CPS Took My Kids Because I Don’t Hover

This is why Child Protective Services–or CPS–should be completely 100% abolished, simple as that. They are as evil as the Nazis were in 1930s Germany, so are people that report others to CPS in the name of “concern”–and I can’t believe something that evil could exist in the United States of America.

How this woman parents her kids isn’t any of their business, and any organization that dare meddle in her private parenting affairs ought to be destroyed in any legal way possible.

I have my own story to tell (happy ending), but I will save it for later.

LRH

Well I guess I’m due for a CPS call. I let my 5 yr old son in kindergarten walk almost a1/4 mile to his school by himself everyday since February. I’m up until 3 am sometimes trying to get work done. While my son hasn’t threatened suicide, he does draw graphic battle scenes of darth vadar fighting the jedi and sometimes one of the characters looses an arm or a head. If I were the poster I would definitly seek legal counsel (sometimes you can get pro bono advice: probono.net) about defamation of character and possible legal recourses.

Really, 8 and 10? At 8 and 10 my sister and I were walking the 1/2 mile or so home from school and staying at home alone *gasp* for about 2 hours before our parents got home from work. We had to call my mom when we got home so she knew we were safe but after that she didn’t want to hear from us unless someone was bleeding (from more than a paper cut), unconscious, or vomiting.

Maybe I’m behind, and this whole thing is indeed nuts, but since when was it the job of the parents to do the homework for the kid(s)? Last time I checked it wasn’t a good way for a child to get their lesson reinforced.

I’m a foster parent. And…as a free-ranger…I’ve had to come to terms with what CPS minimum standards really are. It’s scary!! I CAN NOT be free-range with my foster kids. It is absolutely NOT allowed in any way shape or form. That’s been the hardest part about being a foster parent for me. I’ve allowed an institution to get way too close to my family and I do not agree with many of their policies.

However, I do know that many children are abused and neglected. My current foster daughter (age 5) is severely mentally retarded and was left home alone while her mother was out drinking. This child needs to be protected from that level of neglect. CPS needed to be involved.

It’s unfortunate that the letter writer is dealing with such a horribly unfair situation. Her kids should not have been taken from her. But, before we go writing off CPS in its entirety, they do have a real job to do. And not everyone involved in “the system” agrees with the ridiculous rules.

And yet I’m aware of kids who are beaten or actually neglected but CPS doesn’t have the time of day for them. If you give more info we can contact your school and complain on your behalf.

Can you prove that CPS has deliberately put falsehoods in the documents? If you can prove it, get a lawyer and ask him about filing criminal charges against the individuals involved. Most lawyers will give you a consultation for free, and – since you are on a limited income – you may be entitled to free legal services.

Deliberate or reckless falsification of a CPS report (“on a daily basis…”) in order to seize custody of a child should be charged and punished as kidnaping.

Wilson I would suggest–I hope I’m not being a jerk with how I’m wording things in here?–that Child Protective Services IS as evil as is being suggested, and they SHOULD be 100% scrapped. The police can get involved in serious matters (they sure SHOULDN’T on frivolous matters like this), that would cover that–but CPS is guilty of this sort of thing on an all-too-frequent level (this is one thing NOT being exaggerated in a way analogous to child kidnappings etc) to be allowed to continue to exist. They need to be completely abolished, totally.

And yes, people who call CPS should NOT be allowed to be anonymous anymore, and if your claim is baseless, there should be criminal charges. You go around screwing up a woman’s life like has happened here, you BETTER be darn prepared to stand up as to WHY you believe there are legitimate dangers (as opposed to exagerrating things as CPS most certainly did here, and often does), or else be held accountable for how you turned a woman’s life upside down and ripped apart a family over nothing.

This whole “people will be scared to report real abuse otherwise” is horse manure, and has been abused to bits, and needs to be completely scrapped.

LRH

The reason that CPS needs a drastic reformation is not because “most” interactions with it resemble this story (they don’t), but because it is established on fundamentally flawed principles (per CherubMamma) and without appropriate (and I would argue constitutional) safeguards.

Yes there are children who need protection and yes as I society I believe we have a moral obligation to do so. But it also seems that this.particular system may be unsalvagable in its current form.

The research exists showing that CPS is a racist and misogynist institution. How long are we going to let it destroy families “for the good of the kids”?

I can’t imagine doing my kids’ homework just because they didn’t get it done. That’s their problem, not mine. If it’s a consistent issue getting it done, I get more strict about the time homework is started, but what is learned if I do it for them?

And the horrors of being unavailable by phone! I can think of lots of jobs where a parent isn’t available by phone much of the day. Sure the school wants to be in contact immediately, but sometimes that just isn’t possible, and that doesn’t make anyone a bad parent.

Stories like this make me worry for the day that someone complains about how I let my 6 and 9 year old go out to play with friends on their own, and my plans to have them walk a quarter mile to school on their own next year. If I had to keep my older kids limited by what’s reasonable to do with my two year old, they’d be really bored.

I advise everyone to take the author’s story with a grain of salt – I have been a foster parent for several years, and NONE of the childrens’ parents admitted to any parental wrongdoing, and were often deluded about the real reasons their children were taken from them. The mother of my current foster daughter still thinks her child was taken away because the daughter slept in a bed with her and didn’t have her own crib. The reality of the situation is that the child was taken away because the cops found 50 lb of marijuana in her car, and she’s tested positive for cocaine and marijuana use.

Another foster child was in our care because his mom was a meth head and would leave him home alone for hours on end, but she told me that the only reason the boy was in care was because she left him alone in the children’s section of the library while she went to take a smoke outside (but could still see him through the window).

A third one was placed in care because the father and mother got into a fight where they were throwing objects at each other while the baby was in the room, in his car seat. The parents claim the newborn was never in any danger and the CPS overreacted by removing him.

So, what I’m saying is, we don’t know for sure how accurate the author’s story is, or if she is leaving anything out. As I said before, the parents of foster kids I’ve had were in denial of their poor parenting and the real reasons their children were taken from them.

If the author really is being truthful, her state-provided lawyer will get them back home within a few months’ time, and the charges will be dropped. A few months with the grandparents isn’t the worst thing in the world. If she is in denial of her neglect, they may be in care a lot longer.

“on a daily basis, the mother pinches the child’s nose shut while holding her mouth closed and putting a pillow over her face, placing her in imminent risk of death.”

This seems ergonomically challenging if not physically impossible. This act would take at least three hands, and she’s a single mum.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I second the question of who the hell benefits when families are turned upside down capriciously? Is there monetary gain? There’s an urgent need in there somewhere. Contribution? Why, if that’s the case, and these social workers are so inspired to contribute to the well-being of children, they need only read a few lines about whether the “cure” they are doling out, in the form of foster care, is actually poison in all but the most dire circumstances.

To me, it is the difference between the punitive use of force and the protective use of force. Is removing the children from the mother punitive (to her) or protective (of the children)? Punitive force does nothing to support well-being for anyone. CPS, evaluate how your strategies are really meeting your needs, and supporting what you claim to value. Or perhaps you are valuing power over everything else, and in that case, honesty, integrity, and health are surely suffering.

@Lauren: it’s true that there are two sides to every story, and EITHER ONE could be embellishing. Depends on who stands to lose or gain the most. But considering, as she claims, she has eye witness to her as being a mother, and none of which are negative. I’m sure since everything has been documented, it would serve no purpose for the mother to start making stuff up. It would do more harm to her case. CPS has been known to make very poor decisions in the past as well.

The way I see it, if cops can be paranoid/helicoptering, then CPS, judges, doctors, pretty much any human being can. It’s really a matter of how you choose to think. The one thing I always stress, is this isn’t about how the adults feel, it doesn’t even have to do with them. It’s all about the kids. Just because the adult feels one way, doesn’t make it right or it’s good for the children. We all grew up much different than our kids, we turned out fine, we are still alive, happy and well (for the most part). Yet we lived in a time that had much higher crime rates than our kids today. For the last 20 years, many people have been influenced by the growing media. They are now programmed to thinking the world is an ugly and unsafe place. That there is danger lurking in every corner, that every “stranger” you meet and smiles at you and your kids, is a bad person and can do you and your kids harm. That’s the simple truth. Paranoia is the norm.

This is a preemptive strike on the behalf (and at the request) of the school.

The girl was ganged up on by a group of kids at recess – on school grounds, during school hours. She threatened suicide. We have to wonder what kind of atmosphere the girl has endured up until now, to lead to such a situation. My guess is that this wouldn’t be the first time this gang has turned its attention on this girl, otherwise she probably wouldn’t have reacted the way she did. And even more importantly — Where was the vigilant supervision that’s supposed to be taking place in schools these days to thwart EXACTLY this kind of situation?

The school is in a tailspin panic: Should the girl make good on her threat, they fear themselves open to a major lawsuit. After all, similar cases have made headlines in the media. So they need to commence with the smoke and mirrors asap. Throw the scent of “neglect” off themselves, and onto the mother, so to say.

Steam is pouring out of my ears. I’m from Long Island, I have no problem believing this version of events is true.

Name and contact information of school please.
And, maybe I’m wrong, but I suspect you are being discriminated against because you are a single mom. They think they can get away with it. Let’s show them they can’t!!!

I have been known to sometimes be “inflammatory” in other posts sometimes dealing with relatively petty matters, but this is no petty matter.

I do not understand all of these “CPS whores” if you will who seem to minimize the evil that Child Protective Services is. The way they were exagerrating her routine computer usage as “being on the computer all night while her kids run wild” and “they never have school supplies” because her son once lost a notebook which was found a week later, I can tell you–CPS is the master at such “spin,” they do it all the time, and it’s evil.

To have to even answer any of this is just nonsense anyway. Who the fuck are they anyway to tell anybody how to parent? It isn’t any of their business that she uses the computer at home while the kids are there. It isn’t any of their business that she wants to let them walk to the bus stop rather than having to “helicopter” them. It isn’t any of their business that she leaves it up to them to do their own homework, something I personally strongly agree with and that John Rosemond, a respected parenting pundit himself who has written several books and makes appearances all over the country (and I saw him speak last year), actually advocates.

This mother should not have to second-guess her parenting choices because some nosy busy-body organization with the intelligence of a neutron takes umbrage to her style of parenting and is ticked off that she isn’t tap-dancing to their evil music. This is no different than being made to go “Heil Hitler” or get gassed in a concentration camp.

Look, I understand that there is real abuse and it’s good we have a checks & balances for it, but it has gotten way out of hand. Those who keep saying “you don’t hear about the good”–I’m sorry if I’m offensive in my tone, but please spare me. CPS is not some some fuzzy cuddly family-friendly “we only wanna make sure your children are doing well” grandpa figure who is, as others often-times like to say, “just doing their job.”

No, parenting my kids is MY job, your job–to deal with the pumps & drug-pushers and bone-breakers, and to leave the rest of us the fuck alone and mind your own damn business. Any organization that can’t do that ought to be destroyed totally and emphatically.

LRH

This is no different than being made to go “Heil Hitler” or get gassed in a concentration camp.

Hi, Godwin!

I’d say there’s a few differences. For example, nobody is dead. Not one person, certainly not twelve million people.

Tuppence, your explanation makes a LOT of sense. It’s possible, then, that exaggeration comes in no small part *from the school*, which makes somewhat more sense than CPS just deciding to have an expensively fun time lying. (Which can happen, and no doubt has, but just seems like a phenomenal waste of time to me. And even if you’re going “oh, they’re all evil”, they’ve got to want to take a break SOMEtime, right?)

I wonder if it is about the funding. Here, a family with three kids on welfare get maybe $1200/month from the provincial government and $800 from the federal to raise the kids, clothe, feed and pay the rent. A foster parent gets that same federal money, but those three kids would start at $2100/month. Label then with “special needs” and the amount of money skyrockets. Then there’s respite care for the foster mother – which the biological mother can’t access for a variety of excuses from CPS (no funding being one of them). There’s all sorts of funds available for foster parents, but that just aren’t there for anyone else, not even relatives.

CPS also makes caring parents have to double and triple think what they are doing in order to “properly parent” even if it goes against parental instincts – after all, what if someone calls CPS on them?

you know what else bothers me about this? The kids were cornering her and bullying her and somehow her mother is the one being reported to CPS?!!!!??? What about reporting the parents of the mean bully kids!!!?? They are the ones who must suck at parenting since they did not teach their kids to be polite or nice or empathy.

Gah, I am sending my kids to public schools but first chance of them pissing me off or stepping on my rights and homeschooling it is!

Oh and since I don’t have a cell phone really I guess I am going to have my kids taken from me too? Wow…. Parents should be reachable in general in case the kid gets sick or something but you know, as long as they check messages every hour that is more than enough. Immediate response is stupid and unreasonable. I am not answering the phone when I am taking a dump, sorry.

wow…just….wow….

This situation is so wrong on so many levels, I’m flummoxed as to where to start. I would love to blow it off as a stretching of the truth but, in this day and age, I can see it being totally truthful.

My nine year old is a latchkey kid. I just couldn’t afford $300 a month for after care any more. I could be reported to CPS for that. Sheesh…

Larry: You can give your opinion without being offensive, well at least most normal people can. “CPS whores”? That is disgusting to say that toward some of the commenter who were just giving their experiences. The woman who is a foster mother is a HERO for taking in kids who need a good home. How dare you insult her for giving her experience! Truth is that some parents are criminally horrible at the job and need to lose their kids. Like the examples she gave. The corruption of good or average or even slightly lacking parents having their kids taken from them needs to be stopped but it is stupid to think all parents are great and need no intervention. I am with the commenter who said maybe some kind of internal affairs to investigate would be a good idea.

1) There was some great stuff over at the Mothering blog on the NYT about the distinctions between abuse and neglect and the problem of enforcing neglect rules. Neglect is a terribly hard thing to codify.

2) Lets not forget this began because a child said she was going to kill herself and the mother’s response was that she was in a holding pattern for therapy. Perhaps that answer was not so reassuring to the school. There are many free suicide prevention services available and it is not hard to imagine that a school official would be concerned when they see a parent casually dismissing a suicide threat.

3) CPS may be wrong to pursue neglect cases but I would presume that the people who work there are simply trying to do the best for the kids they are paid to protect. If you see enough kids who are being abused (thats what you do all day long), you naturally overreact and do “whatever it takes” to protect each child. Yes its “worst first thinking” but its naturally human to err in that way when you job is to protect. Lets concentrate on changing the system and the rules not blaming CPS officials who are trying to do a pretty hard job. How about raising taxes to reasonable levels like 50% so we can have social services including medical, mental health, day care, etc.

Brian–personally I could care less about the hard job they’re doing. Meddling in affairs that are not their business is wrong & they need to be abolished–to heck with emphatizing with them in ANYWAY whatsoever.

LRH

http://www.cracked.com/article_18884_the-7-most-horrifying-cost-cutting-measures-all-time.html

The first entry has some VERY interesting stories in regards to CPS.. especially the one in regards to foster parents asking for specific children and a corrupt CPS worker ‘getting’ that child for them.

So point blank, I believe worried’s story. My nieces were taken away because the oldest one drew a tree, that her teacher’s aide felt looked more phallic than a tree. They took the girls away for a month, while CPS sorted things out, why? Because she drew a tree.

I am not saying that cps is all evil, and that no one deserves their children taken away, Not at all, in some cases I absolutely agree with CPS’s decisions, case in point – one of the gals I grew up with recently had her children taken away because the baby was born addicted to meth, which is so infuriating and sad … well perhaps I should keep my mouth closed on my thoughts on that.

Regardless, there is an edge of fear whenever I do make a free-range choice that may be construed oddly by someone else (Taking pictures of my babies in the tub, or even now with the newborn taking those lovely nude shots and a knit hat, letting my boy ride his bike up and down the block at 8, climbing trees…), and going on a tangent here, I work online and am an insomniac, with a newborn, I am often up at all hours of the evening, and my husband works nights, but that has no bearing on how we raise our children, it’s simply how things are… back to the story at hand, things have an awful away of snowballing and that is what it sounds like here, I am absolutely sorry that you’re going through this worried, and I hope that you’re able to get your children back soon. (Also to the one that said being at your grandparents like a mini vacation, Well, it’s very confusing, I was shipped away at 6 to live with my Grandmother for a few years, and I had absolutely no idea why at the time, I thought that *I* had done something wrong and that my parents no longer wanted me… )

Wow. I hate litigation, but I wouldn’t blame this mother at all if she filed a lawsuit. So much damage is done to children when their lives are disrupted, and it must never be done unless there is clearly a good reason for it.

