The 400k Euro Story

 This is a long and complicated story that I saw over at MDR (public TV from the eastern side of Germany) today, and I tell the shortened version as best as I can.

There was this German couple (early 30s) who had seven kids.  The region? Thuringia (around old East Germany). 

The guy was a fork-lift operator and you can assume he was at the bottom level of income.  

The wife?  Housewife, and her life was mostly consumed by the seven kids.

In the late part of 2019....cops came to the door of the house.  They had a 'seize' document....to take the seven kids.

Accusations of abuse?  No.  

A psychologist review triggering this?  Well....no, the people signing off on the seizure of the kids were a sociologist and educationalist.

This case revolves mostly around the fact that the mother felt overwhelmed with the household business and the kids.....to the extent that when she did approach the Socialamt.....she asked for some monetary assistance just for clean-up lady or tidy-work.  They, naturally, denied the request.

At some point, this went to someone who wrote the seizure order and had a judge sign it. The angle to this is that the woman couldn't handle both the kids and keeping up a house.....at least in the eyes of the government.  

The kids have been in the care of the government since that point (November 2019). 

So here's the comical side of this story.  The news folks went and asked....just how much was being spent monthly on the care of the seven kids now (under the government control).  25,000 Euro is the basic answer given.  Since day one....yes, they are approaching almost 400k Euro.  

If they'd signed up to some cleaning lady to show up once per week?  It would have been near 500 Euro per month.

How long will this continue on?  You can't be sure.  I'm guessing that by MDR publishing the whole story....it'll embarrass the crew involved to a certain extent, but they'd hate to admit they made a big mistake.

Another two years of this?  The amount spent will go over the 1-million Euro amount (to care for seven kids).