Judging parents, judging place: poverty, rurality, and termination of parental rights.

• Author: Wallace, Janet L.
• Position: VI. Conclusion, p. 146-147

As I have indicated in my dissents to other termination cases, the State seems to be running amok, spouting pop psychology and terminating parental rights in cases where it is clearly not necessary to do, particularly in cases of poor and otherwise handicapped parents. (285)

Justice Springer, dissenting

Deck v. Department of Human Resources, Division of Child & Family Services (Nev. 1997)

Let us return for a moment to Winter's Bone and the plight of the Dolly children. (286) As mortified as the typical filmgoer may be about the circumstances in which Ree and her siblings find themselves, no guarantee exists that a temporary placement in a group or foster home would allow them to stay together or serve them better than they are serving themselves, without government assistance. (287) Policymakers should bear in mind that the dual threats of removal from the family home and separation of siblings may deter families like Ree's from availing themselves of the limited resources the state has to offer. Surely, destruction of the family unit is not the outcome intended from acceptance of public benefits and social services. Yet such destruction is sometimes a consequence of the links between poverty and place, links that state actors may misunderstand.

America's child protection system requires a new vision--a family-affirming approach that focuses on maintaining the bond between parent and child. To honor rural families in particular, the state must implement place-specific programs that are sensitive to rural parents' needs and which would help them adequately care for their children. This policy shift would preempt the state's need to initiate child removal proceedings in many cases.

This change also requires a frank acknowledgement that rurality can be disabling; (288) rural spatiality, economics, and culture can operate as handicaps like the ones Justice Springer referenced in the Deck case. (289) When assessing parental fitness, then, the state should recognize both poverty and rurality as critical aspects of context over which the parent may have very little control.

Finally, judges and child services agencies must begin to recognize the distinction between rural manifestations of poverty on the one hand, and willful child neglect on the other. Doing so would minimize child removals based on inaccurate or unfounded presumptions of parental fault. For shattering the bond between parent and child based solely on judgments about poverty, place, or a combination of the two not only undermines particular family units, it devalues rural families and their communities.

(1.) See Helen Nearing & Scott Nearing, Living the Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing's Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living 4-6 (1990); Thomas D. Hansen, On Myth and Reality: The Stress of Life in Rural America, 4 Res. Rural Ed. 147, 147 (1987). It is ironic, in light of our findings, that prior to the 1909 White House Conference on Children, children living in urban poverty were moved to rural areas so as to expose them to "traditional American family values, promote assimilation, and remove them from parental influence." Tonya L. Brito, The Welfarization of Family Law, 48 Kan. L. Rev. 229, 269-71 (2000).

(2.) Hansen, supra note 1, at 148; see Sonya Salamon, From Hometown to Nontown: Rural Community Effects of Suburbanization, 68 Rural Soc. 1, 3 (2003) (citing David. M. Hummon, Commonplaces: Community Ideology and Identity in American Culture 57 (1990)) (observing "national ideology" that small towns are good places to raise children); Ann R. Tickamyer & Debra A. Henderson, Rural Women: New Roles for the New Century?, in Challenges for Rural America in the Twenty-First Century 109, 112 (David L. Brown & Louis E. Swanson eds., 2004) (describing rural communities as "wholesome, family-friendly environments that promote overall well-being"); see also W.K. Kellogg Found., Perceptions of Rural America: Congressional Perspectives 3-4 (2004), available at http://www.wkkf.org/knowledge-center/resources/2004/04/Perceptions-Of-RuralAmerica-Views-From-The-US-Congress.aspx (finding most people associate the word "rural" with traditional values such as family, community, and religion).

(3.) See Hansen, supra note 1, at 148.

(4.) See id. ; J. Brian Brown & Daniel T. Lichter, Poverty, Welfare, and the Livelihood Strategies of Nonmetropolitan Single Mothers, 69 Rural Soc. 282, 293-94 (2004) (providing statistics that "make it clear that it is dangerous to assume nonmetro single mothers can rely on stronger extended family support and kinship ties").

(5.) See Lisa R. Pruitt, Gender, Geography and Rural Justice, 23 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 338, 361-62 (2008) [hereinafter Pruitt, Rural Justice] (collecting sources).

(6.) See Ralph A. Weisheit et al., Crime and Policing in Rural and SmallTown America 2-3 (2d ed. 1999) ("In the minds of many, the crime problem is, by definition, an urban problem. It is assumed that rural crime is rare or nonexistent that when it does occur, it is only a 'small' version of the urban crime problem."); see also W.K. Kellogg Found., supra note 2, at 3-4 (noting that legislators who grew up in rural places emphatically asserted "that people are more likely to know each other and take care of each other" which "makes rural communities more nurturing than urban or suburban areas").