Thanks for noting that this is NOT common. Thank goodness. It is hard to be a “confident” mom in these times.

There was a recent discussion on one of the public mom blogs about children walking to a destination alone. The facts were spun stupidly, so I won’t mention the source; but the overwhelming opinion was that young kids should never be out of an adult’s sight ever, and many felt that that should be treated as criminal neglect. Scary.

And then of course you get parents who believe that our parenting style is “laziness.” If only they knew just how much thought and effort goes into “confident” parenting these days. Not only do we have to go against the tide as we teach our kids independence skills, but we constantly walk a line between what’s best for our kids and what other adults will consider “neglect.”

The woman’s message touches an extra nerve with me, as I am also a single mom who works at home during business hours and after the kids’ bedtime. I usually send non-work messages after midnight due to my demanding work schedule. Never occurred to me that this could be evidence of child neglect.

Before we start wailing on Child Protective Services in general — and I don’t disagree that if the facts are as they poster makes them out, this particular case is a serious miscarriage of justice and a perversion of the purpose of protective services — let us remember that in the vast, vast majority of cases county social workers charged with protecting children are doing so with extremely good cause.

My wife and I have been foster parents, and ended up adopting one of our foster sons. I’ve seen the case files, met the parents on many occasions, seen the court records, and seen the effects on the children. We’ve been greatly frustrated that the laws are all written with the “parents rights” as the basis, not the children’s best interests. I don’t know New York law, but in California I can give you multiple examples from my own experience where the parents’ conduct or condition — from drug addiction to prostitution to dementia — was clearly established long before CYS ever got involved, and even so it took years to remove the children and years more to get custody revoked, years during which the children are confused and emotionally battered, torn between their natural feelings for their parents and the abuse they suffer (frequently blaming themselves, often because the birth parents are rarely shy about blaming others, including their own kids, for their own problems). The length here is abuse upon abuse.

So I am very upset and send out my heartfelt sympathy to the poster, because I know anecdotally abuses do happen in the system. I realize it will be of little comfort to you, but almost always in such circumstances the love between the parent and the children comes out almost immediately, and the first interviews of the children by trained professionals are almost always proof enough that there is no neglect or abuse going on.

We might all consider the effects on an overburdened social welfare system of the extreme budget cuts that are going on right now. Even well-meaning social workers have huge caseloads, getting worse, have fewer resources for evaluation, and diminishing training opportunities. A tired, overworked social worker is, like any of us, likely to make more mistakes in his or her work. That’s not an excuse, by any means, but it is an explanation. Because we have been penny-wise and pound foolish with protecting our children who truly are at risk, I think it’s likely we’ll have more outrageous mistakes made.

I would also caution my fellow free-rangers against overgeneralizing and letting our worst fears about our best intentions get the better of us. I’ve also had neighbors who have questioned my letting my 7 year old go a half a block, all by himself, in full view of the house, to pick up the mail at our community mail dropoff. The nagging fear enters my head about them. But fear is the enemy here: that’s part of what we’re trying to teach our kids. Let us not be trapped into villifying one of the hardest, most underappreciated groups of people in the country — social workers who have to engage some truly despicable people and navigate an indifferent legal system, on behalf of children — because of what we fear might be an abuse of power visited upon us.

I mean this respectfully, and I hope it’s taken and worded as such, but seriously–are we as parents supposed to give a fig about budget cuts, how “they mean well” and how “they’re overworked?” What is that to me? I’m trying to parent my children, and do so without excessive and unnecessary oversight that is uncalled for, and yet we have created this situation where we are all encouraged–yes, even mandated–to snitch on each other over a bunch of petty nonsense that doesn’t even begin to rise to the level of child abuse and/or neglect.

When my mother-in-law, who watches her grandchildren (our nieces-nephews) has CPS called on us just because her daughter (the children’s mother, my wife’s sister) drops them off at their church fresh from a mud-playing romp–part of what childhood is–and someone in their CHURCH is pondering calling Child Protective Services (CPS) and this causes them to freak out and stop letting them do any fun stuff just to keep them off of their back, that’s evil. That’s not just a bit of overkill, or a situation of “tired workers who are doing the best they can” or whatever, that’s just evil.

The people who have spoken of problems when they leave their kids in the car even for 60-90 seconds while they pay for gas, or those who want to let their kids play outdoors but fear snitches living next door making a fuss over it even though it’s legal AND safe–no one should have to parent this way. We have CPS, social services, the whole anonymous reporting, mandated reporting legislation, and a government that doesn’t respect the authority of non-abusive parents to thank for all of this.

I spoke to a lawyer 3 years ago who was investigated because her son got bruises from playing Little League baseball. Now if you say “well all they did was check things out, all was well, so that’s no big deal,” wrong–she assured me they were very condescending and even threatening in their tone to her, insinuating that surely those bruises must’ve come from her lashing out at her child.

My brother-in-law’s wife has threatened to call just because we’ve done things like let our son play in the lake even though we forgot the sunscreen (he hasn’t become sunburned yet) and let him walk around up to strangers and making them smile. “THAT’S NOT SAFE, YOU SHOULD BE HOLDING HIM DOWN, HE’S GOING TO GET KIDNAPPED!!” We’ve had to avoid any family functions of which she is a part because of this, and frankly–and I don’t advocate violence per se, especially against women–but frankly, I’d love to be able to punch her right in the nose.

This kind of environment which we’ve fostered is totally wrong, evil, and amoral, and forgive me if I’m too busy actually–gee, being a parent?–to give a fig about how is “just doing their job” or worrying about budget cuts etc.

Heck, if the budget is that bad off, why not just abolish the whole thing to start with? Take the money saved from that and open some low-income daycares or something. If someone is being beaten or molested by their mean old uncle or stepdaddy or whoever (or stepmommy, could be either one, don’t want to discriminate), the police can handle it.

It isn’t my job to care one bit about what their job is, how hard it is, budget-cuts, being over-worked etc. I am not saying I don’t care for a person going through this PERSONALLY, but as a parent that’s not what I’m called on to spend my mental energy getting all sappy-eyed and teary-faced and sentimental and tree-hugging about.

LRH

@ SKL – I guess we’ll be sharing a cell after our arrest for neglect. I got bunkbeds right around my kid’s 5th birthday. She not only plays in the top but sometimes sleeps there … or used to before she decided that she needed easy access to her clothes and hairbows so that she can change and do her hair after I put her in bed.

Larry: So let me get this straight….your mother dropped them off at church covered in mud? Is that right? Okay that would definitely raise some eyebrows from me. I have no problem with letting kids play in mud. I thought when you originally mentioned this that like someone saw them playing in mud in the yard or at a park and then called CPS. That would be wrong.

But letting them play in mud, then not cleaning them up afterwards and them dropping them off at church???? That makes zero sense to me. Who goes to church filthy muddy? Who even goes to the store filthy muddy? Am I getting this right? It just seems so bizarre to me. Why didn’t she clean them up?

Either way a one time thing is not evidence of neglect but it would totally make a lot of people be like “what!?” to see kids being dropped off at church covered in mud.

http://law.ubalt.edu/downloads/law_downloads/Gottlieb_After_First_EIC_Edit%20%28May%2026%29.pdf

this is the article I referenced earlier regarding abuse v. neglect and some of the complex issues involved. 18 pages but really interesting reading.

My kids’ room is too small for single beds side-by-side. I am not opposed to letting them both sleep on the bottom bunk until they are bigger. But when they are awake and alert, climbing up to play with toys on the top bunk seems no less safe than playing on playground equipment.

My brothers had bunkbeds when they were a tad older – and we all played on them (including my sister, who was younger than my kids). Theirs didn’t have a safety rail nor a ladder – we just climbed up at the foot of the bed. I don’t recall any bunkbed-related injuries. Of course I know accidents will happen, but my kids are not accident-prone (knocking on wood) and 6 just seems overprotective for kids like them. Thanks for the feedback.

But like he said, it was spur-of-the-moment. The problem is that we are all so caught up in our own perceptions of the world, that when we see something that doesn’t fit our view of normal, we jump to conclusions about why it doesn’t fit. And for me and mine, it doesn’t take just a few minutes to clean up our 18 month old son and change his clothes. It is a wrestling match and a game of chase for him, so getting him ready for anything is like wrestling a cat into a sweater: most of the time, not worth the effort when it’s just for appearance’s sake.

Robyn: Hey I am not picky at all about how perfect someone looks. If you knew me you would know that. I go out in sweatpants and ponytail and t shirt all the time. Even without make up. But I at least shower and brush my teeth,you know? I just think being extremely muddy and going to church is like over the line. Being a little dirty and having your hair messy and going to church, fine.

In the end, that is their choice.

Give it a rest Dolly. There is nothing necessarily lazy about occasionally muddy children in church or elsewhere. Who hasn’t lost track of time and needed to rush somewhere? I don’t even recall Larry saying that the kids were home prior to going to church. Quite possible that the parents had them out playing and had no time to get home to get clothes changed.

My prima donna is rarely muddy but her clothes almost never match (she likes it that way). In the rush to get out the door to work and school, I’ve occasionally forgotten to remind her brush her hair and even her teeth. She refuses to stay out of the outgrown clothes piles (and I rarely find time to take them to donate so they build up) so it isn’t totally unheard of for her to be wearing clothes that are too small because I don’t realize it until we are out of the house. Lately she’s worn shoes with a hole in them because she loves them and I’ve decided to pick my battles on something that matters substantively. She went to camp this morning with a blue ring around her mouth from her juice because I didn’t see it until we were in the car.

She will eventually learn to match her clothes (or be a fashionista). In a few short years, she’ll spend hours in her bedroom making sure her hair, clothes, teeth and face are perfect. Until then, she’s an active, happy, well-cared for kid. If it bothers you that she occasionally goes out looking out of sorts, get over it. It’s your problem, not ours.

Elf: I agree totally. Not cleaning up your kids is not a danger thing at all. I will say that I don’t agree that it is a tired thing versus a lazy thing. Some parents are just lazy. We all have our lazy days here and there. I am not talking about that. I had twins and got zero sleep most nights and had awful back problems and still managed to get them out the door with a clean face and some clean clothes on by myself. I managed to shower too. So I just don’t buy that someone is too tired to consistently clean up their kids. Hey, nothing wrong with being lazy either. Just own it.

At 10 years old I got off the bus, caught my horse in the adjacent paddock, walked across the road to the abandoned milk shed where I stood on a railing to first saddle the horse and them put my 6yo brother on it. Then I hopped on and we rode the couple of kilometers home. If the gate was closed I would hop off, open it, and then climb on it while holding the horse so I could remount.

We did the same at 6am in the mornig (in reverse) after getting ourselves ready for school and seeing ourselves off.

I work for CPS. You wouldn’t believe the things we see. MOST of us are actually decent human beings. I am sure that this case has more to it than the poster is leading on. A lot of these parents are totally oblivious to how neglectful they are.

I have to say that when I read that letter I thought “I wonder what the whole story is?” Sure, I understand that there are overly zealous CPS workers out there. But I also know that there are enough “real” cases available that they don’t need to look for more work. I’ve been in “the system” for many years: social worker (NOT cps) , foster parent, adoptive parent, guardian ad litem and just plain ol’ Mom. I’ve seen CPS workers debate a case with some arguing that the others better “back off” because what they’re seeing is “normal” (Usually said by social workers who were also moms.)

For those who get dragged in by CPS and the courts get involved – there are public defenders and guardian ad litems – at least in my state. The public defenders really give CPS workers a hard time if their case is weak. The GAL’s have their duty into looking into it and making recommendations – those are the “watchdogs” for CPS. Minnesota was pushing Signs of Safety training. Some of that is acknowledging that there is a broad range of parenting and to identify safety issues.

Well I could go on this forever.

This is frightening to me. I’ve always feared something like this could happen to me. I’m about the most unconventional mother I know. I don’t hover over my child, I play in a band, write daring articles on my website, feed my daughter a caveman diet, etc. But my daughter and I are as tight as a knot and she is as happy as I am.

There has really got to be a more compelling reason than all that to take children away from their parents. Even if the writer were questionable, which she probably isn’t, kids need their parents. They can’t (under most circumstances) get the love and attention they need from strangers.

I wish this mother and her children will soon be reuinted.

The post by MaggieC is really what it’s all about. Parents being “neglectful” because they showered while the infant was in bed? They were “neglectful” for owning a lot of books but only 1 TV?

That’s where I really get hot under the collar. No one–not the law, not CPS, no one–has the moral right to tell me how these things ought to be. Nobody. I (figuratively speaking) spit in the face of anyone who dares to suggest that they should. This is the USA, not China or Cuba.

Guess what–my kids are home all day, and the TV is almost never on the entire time. I like it that way, the hell if I want to hear Sponge Bob all day long blaring in my ears. Further, I am of the opinion that too much television mucks up a child’s brain. Others want the TV on all day for “educational purposes”–I disagree with that, but that’s their prerogative to choose, just as this is mine to choose.

This is MY house, not my kid’s, not the government’s, but MINE and mine alone (along with my wife’s). Yes it is my children’s home as well, but it is me & my wife’s HOUSE. Anyone who dares to come in here & tell me how to run it where it regards my parenting etc, frankly I should be able to throw their ass out to the curb and don’t let the door knob hit you where the good Lord split you.

LRH

The original “serious” event, was the child threatening suicide. Yes, I would be upset if I was the principal and couldn’t get a hold of the parent right away, but shit happens. My phones weren’t working today off and on. I get no cell reception at my home. I mow my lawn, and can’t hear the phone. That a child would threaten suicide is not something that I would be sitting by the phone waiting for a call.

The school needs to handle that bullying situation. CPS should have gotten the child to a counselor (with parent consent) immediately.

And yes, perhaps this parent is rationalizing the reason why the daughter said that…but perhaps the movie did give her words for how she feels. But unless CPS offered the services of a counselor and the mother refused, well, then maybe they had cause to take the daughter – I don’t see how the son would be in danger.

And if the mother refused to get her daughter to a counselor, well, then why would there be all that other stuff? It sounds like they waited a good long time and dug up a lot of dirt before taking the kids away.

Personally, I believe the mother’s story. As other have said, I think that the school was scared of law suit and pushed CPS so that the school could say they did all they could.

When the mom gets her kids home, she should enroll them in another school or homeschool them.

I apologize for what I said a few weeks ago about laughing if CPS showed up at my door because I know I rock as a parent and have nothing to hide. Hearing these crazy stories about parents being taken to task for little to no cause is kinda frightening. I really am just blown away by some of these stories.

I might find myself in trouble when the boys are in school because I do plan on taking them out of school every fall for our family vacation. We usually go in Sept or Oct for a whole week somewhere. Only time we can afford to travel and we like the weather then and small crowds. I know in our county and elsewhere they are really pissy and cracking down on missing school like this. The elementary policy is that I will get a call after 4 absences so I guess I will be getting “calls” whatever that means.

I will be present at the school volunteering and making nice with everyone and PTA and all that and I think that helps with that kind of stuff a lot. At least I hope so.

Margie C, (gee, our names are quite similar), believe it or not, it takes very little to remove a child from her/his parents. You are a mandated reporter and under the law you must report but I am hopeful that you do not report a teen who complains about her parents who will not pay for her cell phone charges or who insist that she attend church every Sunday or who have grounded her for going out too late, too often and with questionable young men. I have also worked on cases such as those.

