While that sounds like a horrible way to live, and my heart goes out to the children who have to endure that kind of lifestyle every day, I find it difficult to justify removing the children. I was abused (verbally and physically) in public schools, and yet few people think we should abolish the public school system!

Serious abuse, to me, has to mean physical harm that requires medical treatment, such as broken bones. It's a tough standard, but anything less than that means we can remove children just because their parents spank them, etc. Also, poverty is the number one reason why children are removed from their homes and families (usually cited as inadequate nutrition or housing or clothing), and I have a huge problem with that.

This is a really difficult subject for me. If I were Supreme Goddess of the World, all-knowing and all-powerful, I would certainly give to every child a perfect childhood. That would be my number one priority! But nobody can do that, especially not the government. So we are stuck with children being raised by imperfect parents in an imperfect world.

ps. The molestation should definitely be dealt with, if that is really happening. It should at least be investigated when alleged by the child! But there are also Amish who leave and then write books about the horrible abuse going on in the community. I know some of the people in some of those books, and I know that the authors exaggerated in the extreme. I can't say whether that is happening in this case, but it certainly does happen, especially when someone is trying to make a group look bad (perhaps to get their other family members out, with the help of anti-cult groups or the government?).