The Government Thinks This Couple Isn't Smart Enough to Be Parents

I don't think so. The government has the obligation to preserve the general welfare and public order - providing opportunities for any particular child is entirely the obligation of their parents and community.

Unless there's an actual law being broken - and as far as I know, being mentally incapacitated is no crime, and according to the article, there were no signs of abuse - then the government shouldn't get involved.

I'd rather the state step in and align the economic incentives so people don't feel the need to do that as much (though 40hrs—presumably per week—is a pretty low maximum threshold.) The state isn't much good at substituting for parents.

> Seems like leaving your child to their own devices is much more irresponsible than parents with low-IQ.

Probably, at least for very young children or somewhat older children for extended periods. But working doesn't inherently imply leaving your child to their own devices while you do that, even if both parents are working at the same time.

But I think this article is potentially misleading, if unintentionally.

I do these sorts of evaluations professionally routinely, in exactly these sorts of cases.

The state (at least my state) doesn't take children away because of low cognitive ability. They take them away because there's some danger to the children, and low cognitive ability is found to be a contributing factor that's unlikely to go away.

72 and 66 are not just below average, as the article portrays. It's about 2sd below average.

I've seen exactly these sorts of cases, and they're extremely, extremely sad because the parents love their children and truly want the best for them. But when you see the consequences of not intervening, it's often even more sad.

This may be a case where the state screwed up. That happens, and it seems from the Oregonian story that there's disagreement among social workers about their parenting abilities, so it's possible it's in a very grey area.

Lost in the Reason story and buried in the Oregonian story, though, is that the state has a duty to protect the children's privacy usually. It states that they removed the recent child from the parents' care in the hospital without them even being able to take the child home.

In my experience, that often happens when something serious happens to the child in the hospital (for example, hospital staff witness something very threatening or concerning to them). If there was some doubt, given the previous history of involvement, child protection would be more likely to lean toward acting out of caution.

Critically, though, neither child protection nor the hospital would say a peep about this to the press, to protect the child's privacy. So what it would look like from the outside is that the state just came in and took the child away, and isn't providing any explanation for what triggered the removal.

It's also possible this case isn't really over. Children get taken away for long periods of time and then are returned, as long as there aren't permanent decisions in the court system.

I've seen a lot of these types of scenarios, and the reporting on this seems potentially misleading, even if well intended. Although the impression the press is giving could be accurate, I'd want to see a lot more information before I'd pass judgment.