The laws for mandated reporters are also harsh, too harsh in my opinion, you really can be scared as a mandated reporter as your personal sense of judgment as a doctor, a nurse, a social worker, a teacher is no longer valid. for being so fearful for not reporting everything. I have seen that too in my line of work, that is, the mandatory reporter who could be brought up on charges and because of same, compromises his or her own ethics of the vocation. But you have been assured, haven’t you, that the children will not be removed without a full investigation–well, you have been told wrong, because I have seen the legal side of said removal. I have also seen the integrity of some “mandated” reporters who have stood threir ground to actually protect children and parents from false acccusations.

They are the heroes.

Perhaps you are young and scared or old and scared. But please do your homework. Children are routinely removed every day from fit and able parents.

@RobynHeud The incentive for CPS to remove children from their parents is the incentive that always drives corrupt bureaucracies: money. The CPS agents get bonuses for putting children into the system, which then gets money from the state.

Maggiec, I’ve done all of those things–bathed a child who woke up wet, fresh pajamas and sheets.
We own one TV (it does have cable) but probably hundreds of books, roughly only a third of which are children’s.
I’ve showered while my child slept in a crib.

If I confess to those things, might they go easy on me?
(I believe you that those things were documented as “neglectful” by someone. I’m just stunned that a reasonable person who is familiar with genuine abuse would investigate those circumstances.)

Since everything else has already been said I’ll address a secondary issue. Why is the incomplete homework of 8 and 10 year olds the basis for accusations of child neglect? Why is the school’s homework policy for kids of that age so strict? Are those children studying brain surgery they’re scheduled to perform next week? Are they learning to defuse explosive devices and about to go undercover for a sting operation? What is being taught at that grade level that is so intense that it can’t be completed during the school day and must be carried over into night time research and study? They aren’t even seriously studying foreign language at that level. There is nothing happening that is so important it should be considered mandatory homework after a full day of school!

This is my attitude about homework in general. If the work can’t be completed at school then we need to sit down with the teacher and find out what’s wrong with this picture. Does the teacher need more resources? Does he/she manage time badly? Is something happening at a district level that needs to be dealt with?

Unless I have chosen to home school my kids I see no reason for mandatory homework at a 10 year old level. I am not a trained teacher and I don’t believe it is my job to matriculate my kids. I am the provider of love, security, nourishment, discipline, and extracurricular enrichment. I send my kids to school dressed, fed and with an expectation that they will be well mannered people. That’s my job. I don’t do it on the school’s time. The school has their job to do and I expect them to get it done on their time, not mine. This family is a perfect example of how limited a parent’s time resources are for doing the school’s job for them.

Silver Fang I have been meaning to bring that up, I keep forgetting to. Here is a text-based link tinyurl.com/3tg4qwx and a YouTube video tinyurl.com/3g9tseb from former Georgia senator Nancy Schaefer, who wrote a very scathing exposé of sorts about the crookedness of the CPS bureaucracy and how it’s mucked up families. She validates many of the very things you said (money & the system). It’s a very compelling read-listen when you have a state Senator slamming a government agency, especially the way she did here–she is most brutal to them, it’s not a flattering picture in the least.

(I tried “embedding” in the links, but everytime I try & post something with embedded links, the post never shows up. In fact, in this thread in general, I’ve found I can’t post but, say, every 2-3 hours or so no matter what. I wonder if there’s a glitch in the system, or if it’s been changed to not allow posts but every 2-3 hours to prevent someone–like me even?–from over-posting.)

LRH

Heather, once a call is placed and an investigation started, in my humble experience, all is fare game. That is why I posted the bits I did from actual cases wherein parents were deemed to be neglectful or abusive.
That is why I believe the original poster.

Another day when it is not too late, I could give you case law to review. For now, google the case of Julia BB in NY State. Attorney , Cynthia Feathers, won that case for these poor parents, all the way to the highest court in NY State, The Court of Appeals.

How about looking into the Baynes in British Columbia, Canada, the Roman Finnegan case in Indiana. The Piccone case in Massachusetts.

I could go on and on and on.

Even Rod Serling’s daughter, yes, Rod Serling of the Twilight Zone, was beset by such a case by CPS.

Changed my user name, I notice there is another Frances on here!

My BS monitor is blinking on this one. I wouldn’t presume to judge this woman’s fitness to parent based on the information here, but I’d lay money there is more going on here than meets the eye. I wonder how many of those 2 am emails were as reasonably written as this story?

Hearing all these stories makes me really glad I don’t live in the US. It has never once crossed my mind to worry about the appearances of my parenting — either that Child and Family Services here would investigate me, or that somebody might report me. What an awful way to live.

Having said that — it sounds like the system is in need of reform (transparency and accountability, anyone?) but there are too many kids out there who do cope with abusive or neglectful situations. Without ANY social services, a society such as our present one will let those kids down. But I’m a Canadian socialist, probably my bias is showing.

Like many commenters here, I do not like CPS. I hadn’t heard many stories of their inequities until now, but when I was younger, CPS was involved with my family. They left me in a situation that I really feel I should have been removed from. There was a lot of abuse that I am still healing from, and it’s appalling that the system is failing so many others.

Sorry, I just remembered that they changed the name of Social Services to the Ministry of Children and Family Development (oh the irony!) or MCFD.

It’s sad that there are truly children getting abused, beaten and hurt at home that could use the help of CPS, but instead they’re spending their time and funds on making things up for kids in a stable home. Sad.

I think a lot of the people on this site could use a little visit from good old CPS…

Depending on your jurisdiction you may be able to file perjury charges against those who made the false allegations, if you can prove them to be false in fact and that the perp. knew they were false. You won’t get a prosecutor to do it for you, but many States allow a private citizen to pursue misdemeanor charges for a small filing fee. Send a message that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated.

I live in the UK and something similar happened to me here. It’s unbelievable. Thankfully my child was not removed from my care because the whole thing arose out of a dispute with the school and social services was able to see that the claims were baseless, but it’s amazing what kind of things they come up with. Very serious allegations, without a shred of evidence, but enough to make it possible to lose my daughter had they been taken seriously. It makes my heart go cold to think that could have happened, we both would have been devastated. I think it’s a good thing that attention is being drawn to this issue, it’s alot more common than most people realise. I really hope things work out for her and she gets some good legal advice.

Well said Tuppence.

I often wonder how many helicopter parenting types are there that work for CPS/Social Services. IMO, one is one too many. Social workers need to be unbiased, analytical, logical, and can use common sense like they can breath. That is the only way they will be able to properly do their job.

Well my “linkless” post showed up, so I am going to try & re-post the one that still shows up here as “your comment is awaiting moderation” in a way that will allow it to go through. Again, it seems that WordPress all of a sudden is disliking any embedded links, if you put them in here in a way that doesn’t make them “hot links,” it works–but if they’re “hot links” a user can just click on, WordPress is rejecting them.

So you will have to bare with me, and if you want to go to the links–I’m sorry, I tried to make it easy–but you will have to highlight-copy-paste into the address bar of a new browser window-tab if you wish to see them.

The subject of said post: I mentioned earlier the former Georgia state senator Nancy Schaefer, who once did a study about the corruption of Child Protective Services, and she made a few appearances & speeches. There actually was a printed study she had on it entitled “THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES.” (Sorry for the all-caps, it copied & pasted that way.) Her speeches about the corruption of Child Protective Services are astounding, in my view, and anyone who reads the words and watches the videos will just seethe at the lunacy and corruption she is exposing.

I will put the links inside brackets like these to keep WordPress from goofing it up yet to make it obvious also: {—link here—} I hope that works. Here goes.

The first text-based article (which includes a PDF download as well) is at {—tinyurl.com/3tg4qwx—}.

The other link provides a link to an approximately 7 minute long video of one of her speeches on this, and a written transcript of it as well, it is located at {—http://pa-pa.ca/Schaefer.html—}

If it’s okay, I will also partially quote the transcript here as well myself:

And I quote:

—————-
The department of child protective has become a protected empire built on taking children and separating families. This is not to say that there are not those children who do need to be removed from wretched situations and need protection, however, my report is concerned with the children and parents caught up in legal kidnapping. Having worked with probably 300 cases statewide and hundreds and hundreds across the country and in nearly every state, I’m convinced there is no accountability in Child Protective Services.
…..
The case workers and social workers are very often guilty of fraud, they withhold and destroy evidence, they fabricate evidence, and they seek to terminate parental rights unnecessarily.

That the separation of families and the snatching of children is growing as the business grows, because state and local governments have grown accustomed to having these taxpayer dollars to balance their ever-growing budgets.
….
….
[I recommend that we] Abolish, the federal and state financial incentives that have turned child protective services into a business that separates families for money. I have witnessed such injustice and harm brought to so many families that I’m not sure if reform of the system is even possible. The system cannot be trusted, it does not serve the people, it obliterates families and children, simply because it has the power to do so.
……
What I have said to you in these few minutes, is that we must confront the fraud in child protective services.
….
—————-

End quote.

Wow—just, wow. Again, this is actually a former state Senator making these points.

Follow the links and see for yourself if you’re inclined. I personally found it a very powerful eye-opener.

LRH

My sister recently moved to our town and started work as a behavioral health clinician. Due to a couple recent suicides of school age kids who were bullied (i.e.Phoebe Prince) here in MA, any statement from a kid about injury to themselves or others is an immediate red flag to the school and requires an assessment meeting with a clinician.

I think maybe if the law was clear that differences in parenting with respect to education and third-party healthcare services are NOT “abuse” or “neglect,” then at least things would be a little more sensible.

For example, I have no intention of being a homework enforcer (unless I homeschool). It’s part of my philosophy about the separation of home and school. I am well aware that many millions of parents disagree with me. But that does not mean I am neglecting / abusing my kids. I think the law needs to have a bright line on matters such as this, in order to avoid the kind of nonsense we’re reading about here (or at least some of it).

EricS That article, indeed, was very appalling. Again it’s aggravating that I couldn’t get WordPress to put the links through as clickable “hot” links and you have to do the highlight-copy-paste into a new browser tab/window routine, but believe me, it’s worth the effort, as you saw.

(I kept having certain postings not go through at all or give me the “your comment is awaiting moderation” bit, and what I thought was going on was that Lenore was now taking steps to prevent some of the “hot-natured” posts which were showing up–some of which were my fault, I admit to it–but it turns out, apparently, WordPress just now all of a sudden doesn’t like “hot links.”)

Sad footnote: that senator is no longer with us, she was murdered not long after she started making those speeches. I’m not saying it was an ordered hit by those she upset, I’m not into those Oliver Stone consipiracy theories much, but it is easy to wonder sometimes.

SMK I agree about the community part–to a POINT, but only to a POINT. I miss the community I knew when I was growing up. I can’t get relatives around here to interact with us in the “community aspect” enough. Yes we do see our nieces-nephews some, but their parents are really hard to pin down to do anything with. When Thanksgiving & Christmas come around, yes there is some “gathering together,” but it’s not like I have observed others doing or anywhere near as good as I had it growing up.

And more to the point, the mother and grandmother of the nieces-nephews tend to not be anywhere as “free range” as they are and really restrict the kids from having the fun they could have. When they are with us, and we’re allowed to aunt-uncle as we please in that realm, they are so thrilled, and we’re happy for them, and it’s easy for us to think “their parents really ought to let them do so & so much more than they do.” But you know what? Beyond us occasionally giving our advice in a gentle & well-meaning (and not “knuckle popping”) way, they are the parents, not us, and it is THEIR choice how they parent their kids. They’re the ones the kids call mother & grandmother etc, the ones doing most of the “grunt work”–so no matter what we think of their choices, it’s not our place to be critical or to meddle.

Sure, in extreme situations, meddle. When kids are abused sexually, deliberately malnourished, or fed estacy pills in their drinking milk–by all means, there should be intervention. Trouble is, there is intervention–or calls for it–in situations that don’t rise anywhere near to that level. In fact, although I don’t know the situation as specifically as you do, I don’t know that your nephew’s situation was one of neglect either. So what that someone was unemployed–in case you haven’t noticed, LOTS of people are right now (including myself, and I loved the job I had, and was not pleased that they laid me off). Massage therapists–that’s a legitimate job, so long as it’s not one of those sleazy “massage pallars” where you get more than just massages.

Pitbulls? I’m not nuts about dogs either, and yes you hear about dogs who go wild & kill the kids, but it’s a matter of the dog’s temperment and how well controlled they are. Was the dog running wild & loose and prone to barking and growling at everything? If so, I see your point–otherwise, I don’t.

They diagnosed your nephew’s allergies ultimately, and that’s good–it sounds as if needed to be done–but did it need CPS meddling to do so? Shouldn’t the parents’ normal medical check-ups have deduced that? I don’t see the right in faulting the parents for not figuring it out. If the writing was on the wall and they chose to ignore it, then maybe in that case yes–otherwise, I’d say, all’s well that ends well, and CPS wasn’t needed for that.

Maybe fearing that CPS will take your kids is overblown, but I don’t think so–and even if they don’t take your kids, visits from them are not welcome by many of us, we just don’t want them here period. We don’t appreciate our parenting choices second-guessed and every normal bruise from playing turning into a scandal of sorts. We’re doing fine, all is well–leave us be.

LRH

LRH –

You missed my point. My brother’s family did not have an unreasonable visit from a social worker, in my opinion. My nephew’s allergies were not diagnosed at the time of the well-baby visit to the nurse who called CPS. The social worker who visited my brother’s house could have seen things that would have caused her to remove the kids if indeed social workers were hyperprotective and frequently abrogating parents’ rights as many posters think here – unemployment, scattered massage gigs (= poverty – a key indicator for some social workers) and pitbulls (who receive a great deal of negative press – my brother’s dogs are very well loved and supervised). As it was, the social worker saw my brother and sister-in-law as attentive, loving parents who were working very hard to understand why their child was not gaining weight rapidly enough according to growth charts. The case was dismissed, and only after that did my brother and sister-in-law see a doctor who correctly diagnosed my nephew’s allergies.

Teachers (as mandated reporters) are explicitly told NOT to do their own investigation before going to CPS. We are just supposed to report what we see. We are not supposed to interview the child or ask leading questions. My reports were made when students or campers directly disclosed information to me: “Wow! Those mosquito bites look a lot like my cigarette burns that my uncle puts on me!” or things that I saw – nightly pooping in the sleeping bag along with other strange indicators that things were not right in that child’s house.

SMK Again, all is well that ends well, but my point is–as your brother & his wife were being loving parents, social services should’ve stated out of it. This was a medical issue, NOT a parenting issue. The original doctor should’ve looked for things like allergic reactions etc before just assuming it was the parents at fault and “going there.” That they failed to ascertain the allergies in the original wellness check-up etc was NOT cause to intimidate the parents–and yes, many social workers do just that, maybe this one didn’t, but many do.

They turned out to be wrong in speculating that maybe the parents were mal-nourishing them, and I would call that a “worst first thinking” type of scenario all day long.

The posters here do not think that social workers trample on or at least insult a parent’s authority, they actually do that–I’ve experienced it first-hand and heard from many others besides the posters in here who have experienced it. And that’s where we take exception–our authority should be above any scrutinizing so long as it’s not drug usage, molestation and/or deliberate withholding of necessary care. To get CPS on-board that early is “worst first thinking” and insulting to a parent’s authority.

My point is simply that too many people have a “twitchy trigger finger” to call CPS over every little thing, and yes even here I’d say that was such a case. It certainly was “itchy trigger finger” in many of the other cases I see here, including the ones I’ve mentioned myself.

That’s my main point–people are too eager to call over nothing, others have mentioned their tales & I’ve heard it before myself, and it’s just not right.

LRH

I agree with posters above who say there should be some consequences for CPS workers who inflate or falsify claims. But punishing the individual workers won’t be effective, because there are always more potential CPS workers available.

Instead, each case that’s proven to be exaggerated or false should cost the agency itself three to five times the amount they receive for a “good” completed case. (I have the jargon all wrong here, but you get the idea.) CPS has to give that money back to the state or federal government program that funds it. You can be darn sure that the agency’s attitude and mandate would shape up if it started costing them.

I had to laugh about the earlier posts talking about showing up dirty for church.