(7.) See Daniel T. Lichter, Vincent J. Roscigno & Dennis J. Condron, Rural Children and Youth at Risk, in Challenges for Rural America in the TwentyFirst Century, supra note 2, at 97, 100, 108; Cynthia B. Struthers & Janet L. Bokemeier, Myths and Realities of Raising Children and Creating Family Life in a Rural County, 21 J. Fam. Issues 17, 20 (2000); Lisa R. Pruitt, Rural Rhetoric, 39 Conn. L. Rev. 159, 168-72 (2006); see also W.K. Kellogg Found., Perceptions of Rural America 7 (2004), available at http://ww2.wkkf.org/pubs/FoodRur/Pub2973 .pdf.

(8.) See generally Economic Restructuring and Family Well-Being in Rural America (Kristin E. Smith & Ann R. Tickamyer eds., 2011) (documenting the particular challenges that economic restructuring has posed for rural families since the last quarter of the 20th century and criticizing government's failure to address these challenges); Debra Lyn Bassett, Distancing Rural Poverty, 13 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol'y 3, 9-10 (2006) (discussing the relationship between poverty, place and the prevalence of rural poverty); Theresa D. Legere, Note, Preventing Judicially Mandated Orphans, 38 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 260, 263 (2000) (citing Elizabeth D. Jones & Karen McCurdy, National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse: The Links Between Types of Maltreatment and Demographic Characteristics of Children, 16 Child Abuse & Neglect 201 (1992)) (citing studies showing that "families living in poverty must worry about how to attain necessities such as food, clothes, health care, and shelter").

(9.) See The Annie E. Casey Found., Strengthening Rural Families: The High Cost of Being Poor 1 (2004), available at http://www.aecf.org/upload /publicationfiles/rf2022k560.pdf; U.S. Dep't Agric. Econ. Res. Serv., Economic Information Bull. No. 1, Rural Children at a Glance 1 (2005), available at http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB1/EIB1.pdf; Rural Income, Poverty, and Welfare: Poverty Geography, U.S. Dep't Agric. Econ. Res. Serv. http://www.ers.us da.gov/Briefing/IncomePovertyWelfare/PovertyGeography .htm (last modified Sept. 17, 2011). The nonmetro poverty rate was at a record-low of 13.4% in 2000, but the 2010 nonmetro poverty rate was 16.5%. Id. Additionally, between 2008 and 2010, 600,000 additional nonmetro residents fell below the poverty line. Id. Metro poverty rates between 2000 and 2009 were 2.7 percentage points lower than nonmetro; however, in 2010, the metro poverty rate was 14.9%, just 1.6% below the nonmetro rate. Id.

(10.) See Leif Jensen, Diane K. McLaughlin & Tim Slack, Rural Poverty: The Persisting Challenge, in Challenges for Rural America in the Twenty-First Century, supra note 2, at 118, 125; Diane K. McLaughlin & Alisha J. ColemanJensen, Nonstandard Employment in the Nonmetropolitan United States, 73 Rural Soc. 631, 632 (2008) (documenting extent to which nonmetro workers are involved in contingent work, part-time work, variable-hour work, or are otherwise without healthcare insurance and other benefits associated with good jobs); Pruitt, Rural Justice, supra note 5, at 350-51 (collecting sources); Anastasia R. Snyder & Diane K. McLaughlin, Female-Headed Families and Poverty in Rural America, 69 Rural Soc. 127, 141-43, 146 (2004).

(11.) Lisa R. Pruitt, Missing the Mark: Welfare Reform and Rural Poverty, 10 J. Gender Race & Just. 439, 446 (2007) [hereinafter Pruitt, Missing the Mark] (collecting sources); see generally Ann R. Tickamyer & Kristen E. Smith, Conclusions, in Economic Restructuring, supra note 8, at 336, 339 (discussing the structural obstacles to rural families' flourishing).

(12.) See infra Part IV.B.

(13.) See infra Parts III-IV; see also generally Lisa R. Pruitt, Rural Families and Work-Family Issues, Sloan Work & Fam. Encyclopedia (2008), http://wfnetwork. bc.edu/encyclopedia_entry.php?id=15186&area=All [hereinafter Pruitt, Rural Families and Work-Family Issues]. Issues of transportation and access to resources also arise for rural families in relation to child custody disputes and child abuse investigations. See Elizabeth Barker Brandt, The Challenge to Rural States of Procedural Reform in High Conflict Custody Cases, 22 U. Ark. Little Rock. L. Rev. 357, 35758, 371 (2000); Victor I. Vieth, In My Neighbor's House: A Proposal to Address Child Abuse in Rural America, 22 Hamline L. Rev. 143, 166 (1998).

(14.) Jennifer Sherman observes that rural parents may not actually "choose" their residence because they may inherit the home in which they live. See Jennifer Sherman, Those Who Work, Those Who Don't: Poverty, Morality, and Family in Rural America 39, 184 (2009). The attachment...