Tough Love
Tough Love chronicles the lives of two parents fighting to reunite with their children. With cases in the United States child welfare system, they attempt to prove to the courts and the system that they deserve a second chance to be a parent and have a family.
Offering a rare look at the inner workings of the American child welfare system, Tough Love chronicles the lives of two parents — one in Seattle and one in New York City — as each fights to be reunited with children taken out of their custody.
The United States leads the world in the number of children in state-sponsored foster care. In 2011, over 250,000 children were removed from their parents’ homes and placed in foster care. Almost 80% of these child victimization cases involved findings of neglect, not abuse. Neglect allegations frequently involve poverty, mental illness, addiction, domestic violence, children with significant developmental challenges, and/or some combination of these factors.
Through intimate, verité footage of both families, in Tough Love we witness first-hand the crushing bureaucracy of America’s child welfare system. Moreover, we come to understand the powerful role poverty and prejudice play in keeping parents and children apart — and the challenges parents must overcome in order to put their families back together.