When my eldest was little, he once got completely filthy AT church. There was a display for lent with a whole bunch of small rocks and sand in a container in front of the altar. We were talking to someone after mass, and he toddled over, got great big handfuls of sand, and proceeded to play in it, then wipe his hands all over his nice little sailor suit. Took him all of 2 minutes to accomplish. My kids could get dirty in a cleanroom, I’m convinced. So if you are judging me by the cleanliness of my kids, I defy you to keep them clean for more than 10 minutes at a time. These kids can get dirty in the 10 steps from the house to the car. They could probably get dirty while sleeping if they wanted to. Doesn’t mean that I’m a bad parent. I have kids who are very determined to find all the dirt in the world and meet it personally.

SMK,

I just realized I used the word “reporters” and I didn’t mean mandated reporters. I meant the people reporting in general. Having been a teacher, camp counselor and Girl Scout leader I understand that aspect of reporting and have no beef there because typically those people are trained (to some degree) of what to look for and know the kids. I am speaking more of the “well meaning” busybodies who call CPS on their neighbors because they didn’t like that the kid walked to school every day or the person in the parking lot who sees the 10ish year old sitting in the car at the post office playing Nintendo. That’s who I am referring to when I say there is a problem when people look at parenting only through “their” lens. When people start watering down the definitions of ‘abuse’ and ‘neglect’ they’re trivializing the experiences of those who really DO experience abuse and neglect and make it hard for those who are in abusive or neglected situations to get the services they need.

It makes me very uncomfortable to learn that my kids could be taken away because someone with a social work or teaching degree does not agree with me on how to address my kids’ emotional troubles.

Don’t most pubescent girls feel suicidal at some point or other? (I did! My sister did!) It’s called hormones. There is more than one way to address this. The human race has survived for millions of years without state-mandated counseling.

Of course teen suicide is terribly tragic. So is any death of a young person. But that doesn’t mean the state knows better than the parents how to address the risks.

PS, when my youngest was 3, she learned what suicide was from (a) the movie Jesus Christ Superstar, and (b) hearing someone say “he killed himself” (of a celebrity) without realizing she was listening. She of course wanted to know all about suicide. And not long after that, predictably, she said “I will kill myself” in a moment of drama. Of course, she was also known to state that she had a pet dinosaur named “Tickle” and that she was going to marry Prince Thillip even though he smacked her around. Should the state force me to take my kid to counseling? I think not!!

“Don’t most pubescent girls feel suicidal at some point or other? ”

No!! Do many teenage girls, in a moment of drama, say “If x happens, I’m just gonna kill myself?” Yes. But actually FEELING suicidal is a completely different ball game and indicates some level of depression beyond hormones.

This is addressed to LRH, who on June 1, 2011 at 22:39 said:
This is why Child Protective Services—or CPS—should be completely 100% abolished, simple as that. They are as evil as the Nazis were in 1930s Germany, so are people that report others to CPS in the name of “concern”—and I can’t believe something that evil could exist in the United States of America.
How this woman parents her kids isn’t any of their business, and any organization that dare meddle in her private parenting affairs ought to be destroyed in any legal way possible.
LRH
———————————————————————————
HOW DARE YOU write this disgusting drivel.
HOW DARE YOU compare CPS with Nazi Germany! You write as an ill-informed embarrassment to society.

Your ignorant choice of using the Holocaust as an analogy is a disgrace. Think next time before you write something that will be read by other human beings.

I take deep personal offense at your callous comment, as a Jewish woman who counts her grandparents among the millions who perished in the Holocaust because of their beliefs and religion.

May you and your family never know what Nazi Germany was like and may you learn compassion and how to choose your words wisely.

Just to add as a PS- I am anemic and bruise very easily too. So I know about easy bruisers. I still say if you spank a child hard enough to leave bruises even on an easy bruiser you have gone too far. At the very least you can’t get mad when people might be concerned about bruises all over a child and they child is talking about it in a negative way. That is just scary. Just like when people get concerned when a woman walks around with a shiner, they worry her husband gave it to her even if that is not what happened.

I am not a fan of spanking in general. For the main reason being if you are mad enough to spank usually you are mad enough to lose it and go too far. So I just don’t. I have seen many well meaning parents go too far unintentionally. That is why even American Academy of Pediatrics no longer recommends spanking. I was spanked a couple times growing up with a plastic spatula and probably not that hard. It did not leave bruises. It also did not really work as an effective discipline method. I would ask for a spanking because the spanking lasts 3 minutes and grounding lasts a whole week- I would rather have the 3 minute punishment.

@Cheryl – granted there are those with medical conditions and/or family history that are predisposed to bruise easily. I should have qualified that remark. However, my opinion wasn’t based on anecdotal personal experiences – but rather as a GAL who who has sat through many court hearings and a few trials. A child not removed for a few incidents. I worked with one family for about 10 months before ss finally removed the kids – and this was after me stating in court my great concerns for the kids. Even then SS worked on reunification for almost a year before final TPR. This was a drastic case.
I also saw many times the cases that were closed simply because there was no eminent danger – just different parent styles.
If a bruise was seen – and unexplained (ie medical condition) that was certainly looked into.

I’m not into hovering parent styles – I don’t.

@Hittman, 01:46: You may have hit on something. I’ve been following some blogs that address fat-phobia. Fat people are often told that they will be denied medical care until they lose weight, or that they don’t need any medical care–weight loss will solve their problems, even if they had the problems before they gained weight. Then they are referred to nutritionists or other supposed authorities on diet. However, nearly all schools in this field do not screen for eating disorders. Thus, somebody who is not seeing food in a healthy way is given authority to tell other people how to eat. Reading articles by these people makes it clear how many of them have an unhealthy relationship with food and a terror of being, seeing, or even mentioning fat.

How many of these irrational CPS cases can be put down to a mandatory reporter or careworker overreacting due to unassimilated trauma?

Sometimes, it’s plain failure of common sense or fear that if something happened on their property THEY WOULD BE SUED AAIEEEE. One of my classmates had a young son who threw a tantrum and declared that he wanted to die. Unfortunately, he said it in school. He was taken away and put in a state care facility that mixed together kids of all ages who had been taken from their families for all kinds of reasons. One of the older kids raped him. The state refused to let him out of the facility or remove the other child.

Is there a child on this planet who has not at some time or another screamed “I WISH I WERE DEAD?”

http://www.kvue.com/news/10-year-old-finds-Click-It-or-Ticket-is-no-joke-123062088.html

10 year old gets a ticket for not wearing his seat belt correctly in Texas. No kidding. Funny thing is, the Facebook pole by the news station has 108 saying that the cop went to far and 24 agreed with him. Who are those 24 people? Hopefully, the judge throws this out in court (yes, court!) as the law states that the cop can’t give this particular ticket to a kid younger than 15.

Mom I am sincerely sorry for the hardships you endured, and I mean that–but I dont’ apologize for what I said, I don’t think it was wrong, and I stand by it.

Whispie I will agree with Dolly somewhat in that spankings gone too far are what CPS is for, at least if you continue to do it regularly. If it’s something you do once because you lost it, but the child recovers (no broken bones), and you are genuinely tearful sorry for it–and/or if such happened because you mis-judged and hit too hard not really meaning for it to turn out like that–and, from there, you adjust and never do it again, then I am against CPS involvement. One bad moment that doesn’t result in permanent disabilities/injuries or death shouldn’t result in a family breakup, and also you can genuinely misjudge how hard to hit the first time or two.

However, if you don’t learn from it and continue to repeat, then CPS should be involved. Drugs–same thing. Drugs do rise to a level that even I would understand CPS involvement.

It sounds like you have learned and are doing better with your second chance. I commend you for it, keep it up–your child deserves it, and I sure don’t want you to deal with another loss.

LRH

@SKL Absolutely I agree – spanking is not abuse. I only mentioned it because of a previous commenter and I was a bit concerned.

I have had quite a few discussions with “professionals” where they are insisting that spanking is physical assault, it teaches children to bully, yaddayaddayadda. I firmly disagree with them.

Hmmm, if this is true it’s horrible; however it takes a lot for CPS to act. I’ve had students report beatings by clothes hangers, and when reported CPS is unable to do anything because of extremely high caseloads. Honestly my guess is there is more to this story. Free range parenting is one thing, but using it to excuse neglect (if there was, can’t tell from what she wrote) is entirely another.

Green: I actually agree with the cop. I would not have given him a ticket but I would have stopped them and lectured them and issued a warning. EVERYONE should wear their seatbelts! Its the law and it is stupid not to wear one. This is a hot button issue for me. Kids especially should wear seatbelts. If you don’t want to wear your seatbelt, don’t drive. Just like if you don’t want to obey the speed limits or red lights, don’t drive. You have that choice. If you choose to not follow the rules of the road, you get a ticket and that is something you have to suck up. I do not feel sorry for people who get hurt in car accidents when they were not wearing their seatbelts and if they had been wearing their seatbelt they would have been less hurt. It is their own fault.

I’m *pretty* sure Whispie was trying to make a point – that abusive parents often don’t think they’re abusive – and I think the story is fictional.

However, just to cover my bases – Whispie, if you did indeed harm your child to the point that they were black and blue, then yes, CPS should definitely have been involved!!

Well, Nicolas, that would be great. But I kinda like eating and having a house, so I can’t really stay home to homeschool, and I can’t afford private school. Reality is, public school is the only choice for some of us who are barely making ends meet.

As far as the suicide things go I will weigh in and say starting at about age 13 I said I would commit suicide many times. Some times I meant it, sometimes I did it for attention. I came close to really meaning it and wanting to do it multiple times mostly during my infertility but I never seriously attempted it. I don’t think I could go through with it under most circumstances.

I know they are taking stuff seriously since many young kids have gone through with it lately, but that does not mean they have a bad homelife or they are mental. I had zero friends in middle school and was picked on a lot and that was when I started saying I would kill myself. My mom was not a bad parent. She could not force kids to like me. Nothing she could do about it.

With my brain, I think that free-range parenting is the best way to go. But when I read about Jaycee Dugard, I have a hard time grappling with the fear. I know this is what your message is all about, but it’s hard to overcome.

Wow. We adopted our wonderful son from Foster Care. In all of our visits, classes, meetings, appointments, etc…. I never did get to see where they keep the Evil CPS SWAT Team. The ones that lie in wait for any opportunity to remove happy children from safe homes. The ones trying to advance their ‘anti-family, pro bureaucratic paperwork’ agenda.

Nope. Never saw them. Maybe I should have looked harder.

Christine If you never saw the “evil CPS SWAT Team,” good–and I hope it stays that way. It doesn’t mean the rest of us are imagining things or making them up.

LRH

Ok Lauren. You got me. I wanted to see who would still think that CPS hould be abolished or consider them evil. CPS does have a job to do in certain situations. I’m not saying that they should always get involved or that false reporting insnt infuriating and disgusting. What I am saying is that maybe they aren’t as evil as some people think. A lot of people who claim wrong doing by CPS are actually ignorant of the nelect and abuse that they impose on their children. So for those of you who who changed your tune after my little experiment, think again about drastic accusations. Maybe a reform within CPS would be more appropriate instead of abolishment or ridiculous accusations.

Sorry, never saw him again. We still have the emails tucked away as evidence.

Yes, I was sexual harassed/assaulted by a worker. When you aren’t even allowed the dignity of putting on a robe because the worker Must See You Right Now, that’s a sexual assault. Another email, and a huge verbal apology, never a written one of course. They don’t want to admit they were at fault with anything. 😛

christine..how wonderful that since YOU never had a problem with cps that the rest of us are just making it up. i would not wish them on my worst enemy but you need to open your eyes to the rest of the world; they will use the power they have just because they can and you can’t. i agree that there must be good moral cps personel out there but in the entire fubar concerning me i did not see one. the only professionals to believe me were my childrens teachers[mandatory reporters who never saw anything i was accused of] and the state trooper who was assigned by the state to investigate my case. i was literally laughed at by the county head of cps when i said i had proof they lied.”you’ll never be believed,there’s too much money at stake and we have all the rights and you have none.”which just about sums it up.

SKL: I doubt if your pediatrician knows you they would automatically jump to abuse. That is why its good to establish a good relationship with your ped and the others in the practice. They know you. They know your kids. They then won’t freak out and start worrying about abuse. I took my 4 year olds for their 4 check up and they had bruises of all sizes up and down their legs and other places on their bodies. He never even noticed them. Or at least he didn’t say anything. He knows my boys, he knows me, he knows they are boys and boys get hurt playing hard.

Just because he suggested you check for spiders does not mean he thinks the room is dirty. It was just a suggestion. Spiders are even in clean houses. They are in pretty much every house.

That sounds so bad about the bites. Poor thing. 🙁 Hope she gets better soon. If you take your kid to the doctor right away for stuff like that if there IS some kind of CPS report you have documented proof that you sought medical attention and the reason is documented. Which probably makes you free from CPS blame.

To LRH who wrote,

“Mom I am sincerely sorry for the hardships you endured, and I mean that—but I dont’ apologize for what I said, I don’t think it was wrong, and I stand by it.”

L, listen a second please. I didn’t endure any hardships. My ancestors and a few million other people were slaughtered because of their religion and beliefs (not just Jews, you know). Do you have ANY idea what Nazi Germany was about? Are you so ill-educated that you have no idea what went on during WWII??

You are entitled to your feelings about CPS but do engage your brain before you write such foolishness.
If you were indeed blessed with a brain, then learn to use it.

SKL – Dolly is right. Your daycare or pediatrician is not going to report you to CPS unless he has already developed some concerns about your parenting. A couple years ago my daughter burnt her hand helping me make rice krispy treats. What I thought was just going to be a 1st degree burn did end up blistering slightly. Nobody from her daycare reported it to CPS. It was never even addressed. We never went to the hospital (which would have only resulted in a referral to the burn center over an hour away and seemed highly unnecessary).

Memorial Day I met a social worker in the ER at the local hospital (co-worker’s sister). Our local hospital has a social worker on staff at all times. This staff social worker is called in on every injury involving a child, however, she said that the vast majority of them are never referred out to CPS for even an initial investigation. She does think it is very sad that some people refuse to get medical treatment that they would otherwise get for their child for fear of being reported to CPS when, in reality, it is a rarity. And this is even in an inner city, high poverty area.

The truth is that middle class families are almost never reported to CPS. If the situation does arise, remember that it is routine to call in the social worker (my hospital can’t be the only one who does this for every injury) and you are not being singled out in any way. If you treat the social worker respectfully, your chances of being reported are even lower. If you’re hostile or extremely agitated about being interviewed, you are likely to be referred to CPS. If you calmly explain the injury, the injury matches the cause and your children appear to be comfortable with you, it is never going to go further.

And spiders do not get your children taken away. The dirty houses that I’ve seen kids removed from are absolutely disgusting. Feces (human and animal) on the floor, roaches, rotting food all over the place and the like.

Yes, because we are removing children from their homes and sending them to death camps.

It takes an extreme extraordinary situation for children to be removed from their home and never seen again. We’re talking locking your child in a cage, life threatening physical assaults, etc, etc. Reunification is the priority whenever possible.

This is why I have a difficult time believing stories like the one above. There are a lot of holes in the story. the child’s interview should have been recorded, with more than one adult observing. If the mom has a recording of the worker admitting to fraud any lawyer should have been able to have the case quickly terminated. If the primary concern was affording counseling the family would, most likely, be linked up with a community mental health center for low cost or free services long before the child was removed. child services will often fund these kinds of services to prevent placement, in fact my friend has a severely mentally ill child and child services provides services to prevent the child from being removed from the home for the sake of the other children.

the above story, as it is phrased, is highly improbable. It could be true, but I have serious doubts.

I am starting to doubt the story too after hearing from others. You know, Nicole makes sense about usually if you are considered low income and single mother the government usually offers all kinds of assistance including free counseling should you need it. In my experienc it is the lower middle class families like ours that may have some money, but not much that are the worst off because we make slightly too much to qualify for assitance in any way but actually would not be able to afford something like counseling.

Example: My twins needed to be on high calorie special Similac Neosure to help them gain weight from their low birth weights and prematurity and feeding issues. Neosure costs way more than normal formula. We really could not afford it. We were hoping on not having to pay for formula at all because I planned on exclusive breastfeeding. That did not work out so we had a HUGE extra expense in our budget to figure out how to pay for.

