If you’ve ever had a two-year-old, then you have had to deal with a tantrum. Perhaps even dozens. We, Kathleen Raskin and Robert Raskin, are parents and grandparents, and believe us we’ve seen our share of them! It is inconceivable to us that in this day and age children can be removed from loving homes over something as ordinary as a toddler tantrum, but for one mother in California that nightmare became reality when she was reported to Child Protective Services.

An Ordinary Day
As the mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, revealed in an interview on the website Mom.me, she was trying to cook dinner, and her two-year-old son began trying to take toys from the baby. When the mother told him not to take the baby’s toys, he—big surprise here—threw a tantrum. After screaming and trying to hit his mother, she put him on time-out on a patio that was directly next to the open window where she stood, never more than 12 inches away. That 12 inches was all it took for a neighbor to report her.

Kidnapped by CPS
With no proof of wrongdoing and no evidence outside of a neighbor’s report that a child was outside in a safe patio in a secure backyard in a gated neighborhood, CPS was able to have the family’s children, who included an exclusively breastfed infant, removed from the household. After hiring a lawyer, getting statements from family, friends, and doctors, submitting photos, and attending court-approved anger management and parenting classes, the children were returned a month-and-a-half later. The charges against the parents were dropped without a trial, but it is simply unbelievable that it got to that point in the first place.

This happens all too often in this system, because there are no watchdog organizations to stop it. We, Robert Raskin and Kathleen Raskin, hope this couple is able to get the settlement they deserve in court, though no amount of money can make up for what they went through. Unfortunately, in other cases, too many families who have tried to sue for wrongful removal of their children have not seen their rightful day in court.