Editor's Note: This community column segment was written in response to the ongoing battle between a Volusia County woman with a low IQ trying to get her children back from the Department of Children and Families where one of them was sexually abused by a foster father.
By Darlene VannEDGEWATER, Fla. -- I was so happy to read that the children of the low IQ woman are finally in the process of being returned to her.
Taking them away was very wrong and turned out to be extremely traumatic for her young daughter who was molested in a foster home by her foster father, Robert R. Clinton, who was convicted of the crime and is now serving life in prison.
If you are not aware of this situation, a woman had her three children removed from her home when one of them got into a hair product left out by a friend. She has been fighting to get them back for three years.
The children, now 3-, 5- and 8-years-old, ask her during every visit she makes to them when they can come home. Finally, Child Services is dropping the procedure to terminate her parental rights and taking steps to place the children back in her home. But she has to start with unsupervised visits in hopes they may be returned in six months.
Isn’t this entire situation appalling to you? It is for me! Why make them all wait six more months?
I have some experience with this type of situation since my uncle (who will remain nameless and is deceased) married a woman of low IQ. It didn’t make her a bad mother. In fact, it made her try harder to make sure her children learned as much as they possibly could.
I have some experience with this type of situation since my uncle (who will remain nameless and is deceased) married a woman of low IQ. It didn’t make her a bad mother. In fact, it made her try harder to make sure her children learned as much as they possibly could.
She knew she wasn’t as smart as other people and how it had hampered her life so she was determined to not let that happen to her five children. No questions were ever raised about her IQ or her ability to raise her children.
Of course, she was married but unfortunately, her husband was a practicing alcoholic so not much help to the family. As much as I loved my uncle, he was certainly more a hindrance to their lives than a help. But my aunt stayed the course, raised her kids and took care of him, too, until he died of cancer and cirrhosis of the liver.
All this was accomplished with her lower IQ. It was never an easy life for her.
She didn’t drive and they lived in an area on the outskirts of town, but every weekend you would see her with all five kids in tow walking to town to go to the library.
She made sure they all had every opportunity to learn that she could manage on her meager living income. No one could love their children more than she did hers and I think that love is as important to a child as education.
Yes, they need both to have a decent future in this world, but a basis of love can overcome many obstacles and teach many lessons of its own. Look at the successful people who come out of loving arms.