I contacted WIC and they said my husband made $1000 dollars too much for us to so much as get a penny from them. Sorry but with two new babies $1000 is nothing! That was their cribs right there and cheap bottom of the line cribs at that. Even with pediatrician’s letters explaining the situation and asking for me to get help from WIC, they would not give us a penny.

Sure we were not as bad off as some people, but we could of used the help. We do without a lot to make ends meet like cable and cell phones whereas I know people in the ghetto on food stamps and all kinds of welfare that have cable and cell phones.

So not trying to turn this into a welfare debate but I think if she had recommendations from the school or her doctor to get her daughter into counseling fast and she was low income single mom, I bet she might have been able to get free or cheap counseling.

Present day child savers often point to the story of little Mary Ellen, who in 1874, was beaten so badly that a woman by the name of Mrs. Wheeler, who worked for the St. Luke’s Methodist Mission, had to intervene on her behalf. In desperation, Mrs. Wheeler turned to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and finally had Mary Ellen removed from her home. Today’s child savers point out that this is a shining example of the long ignored need for government intervention for families with abused children. What they don’t tell you is that little Mary Ellen wasn’t abused by her parents. She was a Civil War orphan, and the Department of Charities had placed Mary Ellen in a foster home. It was the foster mother who had beaten the child within an inch of her life.

By 1933, ‘poor laws’ were established in numerous cities that allowed children to be removed from poor or “immoral” families. This was particularly hard on immigrant families, who by virtue of their inability to speak English were often subjected to grinding poverty and considered both immoral and illiterate by the upper class citizens. Their children were often ripped away from them (to protect them of course, from the fate of their parents), and placed as wards in the homes of the more elite families of the city. These children were often subjected to becoming no more than indentured servants, and often were abused physically, emotionally, and sexually.

This type of “intervention” became so common in New York City, that the that the Orphan Trains were established, to ship these children across the American countryside, displaying them at whistle-stops like cattle, and “adopting” them out to farmers and shopkeepers. Siblings were often separated. Many were abused, and neglected, and some abandoned.

In the early 1970’s, hearings were held in Congress regarding the long ignored issue of child abuse. Subsequent to these hearings, Congress enacted the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) (see Federal Mandates page) which provided federal funding to states with which to engage in child protection investigation, intervention, and criminal prosecutions. In order to receive this matching and additional federal funding, states had to come into compliance with the federal law, by enacting matching laws that provided for anonymous reporting, mandated reporting, immunity to reporting parties, and additional grants for the ‘successful prosecution’ of child abusers.

Unfortunately, there were NO funds made equally available for the defense of the indigent. There was no well-rounded, research based training for those who were to investigate, and all funding was based upon the head-count of children labeled as “abused”. Thus at the end of every fiscal year, the numbers of children reported as abused (see Statistics Page) either increases or stays the same, but never decreases. To do so would impact the system for the following year by cutting the head-count basis for annual funding. This would mean cutbacks in personnel.

During this same period of time, the federal government was cutting back on other social services, placing caps on the funding of other branches of social services, but providing unlimited funding for child protection. Immediately we began to see a shifting of social services personnel from food stamps and geriatrics, into the new unlimited offices of child protection.

It is clear that every state and province of the United States has enacted laws that support a child abuse system which matches the standards provided by CAPTA. While the original intent was to protect children from abuse, the result of these laws have been devastating.

Today an estimated 700,000 foster children languish in foster and state institutional care. In order to lower this number, like the infamous Orphan Trains of the 1930’s, Congress just this year enacted the Safe Adoptions and Family Environment Act (SAFE Act) (see Federal Mandates). Under this new federal law, states will receive $4,000 to $6,000 for each child that is adopted out to a family, or some other “planned permanent placement”. NASVO fears that language such as “planned permanent placementî”will evolve into government funded orphanages, much like those of an earlier decade, warehousing children in order to maintain the status quo of the child protection system.

-excerpted from the National VOCAL site.

Twin If a 2 year old had bruises all over his or her body or cigarette burns, of course any human would intervene. The police can always be called. CPS isn’t needed.

But for the other petty things like cited here, people–yes–ought to mind their own business and not call anybody at all, neither CPS nor the police. It isn’t just a few CPS workers who are corrupt, it’s the very system that encourages people to call even for such petty things, not just the extreme things like the 2 year old with electrical cord lashes all over their body for which the police could take care of it.

LRH

I have reread my previous post, and simply do not see where I accused anyone of lying or making things up. I simply make the point that there are good and bad people in every profession. To accuse all CPS workers of being evil Nazi’s is completely and utterly ridiculous, and removes any credibility from the person making the claim.

There are good and bad doctors, social workers, teachers, police officers, mechanics, waitresses, plumbers, and parents. The good ones don’t usually make the news.

The story of 3 little boys that were neglected, had *never* seen a doctor, never given solid food, filthy, terrified, and abused. Their grandmother saw them over Christmas, and knowing that she wasn’t able to care for all three, called CPS. Those three boys are now happy, healthy, loved, cherished. They have all been adopted by families that love them. Mine reads like a champ, is a cub scout, plays football, and has to fight off the girls because of his curly hair and long eyelashes. My son has been refused food, and now turns up his nose at any vegetable other than corn.

My son is alive today because of the *Good* people that work through CPS. Not all of them are good. The system is flawed (at best). But our story is real, and I will tell it to anyone that will listen. I owe it to my son, his biological grandma, his biological siblings, and to the people at CPS.

I absolutely believe that there are horror stories involving corrupt CPS employees. But our story is also true….. and you will never see OUR story on CNN. So I tell it. If I don’t, then the only stories you hear will be the ones on the news.

FTR, comparing some corrupt bad apples to the Nazi Regime is abhorrent and repulsive.

christina..i am truly glad your children were saved and are doing well. i agree you did not say anyone was lying or making things up; however it was strongly implird. read your post again.

LRH- do you really think law enforcement has the time to investigate all the cases of abuse? I’ve gotten referrals that a child has bruises from head to toe and diaper rash so bad that they are bleeding. When I saw the child, it was fine. But then I get a referral of neglectful supervision and when I see the child they have bruises from a kitchen pot hitting them all over their body. So, which case would you choose to investigate only by the referral? Police don’t have time to investigate all of these and you can’t just pick only the ones that seem bad because you don’t know if they are bad until you see the child.

The reason this is different from having a child stolen by a stranger: nobody in the community will argue that the child is better off with the stranger because the parents deserve to lose their child! If your kid is taken away and you are falsely accused of being neglectful or abusive, there will be very few people who will take your side and try to help you get your child back. And, your child is probably likely to be separated from you for a longer time than is true in the average stranger kidnapping.

I only hope this is truly extremely rare. It’s hard to tell, since it’s impossible for me to know who’s lying, who’s rationalizing, and who’s telling the unembellished truth.

I don’t think anyone is claiming that the CPS is all evil.

Actually, EricS, a lot of people have said just that.

And some have said or implied that it’s all good, wonderful people doing a wonderful thing. This is equally ridiculous.

I’m all for better oversight and a reform of the system. Absolutely! Because I do know that there are some bad eggs who are stupid or malicious or just misguided, in the same way that most people love their kids and genuinely try to do what’s best for them (and most of us would try to do our best for any kid in our care, “ours” or a foster kid or whatnot), but a few people are just sucky individuals who suck.

I’m also for paying them better, training them better (and anybody who is a mandated reporter, because they have to be educated as to the actual signs of abuse vs. normal childhood), clear-cut laws as to what’s neglectful and what’s not (and then you can follow them or not, but you *know* what the situation is), and hiring more social workers. If they’re not overworked, they’re less likely to make devastating mistakes in either direction, and their mistakes would be limited to fewer cases in the first place.

And, on a side note, I’m kinda for not conflating the child services not just of several different states (in a very large country) but of different nations.

donna you are entitled to your opinion. delusional i am not. nys verified what happened to me. a thought for the day . the difference between reputation and honor is that reputation is what other people think they know to be true about you. honor is what you know to be true about your self. my honor is intact.

oos wrong post, was meant to go under the free range one

I haven’t read all the comments, but I will say that CPS IS a major problem. Kids that need them are often missed, while ones that don’t have their lives turned upside down. Removing kids is serious, it’s not like therre is an overabundance of safe, healthy, awesome foster homes. Unless e kids being seriously abused or neglected, they are likely to be harmed more by removing them than by leaving them.

In situations like the OP, why not require parenting class? (I dont think she needs this even) why skip right to removal? I don’t care if the kids went to family- had she not had family, then what?

This is an outrage. Pure and simple. And it’s not as uncommon as you think! **********When I moved to TX I looked up the rules, and it says that 80% of case that have been proven and action has been taken, are cases of “neglectful supervision”- this means the child is supervised, but not how THEY think they should be. There were around 48,000 cases last year of this, in Tx alone. and they wonder why they are so short on foster homes…….************

This is why we need a free range defense fund, like homeschoolers have.

And to you CPS workers- I know Most of you mean well, but the few that don’t make it awful for us all. Don’t let your co workers get away with this crap. it will only help YOU.

@ maggiec Yes, I’m a mandated reporter, but never once have I thought that I would ever be brought up on charges that I mishandled a case. I am not a teacher. I am a therapist in the homes of these children. I’ve been doing this for a long time and have come to accept that people can parent many different ways. I believe in parents being able to raise children as they see fit, but I have witnessed many dangerous and hazardous conditions, made my report, and the report was unfounded. I do not wish to see children’s lives torn up with foster homes, but sometimes that would be in the best interest for these children. Time and again, nothing is done. That is frustrating because I do not want to see any child treated poorly.

I am the mom in the OP (thanks, Lenore!) and I can’t prove that in a comment, so I guess you will just have to take my word for it… 🙂 [Also, hi other Redditor!]

I have, in the case of explaining my circumstances, also used the “there are no guilty men in jail” analogy. But I find with CPS involvement, that line of thinking is SO circular. So by merit of the fact some guilty clients understate their guilt, all who are investigated should have their side of the story dismissed? OF COURSE a story like this will be long, detailed and complex, and most parents I see caught up in it are struggling to tell their stories cohesively. It doesn’t mean we ‘deserve’ it.

That is the problem with CPS investigations. The accusation ‘is’ the evidence. Either I can state my case from my perspective, or stay silent for fear of looking like a child abuser who is trying to cover their actions up. What would you do if you were me?

I am well aware that many cases of horrible abuse go mishandled, children die, and bad things happen. But my children are very well taken care of, and while my parenting philosophy may not look like yours- well, I’ll put it to you this way. I have a new caseworker, and in the month she’s been assigned to us, we haven’t met. Whenever we’re supposed to meet, she’s doing a removal. People say removals are uncommon, but at each court date, the hallway outside the courtroom is standing room only. I was forced to take a parenting class in my town, and every parent is there due to CPS involvement.

To those who say these parents are in denial should have been there. Most blamed themselves, and these parents were people whose kids were in care or being possibly taken into care because of issues like substandard housing (why not- I don’t know- take the money you’d have spent on foster care and help them get a new place?) and another woman whose daughter acted out in school, but CPS ultimately decided she was ‘depressed’ and mandated the classes.

I feel like I’m not addressing most of the questions asked- I want to, but there are 208 so far and it’s hard to keep track! This is ultimately my feeling on CPS:

It should exist, in smaller form, as a back up to police investigations. If a child is being abused to the extent a removal is necessary, the parent should be charged. This forces CPS to some standard of proof, and makes frivolous cases like less common.

Also, I can assure you that my emails sent late at night were not at all written less cohesively than my OP- I work at night. I’m sorry this upsets people, but my kids are SUPER FOND of cable and heat. So, as much as I’d like to be tucked in and dreaming about Nathan Fillion at 1:30, often I’m tying up loose ends, laying out clothes and packing snacks to be up again at 7. Such is the life of a single, working mom. So sorry it doesn’t match the glorious expectations you have of one-parent households. 😀

Another thing you should know is how class-based CPS investigations are. (There is a great read from the Baltimore Law Review linked in this MeFi thread [http://www.metafilter.com/95150/Reflections-on-Judging-Mothering]. For instance, lucky for me I work at home. As of now, I have been in court 8 times since April, plus lawyer’s visits, mandated “services,” et al. (All of which I or my parents have paid for, out of pocket, no insurance.) If I worked at Target, or even an office, would I have been able to keep my job? It’s a slippery, slippery slope. I’ve lost three clients. My husband (we are separated) has lost HIS job. These investigations, while perhaps not deliberately so, destroy good families while trying to root out the bad.

To all who doubt this could happen, read the PDF on the MeFi link- it explains how it happens, from the perspective of a lawyer. Is it likely to happen to you? No. But I think that we need to dispense with the idea that CPS is a force of good because they can very much not be.

I didn’t say of the stuff you attributed to me. It was DOLLY. If you are going to quote someone, please get the name correct. Dolly and I have almost nothing in common.

My position is simple. I don’t know you. I’m not going, on blind faith, take the word of some random person on the internet as to these very serious claims when so many in this position mitigate their involvement. I don’t know if you are telling the truth or deserve to have your kids taken away or are making the whole thing up and don’t even have children. I really wish Lenore wouldn’t post these types of letters without verifying their veracity. It is one thing to post newspaper articles which should have had some fact-checking or letters like the more recent one where it doesn’t really matter if true but relying on one-sided stories like this that send half the people who follow the blog into “CPS is going to take my children because I’m a free range parent” mode is dangerous.

If your story is true, I hope it resolves quickly and your children are returned.

I recognize that CPS is a controversial subject and that like every bureaucratic organization there are going to be bad apples (and a lot of overworked overwhelmed workers apples as well) but I don’t doubt that there are some really horrible people out there who have no business being parents
CPS needs to exist for the abused and neglected children.My aunt used to be a foster parent and has since adopted three of my cousins from the foster care system. And no LRH, no amount of low income daycares could have saved one of them of them from being beaten, or the other two from a meth and cocaine addicted mother who routinely abandoned them to turn tricks to feed her habit. My aunt had another foster care daughter who had been prostituted out. These children are survivors of horrible abuse and years later it continues to be part of their physical, mental and emotional lives.

As for the OP I would take her story with a huge pillar of salt.

if we’re trolls why feed us?

there’s the problem..what are your standards of verification? can you verify yourself? does everyone have to verify everything to you or someone else? what depth of personal information do you require? in otherwords what would satisfy you?

Again, the misattribution was intentional, and I referenced it being two commenters. I was speaking to the misconceptions I’ve noticed about CPS.

I don’t expect anyone to believe my off the bat- but I do think it’s important for parents that aren’t necessarily conventional to know these things can and do happen.

What I don’t understand is why people are so reluctant to realize CPS makes mistakes sometimes, and having an agency operate in secret like this is not a good thing. Also, the media cannot vet my story any more than Lenore could because as you probably know, family court and CPS cannot comment legally. Which is understandable, but it means NO families can tell their sides. Which again, isn’t necessarily good.

jess I don’t doubt there are SOME abusive parents, and I’ve said before that drug abuse etc rises to the level of intervention. But that doesn’t change how crooked the organization has become, and it shouldn’t go to such an extent that normal people are being nagged about very petty things when they ought to be just left the heck alone.

I agree with OPMom, who is apparently the subject of this post-if CPS exists, it should be as a BACKUP to the police for SERIOUS cases. But for petty things like this–if they’re going to be so preoccupied with such petty nonsense, they should be abolished or very seriously reformed.

I agree with SKL–one should freel free to post their stories of CPS abuse without being nagged about backing up what they say. For real, what’s so special about CPS that makes them so wonderful that none of us should say anything about them over than how lovely & wonderful they are, unless we can PROVE what we’re saying? No such burden of proof seems to be suggested with anything else that’s spoken of, why should CPS be so special and sacred?

