After meeting some of the parents, the magnitude of their loss is clear from their emotions. These are plain folks, obviously sincere, who readily admit their faults and imperfections but know they are good parents who love their kids. They are eager to show photographs of their cavorting children, faces beaming in the bosom of their family. The stories are all similar, an argument, a fight, a slap, absent mindedness, a misunderstanding, normal daily human interaction somehow gets reported to DSS and twisted into an intolerably risky situation that demands removal of their child. Maybe the state doesn't take the child right away, but failure to follow the prescribed service plan of numerous appointments during working hours will result in the loss of the child.
Parents try to jump through the hoops in hopes of getting their kids back.
At first they're afraid to speak out for fear of reprisal. Then DSS, they say, keeps changing the rules, moving the goal posts until eventually parents realize the kids aren't coming back without a fight. All the while the child is traumatized by an abrupt removal to a strange succession of places far worse than any situation at home with the parents, if it was ever bad at home to begin with. Among the group of twenty or so attending the vigil were Heidi Polanza from Mashpee, who lost two daughters to DSS, and the Petersons of Hyannis who lost all six children. Eric Bleiken of Yarmouth attended, with his son, Matt.