Polygamist’s Children in Foster Care

Texas officials state that it will cost about $21 million in the next year to care for the hundreds of children they recently removed from a polygamist cult.

The state Health and Human Services Commission estimates that foster care will run $39 a day and extra expenses include health care and pr0tective service workers.

Currently, more foster care is needed for these children as the state of Texas takes on the massive task of housing, feeding, clothing, and schooling them. Most, if not all, of these children have been in seclusion their entire lives, never seeing or doing anything “secular”.

According to Utah psychologist Dr. Larry Beall, “They have been taught that anyone on the outside is untrustworthy. They are the enemy and they are going to hurt you.”

What is even worse is that they have been secluded to the point that they may not know what is right and wrong. Dr. Bruce Perry, a Houston psychiatrist, comments below.

In some ways, Perry said, the children have “wonderful qualities — understanding of others, respect for their elders, kindness.” But they have also been taught the outside world is filled with Satanic forces — movies, music, games — and as they are exposed to them in foster care, Perry says, they may well believe “My parents were right!” In some ways, Perry said, this situation highlights “fracture lines in our culture” about lifestyles and parental control. “But the state is not saying ‘Don’t wear those dresses,” Perry says, referring to the legal basis of the Eldorado raid. “It’s saying you cannot have sex with 12-year-olds.”

It tugs at those heart strings, doesn’t it?