A sad thing... my letter.

I am feeling especially pissed off with the government lately. With all the politcal adds spewing blatant falsehoods and all the stuff in the news, ugg! it makes me so upset. Sad times these.

A friend of mine is having a personal battle right now and it just breaks my heart. I didn't know what to do so I wrote a letter and sent it to Senator Gordon Smith, Ted Kulongoski & Kitty Piercy.



Dear Gov. Ted Kulongoski,

I am just appalled at the cruelty of our Oregon government. I have a friend who has taken care of and raised her 6 year old granddaughter since birth because the mother is a drug addict and has been in and out of jail during her entire life. The daughter is currently in jail again.
This little girl even calls her grandmother “mom” as that is all she has ever known. My friend got a call last Friday from her daughter’s parole officer saying she needed to bring her granddaughter to some podunk town in eastern Oregon the next day, 10 hours from her entire life and everyone she knows and loves. Their reason is so they can do rehabilitation with the drug addict mom using her poor little daughter to “make them a family again”.
Why is this low-life mother so much more important than her innocent little girl. No one even considered the little girl’s interests. She is devastated! She is not allowed to talk to her beloved grandma for the 6 months of this rehab, even by phone! She was ripped away from all her friends and her elementary school. To what benefit, to possibly help her scumbag-mother get her life back together? Not likely, they will try to attach the little girl to her mom only to have her ripped away again and put back with her grandma when the mother screws up AGAIN and goes back to prison(it wouldn’t be the first time). Does no one care about the welfare of this little girl, does her mother’s “rights” trump the little girl’s well being? There was nothing gradual about this separation, no one there to comfort this little girl and make this change easier on her. No one cares, their only interest is to “rehabilitate” the mother at all costs.
My social worker friend tells me that if at all possible the law requires the parent to get custody and they spend time and money to try and mould the loser parent into some kind of a mom. At what cost, when does anyone consider that this little girl has done nothing wrong and should not be punished for her mother’s failings.
Do you realize how traumatizing this experience will be for a 6 year old little girl? It could definitely cause her to resent her mother for making her life unhappy, for ripping her away from her family and friends and everything she knows and loves. That wont help their “family rehabilitation" now will it?! It WILL certainly scar her for life. What if it causes her to turn to a life of drugs and crime, are you then just encouraging the cycle?
These laws set out to protect the weakest and most innocent of our society do nothing for this little girl and it breaks my heart.
I believe the well being of the child should be the most important above any other "goals". Her dead-beat mother is not worth destroying this little girl’s life.
Have some common sense, show some compassion! This is child abuse! This poor little girl cannot even advocate for herself; she has no say in her situation, she is at the mercy of those who do not actually care for her happiness or well being.
Please help this little girl.

Carina Hallock
Taxpayer & Registered Voter