«The choice to let children live in dangerous housing and unhygienic conditions and, above all, semi-isolation, must be seen not as an alternative option, but as a violation of their basic rights». Lawyer Marco Melitia family law expert, intervened in the debate arising from the transfer of three children living with their parents in a farmhouse in L’Aquila ordered by the L’Aquila Juvenile Court forest to Palmoli (in province Chieti), without water or electricity.
What do you think of the Trevallion-Birmingham couple’s decision to reject alternative accommodation solutions available to them and the company’s proposal to carry out free work on the farmhouse?
«I believe that reading the trial documents, the statements made by the parents and their behavior certainly takes away much of the poetry and empathy that many of us have felt in recent days towards this family’s choice to live an alternative life; where nature’s clock takes precedence over the anxiety of high performance, where time is not a container to be filled with other activities to do, even if we raise thoroughbreds instead of children. No one denies that these parents are able to provide love to their children and transmit to them values that are not antisocial or violent. The same cannot be said for many children who grow up in nomadic camps, as well as in homes in the best neighborhoods or at the most prestigious schools, with distracted, Botox-filled parents. Because, as we know, the “no” words that help us grow are too tiring for our children to resist, and what’s more, they risk making us late for the burraco or padel game.”
So what is meant by the “right way”?
“If this raises unavoidable questions, it must not make us forget how social coexistence is based on respect for common rules, which is the only antidote to anarchy. When there is sociality, the rights of each of us will suffer an inevitable decline. If we then talk about children, then their rights are not available, that is, they are not negotiable, they do not even support rural ideals. Because some people forget that children are not the property of their parents, but are the holders of rights autonomy, such as the right to be loved and raised with respect for one’s physical and psychological integrity, which cannot be neglected by living in a decent and healthy living environment, as well as receiving an appropriate education, in a context that guarantees a relational life with a group of peers, which is necessary to develop social skills and guarantee harmonious cognitive and emotional development”.
On the other hand, the judge’s decision to remove the three brothers from their parents seemed “extreme” to most people.
«In general, I believe that the State should make every effort to support parents, rather than raising “state” children, as it still sometimes wants to do. It is true, separating a child from his parents is a last resort.”
And in this family’s case?
“In this family’s case, it is clear from the procedural documents that not only was there not the slightest collaboration between the parents and all the operators involved, which is a sign of the company’s unwillingness to question itself, but there was extremely resistant, or even hostile, behavior, even to the point of limiting the granting of permission for necessary medical examinations on their children to an unscrupulous request for money. Therefore, if unconventional lifestyle choices should not be considered an indication of negligence, then it is also true that the parents’ unavailability of a compromise solution is in stark contrast to the defense of the interests of the children under an age that our system deems important, beyond the media consensus and sympathy that this family managed to catalyze.”
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