To me, CPS doesn’t have a “few bad apples”–as an organization, they are a bad apple, period. They should be completely abolished, although OPMom makes a good recommendation to them being a backup to the police in extreme-special cases. Otherwise–yes, abolish them. Most of all, abolish this mentality many others have of snitching on people doing nothing wrong just because you think how late they stay up or how free-range or helicopter they are is any of your business to meddle in.

LRH

Thanks, LRH 🙂 I do think that while the issues I presented may not always be technically “free range,” the issue at hand- whether any of us are a better arbiter of parenting than anyone else- are VERY relevant.

Two weeks after CPS was called, the school offered us counseling. This is not an issue of the agency’s involvement being necessary because my daughter needed to be provided counseling some way and it was a last resort because both I and the school did not have that capability- they had it all along, and chose not to offer it.

I also disclosed the reason for “imminent harm” being declared- if I were being very dishonest, I would probably not admit I was accused of smothering my child with a pillow.

I’ve grown to detest the term “red flags,” however- it seems to mean “any ambiguous thing I myself do not like, but cannot ascribe to any actual problem.” It’s kind of like “dealbreakers” on 30 Rock. It’s sad that a late email or walking to the bus has become a “red flag,” but I am more concerned with the idea that such amorphous markers are becoming this exponentially large barometer of parenting.

OP MOM- Oh you do NOT want to get into a welfare debate with me. I worked at a grocery store. I saw welfare and food stamp abuse DAILY! I saw people come in wearing name brand designer clothing with fancy jewerly and car keys for expensive cars who then paid for their food with food stamps. My husband who barely makes above the poverty line cannot afford to buy those kinds of clothes, cars, or jewerly for us. The only nice piece of jewerly I have is the wedding ring he gave me. It made me sick on a daily basis to be on my feet eight hours a day ringing these people up when they had way nicer stuff than I had and yet here I was working and I didn’t get free food.

If they get help, then we certainly deserved it. We did without any luxuries and yet did not qualify for food stamps so I don’t understand how they did. If we didn’t have to pay for food I bet my hubby could buy me a nice piece of jewerly every year. Not that that is what welfare is supposed to be used for, but obviously it was what THEY were using it for!

Plus sorry this will get me flamed but you are a single mother BY CHOICE. You CHOSE to leave your husband or at the very least married a man who did not have stayability. So now, you are living with those consequences as far as not having as much money you would like or having to parent alone. This original post is not about that, but if you are going to call ME out on welfare and argue with me, I damn will call YOU out on your mistakes.

Holy F people! What is going on here. We went from a discussion on possible CPS abuse of power to basically calling a woman we have never seen a “welfare queen” and demanding that she prove she is not one. Should she post pictures?
Let’s get back on topic here. Anyone know how to help her out if her story is true? Any comments on the CPS system or bills or reforms you know that people are trying to pass to change it? Anyone know of a Senator/Representative that is interested in CPS reform or investigation who might be willing to test the waters with such a bill?
We’ve all seen foodstamps and welfare abused and all known someone that should have gotten them but didn’t. But that’s not the point of this forum. It’s an open disucssion on parenting and society. Not a place to attack those who fal into a demographic that we don’t particularly like. Keep it civil please. No attacks on economic status, like we don’t attack others on straight/gay status.
And as the child of a gay parent who almost lost me because some people thought she shouldn’t be allowed to raise me don’t pull this whole CPS isn’t bad or you’re just telling us your version of the story. Doesn’t fly.

Thanks, Francesca 🙂

Dolly, I have no problem with debating welfare, but I will say this to you- the problem is not the people you assume are abusing welfare in the situation you described. You were angry because you were struggling and needed help.

(Again, the anecdote about your friend means nothing. You don’t know specifically what she was entitled to or received. And as a single mother, I can tell you assistance is not pouring out from all over, not for the middle class anyway.)

The solution is not for struggling people to hate other struggling people. The solution is to not bankrupt middle class families just to pay for healthcare and food. But truly, that is tangential.

As I said, I am separated. The divorce was not my decision, and I was devastated, but my husband and I are good friends, we are getting through this together, and he fully supports me. It’s all I can ask for. I couldn’t chain him to the bed and force him to stay. But it was not my choice.

But to your question, I have very few “fancy” things. Most of my clothes come from Target, I have a 3 year old refurbished phone, and I drive a 9 year old car I still make payments on. $70-250 weekly on counseling would have been physically impossible.

I have nothing against single mothers. One of my best friends is one or at least was one for several years till she got married. She was a great mom. My mother was technically a single mother for a period of my childhood.

I brought that up and pointed that out about OPMOM because she specifically called me out about saying I was incorrect in my assumptions about welfare abuse and that I was wrong to judge or get mad about people having food stamps that apparently have plenty of money for fancy cars, fancy jewerly, fancy clothes and fancy ipods. Which I have seen with my OWN eyes.

You call me out, I will call you out back. I don’t like when single mothers act like they should get extra credit. I know their life is hard and that is why I try to help single mothers out when I can. But, they should not expect the help or the handouts.

And also, Dolly, from what you have said, it sounds like you would be only too happy to accept those handouts if you qualified for them. So are you really a better person?

Everyone back slowly away from the keyboards and no one will get hurt. Lets pick this up again tomorrow. Nothing gets done when we snipe at each other like this. All it does is create enemies and forum wars which take an open debate and reduce it to a brawl. See you ladies tomorrow. Same free range time. Same free range channel.

I don’t even think there needs to be a debate, really. It’s fairly simple- no one knows what anyone else’s life is actually like.

But someone did mention parenting alone makes you more prone to these kinds of interventions. And I think that is something we should recognize as wrong and as a society, try to fix.

Dolly, I’m not sure what happened with your friend, but no one is “just given” Medicaid. It is a lengthy process to apply, and much documentation is needed to prove you are truly poor enough to receive it. It is next to near impossible to get care at the lower end of the middle class.

This is not me being ideological, this is me having struggled without insurance the past few years for myself. I have a terrible dental abscess, for instance, and no one will see me for it. Not on a payment plan, not at an insurance lower rate, nothing.

The idea that help is simply pouring out on you if you are raising a child alone is just not true. I am very sorry that your family struggled, though. All hardworking people should have access to affordable care. It is to our great shame as our country that we are the least civilized in the developed world, and that so many of our families go without things standard in other wealthy nations.

Paula… how do you poison your breast milk? I mean… if uodrank poison wouldn’t you die?

“It is to our great shame as our country that we are the least civilized in the developed world, and that so many of our families go without things standard in other wealthy nations.”

Hear hear! Welfare abuse, yeah, that’s the problem. NOT! The Dolly rant is so typical of what bizarrely always seem to be blathered around in the good ol US of A: tear down and kick those morally or otherwise “beneath” one and deny them any little crumb of benefits they may receive, rather than collectively (yes I used THAT word) work at demanding a standard of welfare (and THAT word, too) that the citizens in other wealthy nations enjoy. How can so many people be convinced to be satisfied with so little?

Stop being such a country of underachievers. You can do better for yourselves.

Tuppence: I have a right to rant when we could have USED those benefits for a short period of time and we were denied in spite of doctor’s notes and special circumstances. So yes, I will rant about it till the day I die. We had to pay for two high risk premature infants with low weights to eat special high calorie twice as expensive formula because of breastfeeding and prematurity issues. We COULD NOT afford it. They were only on it for 5 months. That was all I was asking for help from WIC was for 5 months of formula assistance. I would have been happy with one can of formula a month. They would not give us so much as one bottle worth. Its bull. No other explanation for it. We were dropping over $400 a month on formula and we could not afford it. But since they wouldn’t help us we just depleted the little bit of savings we did have to pay for it and somehow managed. Its bull though that when someone who paid taxes and worked hard has a medical problem with their children and asked for help, we were laughed right out of the WIC office.

Yet, I rang up PLENTY of WIC orders when I worked in a grocery store and they did not seem any worse off than we were at the time. But because it was a single mom or the person was a minority, they qualified and we didn’t. Its bull. If we pay into the system it is only fair, we should be able to access it in a time of need. Everyone in our family has paid taxes and never gotten welfare. For generations. The one time someone asked for it, they were denied. Its bull. I will be bitter about it till the day I die.

This is exactly why I pulled my kids out of school and will never put them in a public school ever again.

This happened to me too, and to another family in my daughter’s kindergarten class this year. In my daughter’s classroom, the teacher called CPS on the first family for complaining about the teacher’s poor classroom management, and on me for complaining about the teacher trying to cheat on test scores. The allegations in these cases were trivial and invented, like the allegations in this essay. But the investigations were dropped in each case when the families withdrew their kids from the school. The school system doesn’t care, and the teacher will not get so much as a reprimand for it (I know, because I have been agitating for some action from the school district, and they completely won’t even talk to me).

CPS is the public school teacher’s trump card. They use it carelessly and often, to settle petty scores or cover up their own incompetence, with no fear of any consequence to themselves. It is impossible for parents to defend themselves from these tactics. So we must either pull our kids out of school, or risk losing them to CPS.

Nicole, I’m not following… so you don’t doubt me, but you do, answering questions only solidifies the confusion you have, but the answers make me sound defensive and you never really were aiming skepticism at my account? Gotcha. :/

Dolly, I’ve heard people say that before about “minorities” and it’s verifiable bunk. Your race has zero impact on how much aid you qualify for. I’m not saying this in a hostile way, but it’s not a factor-how could it be? It would violate umpteen laws.

Also, when my ex and I were first married, we struggled a lot. I tried to get a breast pump from WIC but I was told WIC doesn’t supply breast pumps, only formula. So I could get free formula, but not the breast pump I sorely needed if I wanted to try and work, too. It was a difficult time. But the failings weren’t with the other moms getting formula, it was with an incomplete system. If that makes sense.

Vanyall, that is part of what I am trying to convey here- schools use CPS as a “battering ram” sometimes if they believe a parent is not compliant. In my case, I did not argue or dissent- but that’s immaterial, because you should BE ABLE to dissent without fear of reprisal via CPS. It’s a brutal, terrifying concept and I have heard from many parents who have had their child and their family treated this way.

I am with OPMom regarding the CPS terrors–yes, maybe calling them “Nazis” outright might be a TAD over-stating it, but they surely are “Nazi-esque,”–their terrors are real, and they need radical reforming or outright abolishment if they’re beyond reforming, which at times it looks as though they are.

I don’t edit how I raise my children based on their evilness and the evilness of snitches who can’t mind their own business, but it shouldn’t be a factor with anyone at all anytime ever to start with.

No one hear is “moaning” about CPS–that’s bull-turd. If rightly pointing out how an evil-minded organization disrespects parental authority is “moaning,” frankly–we need more of it.

The situation OPMom described isn’t unlikely–again, we don’t need to let fear cripple us, but they are real and it is outrageous how they are misused by scornful people, and none of this is held in check. I am one that properly thinks of myself as having to answer to NO ONE AT ALL with regards to how I raise my kids and why I do it as I do. The day you see them sniffing meth or snorting meth or whatever you do to meth (heck I have no idea), or there’s molestation, or I smack a 2×4 literally upside their head–then yes, intervention should occur. Otherwise, whether you’re CPS or a nosy neighbor, who are you to question me about anything? Any organization that thinks they DO deserve an explanation for why I or anyone else parents as they please has gotten too big for their own good and needs to be put back in their place, or sent home packing 100%–this isn’t China or Cuba, that sort of environment shouldn’t exist here (or anywhere, really) and people should be free to speak out about just how outrageous this sort of thing truly is.

LRH

SKL, why did your kids not qualify for speech therapy at the school? My oldest son has been getting it since he was 3, the younger when he was 5. (And we were always $200 over the cut off for things like WIC, daycare help, etc.) Speech therapy (and other therapies) through the school are based on need and how the disability effects learning. Not on income.

Is the reason they didn’t qualify due to their speech issues not effecting learning and them being fairly well on target for producing sounds? You can get them reevaluated every year, and stress the fact if they can’t say the sound they will have a hard time learning to read the sound. Things like inability to rhyme are also flags of issues that can squeak them into services.

The public schools are not supposed to deny special education services because the parent has the ability to pay for private. If you feel that this has been the case with you, they are wrong and you can take action to remedy the situation.

Which, remedying the situation, is what this whole thread is about, isn’t it?

Cheryl, my kid needed vision therapy, which is not one of the conventional therapies they offer through the schools. But it was very important, as her visual learning was way behind, and obviously you can’t learn to read if you can’t tell the letters apart. So found a provider and paid for it.

I have some good ideas on how the system could be improved for future kids with vision problems. I’m not sure why educators don’t seem to realize how important this is. Its effects are often misread as ADHD or other issues. I do feel badly for the kids who have this problem and don’t have the resources to address it. This is an area where making it more accessible would be very cost-effective (as well as kind) in the long run.

Tuppence, I’m happy to agree to disagree with you on philosophy regarding health care funding. It would be nice if you could express your opinion about what works instead of insulting others. “The US sucks eggs” is really not the way to build concensus around here.

Well, I can’t say that the predicament being American has put me in hasn’t occurred to me, as Tuppence has alluded to.

However, the problem here is that people see it as “something for nothing” and the bootstrapping issue. Americans are unique here. In other wealthy nations, no one looks at it this way- everyone pays for healthcare, everyone gets decent healthcare. Ask a Brit or a Canadian if they’d swap their care for ours- they’d laugh.

But we have people- even on this thread- buying the angle that has kept this unsustainable system in place for so long. Don’t look at the poor people as the reason you have to work 2-3 jobs to stay in your house. It’s not the poor people making you poor.

And you can have a pretty decent standard of living in this country and not be able to afford insurance. It’s just way too prohibitive, here in New York, anyway.

And PS, I know quite a few Canadians, and I’ve only ever heard complaints from them about their health care system. Those whom I know who have lived in both countries prefer the US system. The US system is NOT perfect, but neither is a socialized system.

I’m not going to make this about Canadian healthcare, but just wanted to point out that there isn’t really concensus up there either. Though there might be someday, as people forget what it was like to have choices.

SKL, I thought we agreed to not be insulting. And yet you accuse me of being happy upon hearing that you are paying more in taxes than you can comfortably afford. Why do you think that is what I’d want? I can assure you unequivocally that I don’t.

OPMom said it: “Don’t look at the poor people as the reason you have to work 2-3 jobs to stay in your house. It’s not the poor people making you poor”.

Seriously SKL, I want MORE for YOU. I don’t want you to settle for paying out so much and getting so little. I want Americans citizens to stop seeing their government as only a boogeyman and start insisting it does some work for THEM. I want your children (and every child) to get the medical attention they need, without breaking the parental bank.

It isn’t impossible. It is very very doable. Every other industrialized nation has managed it. Why don’t Americans think they deserve as good? I think they do.

SKL, that’s great for you. Plenty of people aren’t willing to leave their families and their lives just to live somewhere cheaper.

I agree it’s not easy to move. I never moved more than an hour’s drive from my parents, either. A lot of people in NY don’t have all that family nearby, but if you do, yeah, the equation is different.

I wasn’t trying to be snide, by the way. I think it’s awful that people who happen to be born in NY have such difficulty making ends meet, compared to most Americans. I don’t think the answer is wealth transfer, though – because ultimately, it’s a choice to live wherever you live. If I decided to move to NY, I would not expect those living elsewhere to help foot the bill. If my cost of living suddenly went through the roof here, I wouldn’t look to New Yorkers to supplement it. (Maybe you’re not saying that either, but you seem to be looking for some government solution.)

I don’t think the government should pay for my kid’s counseling, FWIW. However, I don’t think the same government should turn around and sue ME because I can’t find an extra $1200 a month for insurance or $800 for services. You know? 🙂

Tuppence, thanks for your concern, but all the kids around here get health care that their families can afford. We have group and individual health insurance, pay-as-you-go, state health insurance for those who qualify, and lots of resources for Dr. Mom. My sister’s kid has been in the NICU for months at one of the top baby hospitals in the world.

Funny how in this country which gets so many laughs, we continue to attract endless streams of immigrants (wealthy and not), and sick folks keep coming from around the world to partake of our horrible healthcare options. And more would if they could. Like my friend whose kid had to wait 4 years for a procedure to fix a painful bladder problem that she was born with – in Canada. If that is what you want for my kid, no thank you.

