Endangered Children: Experiencing and Surviving the State as Failed Parent and Grandparent

The state removes children from ‘failed’ parentsto give them a better experience of parenting. This articleexamines the role that the state plays as parent to young mothersin care and grandparent to their children, drawing on a small-scalestudy undertaken in western Canada using grounded theory methodology.The findings were bleak: the state as parent and grandparentalso fails these children. We consider why this is the caseand make suggestions for ways forward by critiquing the ideologyof familialism that underpins the state’s punitive approachto these young mothers and their children. We also call forpolicies and a practice that enable practitioners to addressstructural inequalities such as poverty and racism alongsidethe capacity to respond to the personal needs of the young womenand their children as young people with dignity and rights.