By Families vs DHR Staff
Published September 2025
Dear Families vs. Houston County DHR,
I never thought disciplining my child would mean losing her to a system more dangerous than the streets. My soul is broken.
The Houston County Department of Human Resources showed up to my home and reinforced to my teenage daughter that her rebellion was acceptable. They told her her actions were fine, when every parent knows they were not.
I caught my minor child smoking vapes, risky behavior that can destroy her health. I discovered she was having intimate conversations online with adult men who were exploiting her.
She was being disrespectful, manipulative, and reckless. As her mother, I did what I was entrusted by God to do. I disciplined her. I set boundaries. I fought to protect her.
But like so many other parents, I had no idea the weapon my daughter would reach for. She summoned DHR into our lives. They did not come to protect. They did not come to guide. They came to twist. They showed up with false pretenses, false narratives, and false allegations.
They tore my daughter from a safe, structured, loving home and cast her into a life of chaos, uncertainty, and destruction. As I navigate the uphill battle of a system that has not an ounce of care for me as her mother or for her well-being as my child, I can only keep praying she will one day be freed from it.
That same daughter is now pregnant, believed to be by an adult predator. She is couch surfing, drifting with no direction, being led by the streets. And under the watch of Houston County DHR, I have no idea the last time they have even seen her.
This is what they call protection. This is what they claim is child welfare. But I know better. I see the truth. My child was not rescued. She was thrown away.
Not only is she living a nightmare that could have been prevented, my entire family has been shattered. My other children were torn from me. The home I worked to build has been destroyed. All because I dared to discipline my child, to guide her, to love her enough to say no.
Parents are not the enemy. But Houston County DHR has made us one.
The moment our children are caught breaking into cars, smoking vapes that are nearly costing them their lives, or crossing state lines and ending up in situations that could rob them of the rest of their childhoods, the main question asked is always, “Where are the parents?”
Let me make this clear: many of us are here. We are showing up. But because of the backlash parents in this community are facing, some are refusing to risk everything they have when their children will not listen. Their careers, their other children if they have more, and the lives they have fought to build are all on the line because the system is operating in bad faith and rooted in corruption.
To every parent reading this, I need you to know that what happened to me can happen to you. It is happening to families all across this county and this state. DHR is twisting discipline into abuse, correction into cruelty, and families into case files.
Have you been impacted by DHR?
Share your story with us. Your voice matters.