We differ on the basic principles of what government is for. I would say the government is already too involved in health care here, and that is a big reason for the problems that exist. I do not want to buy insurance that includes drug rehab, birth control pills, and other costs that reflect personal choices. But, the government requires insurance companies to cover these, driving the costs up for those of us who will never use those services. The government provides a tax incentive that makes comprehensive health insurance so popular, that doctors’ offices’ management practices are adapted in ways that penalize folks who prefer to “pay as they go” for routine services. And the government requires reporting of our private medical information, creating costs that are passed on to us. That’s just for starters. Without government involvement, we could reduce bureaucratic and administrative costs; and patients would be individually accountable for manageable health risks, further reducing costs. Nearly all Americans could buy quality, prompt, customized healthcare services at affordable prices, and we could more readily afford the costs that ought to be pooled (services for the poor, catastrophic illnesses, etc).

Though you will never agree with me, at least realize that my position is not based on a lack of caring for lower-income people. I was one of those for most of my life, after all. Much of my family still is.

Cheryl, I agree the solution is complex, but one big mistake we’ve made to date is ENCOURAGING disadvantaged folks to think they are stupid and incapable (and immoral), by designing subsidized government programs around that very belief.

WHY was 2/3 of the last census form about what freakin’ color / ethnicity my household members are? Oh, and there are only two ethnicities – Hispanic and non-Hispanic. (Did you know “non-Hispanic” is an ethnicity??) Why do they ask this? So they can decide how much government subsidy they need to send our way – based ONLY on the color of our skin and whether we call ourselves Hispanic. Everything government is like that. So it’s no wonder folks in certain groups buy into the attitude that they can’t get by on their own – when they absolutely can.

And for the record, the majority in my household is non-white, so no, this is not me being racist.

Tuppence, Last time I checked, I haven’t written any letters to Lenore asking for sympathy, reporter involvement, legislative action or whatever this letter was originally aimed at doing. I don’t have to prove myself because I’m not asking anyone to believe me. I did state my opinion, and that said opinion was based on my personal interaction with my local CPS. You can chose to believe that I have personal experience or not. I couldn’t care less and neither viewpoint changes my opinion.

donna you say you don’t have to prove your self because you’re not asking anyone to believe you, it”s just your opinion. yet those opinions are based according to you on your personal interactions. if we are to believe your opinions we believe your interactions, unverified. yet you don’t believe others due to the fact they can not be verified [your choice obviously]. in fact you chose not to believe as is your right. do you believe that nothing is believable except your opinion?

As for standard media links, a contact sent me this- which is exactly what I believe happened to us:

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-05-30/local/29618760_1_acs-child-welfare-public-school

p.s. My use of the term “socialist” was not intended as an insult, only as a description of people who hold the political belief that everyone should be forced to provide services to everyone else.

The idea isn’t making you pay for other people’s insurance- the idea is eliminating the profit motive via insurance companies and lowering costs for everyone.

I’m anti government intervention in private lives- but our model patently does not work. The NHS works in the UK. It works in Canada. We are completely alone among analogous countries in this insistence on pouring the contents of our wallets into the pockets of insurance companies.

It varies, but here in NY it costs between $800-$1200 a month to insure my family of three. Brits have a far better standard of care and pay a fraction of that. It’s just economically sound policy.

I don’t think “everyone pays for everyone else” is as accurate as “everyone pays… but less.”

This womans story is BS. Minimizing, passing blame, etc. It stinks to high heaven of denial. My guess is all and all there is a huge chunk missing from this story, whatever it is, a JUDGE removed these children from the mothers care based on a petition CPS made to the court, see a CPS worker can’t actually order the removal of a child, there has to be a hearing in front of the courts. There is WAY more to the story I than this woman lets on, in all my work and what I have seen over the years in the medical field, not ONE child who was ever removed from their parents by the courts via a CPS investigation was done so without good cause, and almost every single parent of those kids claimed they were framed up JUST like this story.

This thread is almost dead, ALMOST, but not quite.

Bizzo What are you, an unpaid advocate of CPS and their mouthpiece? Frankly you sound like a “CPS fanboy,” like the people who would buy anything Apple makes not because of how good the product is, but just because it’s Apple.

If you truly believe that every occasion where CPS has removed a child was warranted, you’re in a fantasy world. It’s nothing like that. There are instances where involvement should occur, yes, like drug usage or molestation etc, but CPS likes to involve themselves in far pettier things, and they’re helped by a public all too eager to poke their nose where it doesn’t belong.

CPS themselves likes to exaggerate and make-up things as you say the PARENTS like to do. Blocking fists with a pillow becomes “smothering with a pillow.” I have myself experienced & know of others personally who have experienced CPS twisting things like this–and the courts often-times assume what they say to be true. That is, they don’t have to proof what they allege to be true as much as you’re compelled to prove it’s NOT the case, which is ridiculous.

So Bizzo–the woman’s story isn’t BS, you’re BS.

LRH

SKL, you do that. I posted a graph.

http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/2009/12/the-cost-of-care.html

Washington Post, today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-hard-truth-about-health-care/2011/06/06/AG34XbKH_story.html

SKL, I don’t know why you’d be glad I’m proud of my country, but thanks — I believe they shouldn’t settle for underachieving so miserably in the field of health care. Maybe you care less about your country, because you don’t? Just a thought.

I said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t believe the government gets to tell me if my kid needs counseling – especially if SHE has not been going around hurting other people.

That said, the government has no right to get between me and my kid just because someone in government thinks my kid has an emotional issue.

I don’t care if the mom was or wasn’t exploring all avenues to get counseling for her kid.

I have an attorney. You do realize CPS cases cost upwards of tens of thousands of dollars to fight due to the number of court appearances versus what happens in criminal court, correct?

And if you read the OP, it was a three week gap, not a seven week one. I did not “wait for governmental help,” I applied for insurance for the fourth time through Child Health Plus. Most kids in New York State whose parents lack insurance are eligible, I’m not sure why you’re framing it as a passive course of action.

Your analogy is not only faulty, it is a false equivalency. Without food, anyone would starve in 7 (3) weeks. Without counseling (which is supposedly for ADHD, riddle me that) no harm would come to anyone.

It saddens me Americans like you have such low expectations. Because we hoped for affordable healthcare, we deserve an intrusion to this degree? And no one should expect court-appointed government employees to do their job? Why? I’m expected to my job. If I didn’t do it, I would lose it. Why are attorneys different?

I’m sorry that my difference of opinion is seen by you as defensiveness. I think an important part of free range parenting is not letting others tell you what’s best for your kids. If you’ve never had a kid have a tantrum, count yourself lucky. I’d still like to know where you got the “seven weeks” figure. Are the actual facts of the case so undamning you have to resort to distortion?

Donna, my son has an articulation disorder and he qualifies. You need to take your child back and have them reevaluate. Speech therapy through the school is not based on financial need. I would check with higher ups, perhaps at the state level to see what the reasons for denying speech therapy are. The main criteria for denial is supposed to be if the speech issue will interfere with learning. And a child who cannot say a sound will have a harder time reading the sound, so it interferes with learning.

I’m not placing any blame- rest assured, I actually called and followed up with several “free” and low cost counseling options. Call a few. Waits top six months or more. It’s easy to say how you may have handled a situation if you were in it. But I find that people who don’t actually face these issues don’t realize how difficult care is to access.

It’s a well-documented problem. I’m citing the NYT to show you what I’m claiming- do you have a cite to prove “free walk in counseling” exists? Who pays for these services? How do they run?

I don’t see how anyone can have an issue or experience without doing what you’re calling “making excuses.” You ask me a question, I answer, and it’s an excuse. That doesn’t make very much sense to me.

Why does anyone have to be at fault here? Obviously, there are failings all around. The issue at hand is whether kids should be taken from their home if the family cannot afford counseling out of pocket- is that the best solution? Is it excessive? Is it acceptable? Blame doesn’t change the issue on either side- that access to care is rapidly evaporating in this country, and it’s all well and good until it happens to you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/health/policy/02medicaid.html?_r=1

Thank you so much, Tuppence. 🙂 I have said the same myself- and that mindset has been psychologically proven to exist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

It was really great of Lenore to share my story, but it really doesn’t benefit me personally to have it out there. I am a web writer, and I work for a prominent blog. I don’t need attention, and it certainly won’t help my case. I really did just want other parents who may be like me to know what happened.

But thank you again for speaking up and your support. That actually has been very helpful, people who understand what has happened and is happening to us.

I promised I’d be more civil, I hope this is not tantamount to going back on my word, but I think this somewhat strongly-worded post I’m about to make is CALLED for, frankly–because what Tuppence said is exactly right and needs a little expanding on.

Bizzo–you’re a self-righteous jerk and an idiot. Period. Yes, I sait it–you’re a self-righteous jerk and an idiot. Grow a heart and stick a muzzle in your lips, and shut up frankly. You have NO RIGHT to tell OPSMom how to raise her kids. If she wants to spend hours online doing whatever versus whatever else you think her time would’ve been better served doing, WHO CARES what you think? You’re not those kids’ parents. OPSMom is. The day you do all of the work raising them and putting up with a bunch of bureaucratic pencil-pushers poking their long-nose into your private affairs, the day you do whatever you have to do to get them fed and dressed and cleaned-up, THEN and ONLY THEN does your opinion about OPSMom’s parenting matter anything more than hot air coming from a gas machine.

LRH

Donna, your comment re emergency treatment makes me shudder. Who knows what would be done, if you took your child to an emergency room and stated that she was suicidal? A parade of scary thoughts is running through my mind. Psycho”therapeutic” drugs? Hospitalization? Tying her down? Interviews designed to elicit extreme allegations? A record to hang the child forever? Or merely scaring the crap out of the kid for a night? Yikes.

SKL – That’s not what I meant. I simply meant that an evaluation of the child likely could have been arranged on short notice to determine what was going on in this situation. CPS probably could have seen that it happened if it had wanted to (or at least can in my state). The school counselors probably could have made some suggestions if they had been so inclined as well. However, that would have taken time and energy on CPS or the schools part.

OPMom – I definitely don’t think care is freely and readily available. Care is available but you have to know where to go and what to ask for and the service providers aren’t jumping over themselves to help you, in fact, they’ll get out of helping you anyway they can. Dolly said that the lower middle class have more difficulty getting aid than the career welfare recipients and sometimes that is true, not because they are abusing the system but because years of getting benefits have taught them the system. They know what is available, who to ask, what forms to bring and have established case workers to grease the wheels. I certainly don’t fault anyone who can’t figure out the system in 3 weeks. Nor do I doubt that the school administrators are oblivious to the fact that everyone doesn’t have insurance and can’t just magically snap their fingers to get counseling. I bang my head against the wall of DAs and judges who have absolutely no concept of poverty and the fact that someone who has a public defender really can’t afford thousands of dollars in fines and classes (seems like common sense to me but apparently I’m wrong) and sometimes putting feeding their children over paying probation fees is not disrespecting the court but is just a basic necessity of life.

My main problem with all this is that this is generally a pretty smart blog, so I’m a bit disappointed about this entry to it. This is pending case. Most everyone is taking this at face value. Of course someone in any situation where the government takes action on their personal lives and family’s is going to cry injustice. Every single person I have ever dealt with in these circumstances dealing with DCF has made the same claim the horrors of how dare this agency put me through this! In fact, I personally know a man who runs some sort of anti-cps website/organization who is, without any doubt, the biggest piece of child abusing garbage around. What he puts out there for people to see and get them to rally against the system is fairly intelligent, but no where do you see the fact that yes he is truly a sick sick person and his kids lives where likely saved by being removed from him. ,

Thing is, with all the info I see provided, something is being left out about the situation, or perhaps the family history. Or whatever it is, I’m just not buying it yet. The more the mother adds, the more holes and indications I see. Just world hypothesis? Really!?!? Putting that out there, and your mindset of your perceived victimization, not your child’s, at this point just makes you look guilty as all hell to me even more. Just sayin. If this was after the fact and all the proceedings where finished I might be a bit more inclined to entertain the possibility that CPS overstepped by petitioning for removal. But I feel that right now, the mother is trying to garner sympathy and support, anonymously, to people that don’t see the whole picture, when she probably doesn’t deserve it.

And to the first comment entry making comparisons to nazi’s??. It’s just gross. I might not care for some of the things CPS does, but Nazi Germany? Seriously. get a history book or talk to someone who was victimized by hitlers regime. That’s absolutely idiotic to make that statement.

I live on Long island and let my 8yo walk to and from the bus. I’m sure the other moms at the bus stop think I’m nuts.

The HS called CPS because my freshman son was late so many times he lost credit in his first period class. The social worker was very nice and understood when I told her that he has ADHD and has a hard time getting up in the morning. I also told he that every morning is a screaming match trying to get him up and out, and we were certainly not neglectful. If anything, someone needs to protect my husband and I from our two sons with ADHD driving us nuts, LOL. She had to talk to each of the kids and see where they slept and that we had plenty of food in the house. It took about 6 weeks before we got a letter stating the neglect claim was unfounded.

@ Lisa, I’m glad your case was unfounded. Long Island is a bit extreme in the amount of hovering. I spoke about a year back with a very prominent figure in the alternative schooling community who also lives here. He said that he would help me if I ever wanted to start a Democratic school, but Long Island was the single place in the US he would not bother because the parents are the way they are.

@ Elaine- I am so sorry your friend is dealing with this. It’s really terrifying that TPR- the family court equivalent of the death penalty- is often based on the testimony of friends, relatives or schools with an axe to grind. Part of the reason I wanted to talk about this in a place like this is that few people are aware of the scant evidence on which people lives are ruined. And as you can see, many don’t believe it. I’m not saying that some parents don’t understand that certain environments aren’t good for kids, but there’s no way for parents who have experienced what your friend has experienced to explain what has happened to them.

Unfortunately, once there are allegations, it doesn’t matter if they’re false. Since most cannot be verified or proven untrue, they are recorded as “true” because there is no way to prove the alleged actions or lack of action did not occur. So parents face a slippery uphill battle in reunifying their family, and only 50% of families ever see reunification. But since child abuse is so horrific, no one is willing to speak up for the falsely accused. It’s shocking unless you’ve seen it firsthand.

Wow, If i had children id be crying so hard my eyeballs would fall out. I feel for you. These dunces we call Government officials are being just plain evil. They took your kids away just for that. Yet CPS dosnt care to see that they are ignoring the important children who are beaten, abused, neglected, and degraded, and focusing on “Oh wow!! That parent is soooo bad! She isnt being a helicopter mom! Ohhh lets take her children away becase shes not overprotective! Oh, her daughter is quoting Romeo & Juliet!!!! Bad Bad!!!”

I would be ashamed to be part of this country if this becomes the social norm sigh and if this happend to me and my dad just wouldn’t know what to do my hopes go to you and your kkids

I sent this article to my sister in law who got this reply back from her sister in law. “It hapens more ofen than you think… this is similar to what happened to Ben and I just two years ago…Thankfully we got our kids back in just over 72 hours. We were told that it happens whenever there is young CPS workers and a light caseload due to too many good parents in an area… they are out to save the world and need something to do.”

Over the last 18mos Ive had several dealings with the CPS in both Austin,TX and San Diego,CA dealing with the foster/adoption of my now 4.yo daughter.
To cut a long story short,my bestfriend (a British Citizen in the UK) died,leaving me custody of her young daughter. At the time i lived in Austin with my own young family and had to travel to the UK to take care of all the necessary things. After our return to TX we had meetings with CPS so they could conduct a home visit and make reports for UK Social Services. I found the CPS workers in Austin, and later San Diego, extremely helpful and they explained everything they would be doing and what everything ment. They were so easy to work with and were not invasive at anytime. On the other hand, UK Social Services made little to no effort in helping move our case along and explained that they couldnt make their own visit to the USA for a home visit, necessary before the adoption could go threw, because of budget cuts. I understand that sending a social worker all the way to the USA for a home visit is alot of expense but they say a home visit is NECESSARY before placement. In the end my father said that he would pay for the flights and the social worker jumped at the offer. Two social workers visited us in San Diego (where we’d moved to…after notifiying them) and conducted our home visit and met with our CPS worker in San Diego, they then returned to the UK without telling us anything.
18months later we have finally just returned from the UK where we had the adoption finalised and are now the very proud parents of 4.yo Bo.

