to be abolished.

It’s time to terminate the system’s rights.