Interview with Timothy Barbee
My journey in family court started because my fiancée died on me the day before my son’s 2nd birthday.
The day he was born, we’d had a little argument about his middle name. She wanted it to be James. I didn’t like it—I knew she’d had a boyfriend named James. She told me, “That’s my Daddy’s middle name!” I thought she was pulling a fast one on … Read More
White and Black people in this country have similar rates of illegal drug use, but research shows that Black parents come to the attention of the child welfare system for drug use at far higher rates. One 1990 Florida study found that doctors were 10 times more likely to report Black women for drug use during pregnancy than White women. A more recent study, conducted between 2001 and 2007 in California, found that … Read More
It was homework time in my house one evening last fall. I called my son into the living room. He stormed in demanding popcorn. I told him, “No, not until you do your homework.” Why did I say that? He began screaming that he hated me. He had started telling me he hated me every time things didn’t go his way.
For months, homework had been a daily conflict. This time, I … Read More
Most parents whose children enter foster care have to take parenting classes in order to get their children back. I went to two parentingclasses that didn’t help before I found a program that worked for me.
The ones that didn’t help were the ones where the instructor read to us from a big parenting skills book or played old videos of moms trying to get their kids to listen. Then the instructor … Read More
Three years ago, my son was removed from my home because he had serious behavioral problems and I had become too sick and exhausted to care for him.
I raised my son on my own until he was 9 years old. For five years, he was in and out of psychiatric hospitals because of his impulsive, destructive behavior. He was diagnosed with ADHD and bipolar disorder.
I found services to support my … Read More
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