Tuppence, lifespans in the US are NOT shorter because of medical care. They’re shorter primarily because Americans drive more (lower population density). Take that disparity out, and American lifespans jump. The next major factors are higher murder rates and higher obesity-related deaths.

And don’t tell me that the obesity is because people are “too poor for good food.” That’s nonsense. I like in one of the most expensive states, food-wise, though it’s not as bad as NYC. When we were REALLY broke (we had two mortgaged because we got caught in the crash), I averaged $35/week to pay for food for three people. Last year, with 4 people, I averaged $65/wk. We now eat out once per week. And we eat well–most things are made from scratch, lots of fruits and veggies, amounting to about a third of what I spent per week. This year, I’ll average about $40-45/wk for our family of 4 because I’ve started couponing and being REALLY careful with circulars. (Yes, I have 60 boxes of cereal in my garage, for which I paid less than $30.)

We aren’t poor. I just prefer to spend my money on other things.

The point here is, though, that welfare recipients can get more than $30/wk each here. I have NEVER spent this. The sum is staggering to me. I think $20/wk should be the most that an adult should get, and even that’s pretty extravagant. Even more ridiculous, they’re getting $30/wk and their kids are getting 10 meals a week 36 weeks a year free, too! On top of that, there are all kinds of “gap” programs, and WIC, and then there are food banks, too, because heaven forbid the family lives on the money that’s actually given to them for food. And we’re constantly told how these poor, pitiful people are so hungry and deprived when they’ve got access to something like five times the amount of money I use for the same number of people in my family. Free food. Free school supplies. Free toys at Christmas–and most of those kids had WAY more toys than I did growing up already. (Yes, I had a toyless Christmas. My mattress, which was 30 years old, was literally falling apart, and my parents couldn’t afford both the mattress and the $20 toy they usually got for me. I wasn’t jealous of the other kids–I was exasperated that they were such spoiled leeches, as they bounced from Toys for Tots to Angel Tree to get their swag, with no concept of the cost or value of anything. Of course, those only supplemented the presents they got from their parents, which their parents bought on credit and planned to pay off over the next 6 months….) More cable. Bigger TVs, too. Sure, their houses were filthy, but the fridge sure as heck had beer, the cabinet had chips, and the TV had premium cable.

Welfare recipients around here almost invariably drive newer, more expensive cars than mine, eat out more, and pay more for their clothes. When I lived in a state that sold alcohol in the supermarkets, the presence of a big case of beer on the belt in front of me was a signal that there’s a 50/50 chance of the person checking out pulling out their food stamps card. If they were texting on a cellphone with a data plan, then it was a 75% chance.

People get poor for all kinds of reasons. People stay poor for only two: disability or thinking poor, or both. One’s unavoidable. The other is a choice.

In the case above, I think it’s idiotic to overract to something a child said to bullies in the heat of the moment. I don’t think it was likely to be “very serious,” and chances are that counseling will damage the child more than just telling her it’s not a good thing to say because you’re mad. (My kids have certainly said, “You’d be happier if I were DEAD!” when they’ve gotten in trouble. Threatening suicide is just one step away and can be as meaningless.) If the school were rational, it’d know that. But it’s not. It’s all about litigation prevention. (My brother was in counseling at the insistence of the school. He is autistic, so he didn’t get along great with other kids in his elementary school and particularly was a low-hanging fruit to bullies because it was easy to prevoke a reaction out of a tactilely defensive kid, so the idiotic school decided it must be because he had low self-esteem. My mother put the kibosh on that when he started looking at himself in the mirror and explaining “I hate myself!” because that’s what the counselor–who was a complete loon, BTW–told him was his problem.)

If the story above is true, is hogwash from beginning to end. Yes, the mother should have been notified if her daughter made a statement like that. But in the absence of something else, it should have been LEFT AT THAT. That’s it. It’s done.

As far as welfare goes, I believe in safety floors rather than nets. People are either independent and able to take care of themselves or they are the wards of the state. If they are wards, then they are legal minors and their states become the parents. Housing would be dormitory-style, substance abuse strictly controlled, all search-and-seizure rights surrendered to the state. At the same time, classes would be not only offered but mandatory, aimed at getting people employable and able to manage their own money to become once again functioning adults in society. So I guess I believe simultaneously in libertarianism and statism–giving people the freedom to make all their own choices, if they wish to, and for those who fail, giving them the ultimate statist big brother as something to fall back on. If you’re needing support from society, then you’re not functioning as an adult in society, and society’s role should then be to raise you to adulthood, if possible, at whatever age you are. There would be no questions asked, though, no lengthy application process. What about those who need temporary or partial assistance? See my Free Nutriloaf For All campaign. If you’re willing to wait for an hour in line, you can get a 3 day supply of calories and nutrients for free, no questions asked. 🙂

This would set the bar both lower–motivating more people to figure out how to handle life on their own–and higher–preventing temporary food gaps from people suddenly and unexpectedly without a ready supply of money, for instance. And it would focus on giving people with the most need actual skills to lead a better life. Want to eat something other than endless Nutriloaf while staying in Government Acres? Want to have access to more than gray government scrubs? Then you’d better show up to class and work hard, whether you’re learning to read or getting a phlebotomist certification.

First thing I’m going to say is that I am a teenager, with obviously no concrete experience in parenting or with the CPS, and so I may have no idea what I’m talking about here. But I’d like to add my two cents anyhow.

I have no difficulty believing there are cases where children are taken away for petty reasons such as these, or that reports are fabricated and embellished. But I also know it can go the other way as well.

I’m currently in what may or may not be an abusive situation (it’s a constant source of mental conflict for me—are my brothers and I being psychologically abused, or am I just being a stupid, overreactive teenager?). At the very least, it’s certainly poor parenting.

One of the problems is that there is constant yelling in this house. It is absolutely impossible to go a whole day without yelling—even if the rest of the family is gone almost the entire day, there still manages to be some yelling either before they leave or after they return. My mother has acknowledged this problem once or twice and has said she’ll try to work on it. It’s been a couple years now and it hasn’t changed.

Yet, she thinks it has. Example:
“How have I been doing on the yelling? It’s been getting better, hasn’t it?”
“…no.”
“Well, of course I have to yell when I’m trying to talk to someone on the other side of the house. But that’s it.”

That is an outright lie. She will yell even if someone is in the same room; she yells in people’s faces; and there have been instances of her grabbing my arm and yelling at me.

Therefore, I have no trouble believing that a parent can be in denial about such things. That certainly doesn’t mean this mother is, of course. I just automatically cringe whenever I hear a parent say, “We were a normal, loving, happy family!” (better read as, “It’s not my fault!”) in response to their children committing suicide, completely divorcing them after leaving the house, running away, etc. Now, CPS is different because it’s not based on the child’s action — in the previous examples, usually (but certainly not always!) there’s something wrong enough to cause the child to act like that (although it may not always be abuse). You can often get to the heart of these things by listening to and understanding the child. But with CPS it seems to be based on arbitrary actions that may or may not have any ill effect on the child.

To me, charges of abuse should be based on the actual effects had on the child (although, obviously, there are some actions which are universally acknowledged as being harmful to a child in any circumstance—beatings and drug abuse and refusing of food or medical care, etc.—in which case you can skip the psychological examination) rather than on actions that have such a low risk of causing harm.

Unfortunately, it’s probably a lot harder to prove psychological harm than to say, “The parent did this and that’s wrong.” It’s even harder to prove it came from the way the parent treated the child.

For example:

– I have major issues making any decisions that will remotely effect other people. I have been taught that everyone else’s needs and wants trump my own, and so go to extreme lengths not to show preference one way or another—so they won’t override what they want in order to do what I want. Even if it’s something as simple as, “Do you want to go to a movie or to the mall?” or, “Do you want noodles or hotdogs?” or, “Do you want to eat now or later?” My automatic response is: “It doesn’t matter,” (Even if it does/even if I have a strong preference one way) or, “Whatever’s easier.”
– I have a lot of paranoia of inconveniencing people, which is what the above stems from. I have a friend whose parents are divorced, and spends every other weekend with her dad—I’m always worried that I’m intruding on his time with his daughters if I come over—despite the fact that he’s said he enjoys having me over. If I do something with a friend or go over to a friend’s house, it’s also unthinkable to me to have the friend’s parents pick me up and then take me home, even if that’s the only way it’ll work—it just seems so selfish to ask them to take me both ways. I am frequently anxious around friend’s parents in general because I always think I’m inconveniencing them in some way.
– I have extreme difficulty expressing my wants or needs. If I am at a friend’s house and I’m hungry I rarely speak up about it, even though I have weight issues and need to be eating more (before anyone asks: no eating disorder here, I just have a lot of stomach problems that make eating difficult). If I’m feeling sick or dizzy while we’re walking around somewhere I often don’t mention that either. If I’m tired and want to go to sleep at a sleepover I almost don’t mention that, and will force myself to stay up until everyone else wants to go to sleep. And I almost never speak up about how I’m feeling—it is practically impossible for me to tell someone I’m feeling depressed, or anxious, or nervous, or whatever. I can be on the verge of tears and I still can’t bring myself to tell my best friend—who has my complete trust with these thing — that something’s wrong, and can only sit there and hope she’ll notice and ask what’s wrong.

All of these things I believe stem from my upbringing (especially considering I’ve been homeschooled most of my life; I’m not sure where else I could’ve learned these behaviors from)—my fear of decision making because I’ve had decisions forced on me my entire life and have been taught that I am less important than everyone else; my paranoia of inconveniencing people because of the anger and disapproval that’s always been shown whenever I’ve inconvenienced my parents; and the difficulty expressing needs and emotions because of how I’ve been either ignored, punished, or ridiculed for doing so—but I certainly couldn’t prove it. I could be just a stupid teenager trying to explain away my faults.

But yeah. Basically, I think CPS is a good idea—they’re just going about it all the wrong way and that’s what causes horror stories like this. If you want to know what’s best for the child, I say ask the child. (Of course, this involves more than just a one time conversation—there would need to be a verification of consistency, because of course there are times when children are miserable and hate their parents, but are otherwise happy with their family and overall well-adjusted. And when it comes to abused children it would take a long time of building up their trust enough to find out the truth that even the child might not realize—many abused children are convinced they deserve how they are treated and/or it’s normal parenting behavior and are determined to love their parents anyway because that’s what everyone’s telling them to do. So I realize it’s both impractical and vaguely implausible, but it would still be helpful to focus more on the mental effects to the child.)

Okay, that was a long two cents. I still have a bit more to say, though. (Well, ask.)

This mentions the children going to live with the grandparents now. I’d really like to know how this is arranged. Because I am seriously considering reporting my parents once I am financially independent (not before for two reasons: one, I’m seventeen, and in the event that my brothers and I were put into foster care, I would age out of it and then be on my own with no support. And two, I have an array of health problems that I am dependent on my parents to take care of), to get my younger brothers out of the situation. I’ve seen the effects it’s been having on them too—the older one is downright abusive to the younger (and much of these behaviors I can trace back to my parents, though they do it more subtly), and I’m seriously afraid of the older growing up to abuse his girlfriend or wife or children, and the younger one growing up to be abused himself, as he’s been so conditioned to accept it.

But I know how chaotic and tumultuous it would be if they were put in foster care. However, if there were a way to transfer custody to the grandparents, I’d really like to know about that, because it sounds like a good solution to this. Does anyone have more info on this?

I too had a run in with the CPS and my nightmare is not over yet ether. I work nights and take online college classes by day. About 4 month ago the kids and I were woken up rudely from our mid-afternoon nap by two detectives doing a “welfare check”. They gave me no other reason except that there has been a lot of yelling lately and asked to come in, being half awake I said sure and asked my 5 year old to go get another shirt on. I had 3 dishes on the table from when we had lunch and a basket of laundry on the floor, they commented on what a disaster my house was. A week later the CPS woman shows up on my door with the list of allegations:
-I sleep in and let my kids run wild (not true I get up at 7 am with them even though I just went to bed at 3am)
-Kids are not getting an education (we home school through an accredited program).
-My 5 year old is still in diapers (he only wears them at nap and bed time because he has a medical condition where he can’t feel bowel movements)
-I yell and scream at my kids until some neighbor yelled “enough” (No such incidents ever happen, the only one to loudly say enough was me to my kids).
-I beat my youngest son in the morning the day before the welfare check(This was a Monday, my husbands day off and I was sleeping in when I was beating my son)
-The house is filthy with laundry all over the place and a stack of unwashed dishes.
We refused to let her in or talk to our kids and she said the case will be closed with in 90 days, 4 month later we get a call saying they can’t close the case without seeing inside the house. Our attorney found this very suspicious as it’s the end of the year and they seem to be trying to fill their quota for children they remove. Needless to say the lawyer will be here when they walk through the house.

File an affidavit in the juivenile court that the case is being petitioned to. You need to ask DCF for the services or HELP that you require. example ask dcf worker for assistance in paying for counseling until your insurance kicks in. Ask for $$ so you can stay at home and be with your kids and not have to work so late at night. etc.. If they do not give it to you then you need to complain to the judge. Please go to AFRA site and get your side of the story on the record as they suggest. Go one by one down the list until you have told your side of tthe story. then file it with the clerk at the court and dont forget to make copies to hand out at the next status case conf, The last line shoud include that your kids should be sent home as no DCF services are needed at this time. Unless you really do want their services if so you can ask for your child/children to be returned home so you can work on your plan with the dcf worker. whatever your goal is write it out and send to the judge. Sign your affidavit and swear to tell the truth. Get others that know u r a good mom to write affidavit that u r a good mom . I hate that cps always like to rip kids away from good homes and not take the ones that need to be taken. actually they will like to take all of them if they could as the federal gov pays them for every kid they kidnap. I HATE CPS DCF ETC.
go to cps falsely accused site and learn all u can. go to suis juris site and learn all u can. Fight FOR YOUR KIDS> make your lawyer work for YOU and not just tell u to do whatever dcf tells u.

File an objections and corrections paper along with your affadavit if you have many things that need correcting on your petition. THe judge only sees DCF side unless you tell your side of the story.

debbie

cps does not care about the children.They do not want to be bothered with truly abused kids. CPS refuses to protect them.They are the true child abusers,taking children away from loving parents.
THE CPS IS A BUSINESS PLAIN AND SIMPLE. FOR EVERY KID THEY KIDNAP,THEY GET PAYED VERY WELL.
I am an old lady now and my children are 2 grown women and one son.cps took my children away as i was young and trusting and healthy white small children bring in good dividends .My Indian child was place in many foster homes,where she was beaten physically,emotionally and mentally.I pray for almighty God’s justice,as all I have to do is live. With mine own eyes I shall see the recompense of the wicked. God is not man nor son of man that He should lie.I believe God as 3 of my enemies have died 2 of cancer and one of aids.Two more left to go and one has Alzheimer’s.I pray these people repent before it is too late. I shall die in peace knowing that my God has avenged my children and myself.

@Bizzo
Your attitude is part of the problem.Those who immediately assume CPS gets the benefit of the doubt. That is the same as saying guilty and sucks to be you, prove your not.

So what do you suggest we do after we “scrap” CPS? I understand that CPS makes mistakes and some staff members are innapropriate but to say that the system is evil is the most ridiculous conspiracy I have ever heard. Many of the personal stories hear have many red flags. The first of which is that no one takes responsibility. A one time accident, or an evil school system are to blame never poor parenting. I have seen firsthand the “perfectly normal” kids that enter foster care. Some behaviors are just kid things but enuresis, acting out sexually,RAD, are not the result of a stable happy household. I know this post will never make you change your mind but SERIOUSLY PEOPLE your children are crying out for you to make things right but instead you blame everyone else. The people that turned you in, cps, the foster parents, and judges are on your children’s side. Which is the side you are supposed to be on. Think about it!!!