My Journey into Parent Advocacy: A Welcome from IPAN’s President

When I had a life crisis, I underwent a metamorphosis in the eyes of Sweden's social services. I was no longer human, but an object who 'had harmed children.'

By MALIN WIDERLÖV

Just as a dandelion can grow and thrive in extremely difficult conditions, such as through asphalt and in inaccessible places, so too can dandelion children. The term "dandelion child" was coined in 1987 by the Swedish journalist and author Ami Lönnroth. In that same year, a "dandelion child" in Sweden gave birth to her own little "dandelion child." It was me, 16 years old and forcibly placed in a foster home, who had my first son.

Social services took my brother from my mother before I can remember. I, myself, was not taken from my mother until later in my childhood, because of sexual abuse from my stepfather. After I gave birth, I was determined to give my child a different life experience. Although I was only 16, social services supported me, helped me to find my own apartment and let me keep my child. For many years I thought I knew how social services in Sweden worked, as an impacted child and as a parent.

But when I was 31 and the mother of three, I was held hostage and raped for several hours by a perpetrator who planned to murder me. Because of that I had a severe life crisis. I was hospitalized and needed help to care for my three children while I was recovering. I had never been reported for abuse or neglect, had never had my children separated from me before, and never, even until this day, have I been judged an unfit parent. But suddenly, I was treated completely differently by people around me, especially by social services.

It was then that I entered a Sweden I hadn’t known existed.

It took a while before I understood that it was not some crazy misunderstanding or a single social worker acting out of of a personal vendetta against me, but that this was the norm. I soon realized I had undergone a metamorphosis in the view of social services. There is not enough room in this article to describe what happened to me, but I think you can call it “othering.” I was no longer a human being but an object who "had harmed children." I was transformed through the lie, widely believed by most Swedish citizens, that Swedish social services only remove children from their homes if it is absolutely necessary and only after all other efforts and support have been exhausted.

An Impossible Fight Against an Overwhelming Power

The reality was that I was provided with no support. In Sweden, children have their own caseworker. Foster parents have theirs. But as a biological parent you have none. It is you, the parent, who is required to change. But even if you somehow magically spontaneously heal, you don’t have a caseworker to witness your progress and attest to it in court. It is only you speaking up for yourself, with no one—not social services, not the judge, not the public—who believes you.

I could not handle this othering. I died inside and fled what seemed like an impossible fight against an overwhelming power that had all the prerogative of interpretation. I fled into homelessness and substance abuse. It took three years before I saw my children again. They came home not because of social services but despite the obstacles created by them.

They came home in deep crisis, all three of them. We hadn’t met in three years and I had only an empty apartment without furniture. No beds. No nothing.

Social services did not help us at all. The head of social services wrote me a letter and explained that it is not part of the social services' mission to relieve parents in their parenting. He concluded his letter with, "I hope that your children still get the support they need from their mother so that they can eventually become their own independent individuals.”

I realized then that my children’s removal from me had never been about my children's best interests. It was all about them, about social services, about the caseworker avoiding feeling powerless, avoiding criticism, and about protecting society from disturbances. It was not about my children at a moment when they, and their mother, needed help.

“My children came home in deep crisis, all three of them. We hadn’t met in three years and I only had an empty apartment without furniture. No beds. No nothing. Social services did not help us at all.”

Like the strong dandelion, my children recovered. They grew into beautiful people. They found jobs. They married. They had their own children.

When I came out of my crisis, I decided that if they met me, no one would go through the abysmal loneliness I experienced with social services, when the whole world turned its back on me.

I also wondered, was it possible to create a non-abusive social services system?

Before my crisis, I had been an activist. I drew on that experience to start a parents' association that we called Dandelion Parents. We worked to advocate for children's rights to their biological networks and parents' rights to support before, during and after they are involuntarily separated from their children by social services.

Creating a movement starts with connecting to people in crisis, one by one. For me, it is an incredible privilege that people have come to me and told me openly about their darkest problems, their most difficult pains, insults, fears and collapses and that often I am able to reach them. We find each other in all the darkness and usually—but not always—they grow closer to their children and sometimes their children also come home again. Living together 24/7 is not for everyone, not after years of separation or if parents have serious illness. But even these parents and their children need a chance to process, to understand and to be listened to and treated with respect.

a system driven by prejudices and fears

During the years that I ran Dandelion Parents, I learned just how complex issues ofchildren's rights to their parents and children's rights to be protected from unsuitable parents are, and how different they are when compared to any other issue that isn’t about how parents treat children.

When it comes to protecting children, systems are driven by fears and prejudices that are so strong that all facts, all common sense, all research reports are overshadowed by it. It doesn’t matter how much evidence there is that the way we “protect” children harms them. And the evidence is overwhelming. The system keeps treating parents like the other, and because of that, they do even more harm to children. When children lose their families, they lose their legal security and their homebase.

For 20 years, I was also a guest lecturer for prospective social workers at the Lund University School of Social Work.

In my lectures, I tried to show my students that they could work collaboratively with parents in the best interest of their children. I tried to communicate the importance of valuing people and the quality of their lives. I talked about the importance of parents and children having influence over their lives even when they need support and help. I advocated for fair help and solidarity between parents and social services—a non-abusive social service system quite simply—with the child’s needs always in focus.

“If we are going to succeed in making any difference for children, parents and our society, we have to do it together. With parents, not against them.”

Through my work, I met many of the finest social workers. They became my role models and ideals. I also received help from lawyers and researchers. I want to express my appreciation, too, to the social services offices where I have been a representative for parents.

It has been a long journey, and a hard one. In Sweden you can talk openly about everything but social services. I have been subjected to censure and punishment from government authorities and others because I quietly but constantly and persistently tell the truth, testify in court and report on harmful situations by government workers and private companies who profit from children who have been separated from their families.

Because of the pushback I have endured, I no longer run a parents' association in Sweden though I continue to work every day as a parent advocate on a volunteer basis. I’ve listened to every single person who has spoken or called or written to me and told me they were separated from their children or afraid of social services and done what they asked me to do, if I could.

I continue to write and debate. I am actively involved in social policy.

I am also the president of the board of the International Parent Advocacy Network (IPAN). IPAN was created because those of us working in our own countries to create a system of social services that works in the best interest of children need help and support from others in other countries. The work is too hard—the power of social service systems too immense—to do it alone.

In all the work I do, I try to send the message that IF we are going to succeed in making any difference for children, parents and our society, we have to do it together. With parents, not against them. Always keeping the child's perspective at the center of our focus, no matter which angle you look from.