I mean, James Franco is the ultimate hack, of course he made a movie trying to cash in on a cultural phenomenon through painstaking recreation and casting all of his friends and family rather than do something original and risky.

Thank Goodness! While it’s not really dark enough for me (I like eggplant) I’ve decorated the bedroom with purple for YEARS - and my sheets are getting old (and really really soft). But finding new ones of good quality in a dk purple has been impossible. When these colors are “released” or named, designers do actually…

Seriously. I work my ass off giving my kids everything they need and making them feel loved and at the end of every day I still sit and reflect and think about what I might do better. Then I come here and read “I drank and partied instead of looking after my three kids and please feel sorry for me.” I’m supposed to…

I agree with most of the comments here about parenting, will add though not a gangsta, I ran pretty hard before I had kids, I knew I wasn’t ready for parenthood and waited til I was over 30. When I had kids I stopped doing things that could get me in trouble and put the kids first.

Yeah, that was shocking for me too. One thing that gets more and more clear the older I get was how much my mother prioritized my happiness and wellbeing over herself. Sometimes she maybe didn’t make the best decision in the long run, but she was always doing what at the time she believed was best. These women…

In both of these stories, these women seem like they should be deeply grateful for the love these other people have given their child, love and also care and attention they weren’t receiving from their parent (crime, jail, partying precluding that).

Visits are tough. I adopted the oldest in a sibling group. We try to keep in contact with the others for birthdays, Christmas, and big milestones but it’s complicated. As mine is the oldest she has the strongest memories of their time together. But I can see the stress it causes on the younger ones as it dredges up…

I was expecting to see stories from workers, adults that were children in the system, therapists, and court officials to give a whole picture of the fractures in the child welfare system. Instead it’s story after story of a mother who while some admit to wrongdoing, are acting like they are some kind of victim in all…

What purpose exactly is Jezebel trying to serve with this series? I’m honestly wondering. They fail to realize that the victims here aren’t the parents, have never been the parents. The victims are the children. And in every. single. story in this series the children have been properly served by protective services.…

Yeah, I felt the same way about these two. The one about the woman who slapped her kid especially got to me, because of how she went on to work with the system and let other families hit their kids.

Yeah I feel bad for her too! But that is also a case where I totally see the state’s side as well. Until they figured out how that fracture happened, I can see the argument that they needed to protect the baby. I am really glad she got her baby back though!

The one-sided element bothers me, too. I want to hear from the kid, from the foster parents, and look at the court records. A woman in jail lamenting the theft of her child tugs at the heartstrings, but as someone involved frequently involved with the foster care system, it takes A LOT to have your children taken…

I feel as if almost all the parents in this series are trying to turn the tables on how this should work and put the burden of the relationship on the children instead of themselves. It’s the children who have to deal with their psychological or physical absence, their abuse, their lack of preparedness for their…

Yea, these stories are incredibly one-sided. My grandparents had a foster (now adopted) son who was born addicted to drugs. His mother never made any real attempts to get clean, her residence was constantly full of lowlife scum, and she had about 10 different kids by 8 different guys- none of whom stayed in her or the…

Seriously, I’m kind of blown away that she still expects to be seen as a parent after over a decade of separation. The self centered nature of this thought process is not striking a sympathetic note with me at all. Most of the stories in this series don’t.
 

I just don’t understand this stuff.

To be fair, she’s only seen the parts where he lights up.

I find it hard to put too much trust in these emotionally charged, one sided stories. I’d love to know what the foster parents (with more first hand knowledge of the children’s emotional states) have to say about the situation.

“On more than one occasion, his foster mother told me that he got depressed after visits and acted out by being disrespectful or breaking his possessions. Those were little signs, she told me, that “maybe the visits aren’t such a good idea.” I felt that if he were allowed to see me more often, then it would not be so…

I know I’m meant to be horrified by this government overreach, but sofar I haven’t read a story in which I would want the officials to act substantially differently. Could they be nicer? Sure. But do you really want an official investigating a baby with an unexplainable skull fracture to drop it? “Oh well! This 7…