Child Protective Svcs. is NOT the way to get revenge!

The BBQ Pit
1

We have some neighbors that live across the street from us. They have 5 kids. Their only daughter is about the same age as my 12-yr-old, and she and my daughter are friends. My oldest daughter is into Yugi-Oh cards, and at one time played a game with the neighbors’ oldest son. My daughter said his attitude sucked, he kept trying to cheat, and after the game was over, some of her cards were missing. She told the boy that she suspected him of stealing them. He denied it (I don’t know for sure if he did steal them, but I do know that he’s been busted several times for stealing minor stuff from the local grocery). His mother freaked, telling my daughter she didn’t appreciate her saying those things, etc.

Now, we have been good neighbors to these people. When their phone service was out, for about 2 months, they were over here probably 4 or 5 times a day wanting to use our phone (we let them). When their dog was in heat, they needed one of our preschooler’s pull-ups, and we gave it to them.

Fast forward to today, a social worker from Child Protective Services shows up at our door. She’s been here twice before, always the same complaint. Someone has reported that our home conditions are unfit for children. Both of these incidents followed times when our neighbors were angry at us about something, and I suspected them, but wasn’t sure. Each time, the complaint has been found to be Unsubstantiated. Well, this time, the complaint was unfit conditions, PLUS that our children don’t have adequate bedding. To wit: there are mattress springs poking through the mattress in the room the older girls share. Well, this is true, and as we couldn’t afford to replace the mattress right away, we bought one of those egg-crate mattress pads to handle the situation. But, about a week ago, negihbor girl was over here, playing in my daughters’ room, when the mattress pad was in the washing machine. She ripped her shorts on the spring (I didn’t know this until today).

Now, if her mother had come and voiced her concerns to me, I would have told her A) The girls have a mattress pad, but it was in the wash, and B) I’d be happy to replace your daughters’ shorts. But I don’t believe the neighbor called CPS out of concern for our kids, I believe she called them because she was pissed off at my oldest daughter. Like these social workers don’t have anything better to do!

Oh, right, this is the pit: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!! This just makes me angry!!

2

Such a waste of the already overtaxed resources of CPS, too. Is there any way to request an investigation into the source of the complaints? Surely using CPS for personal vendettas is a violation of some kind of law?

3

FisherQueen, excellent point. I’m going to call the social worker (we’ve gotten to be on pretty good terms by now :)), and ask her about that.

4

In Texas filing three unfounded complaints to CPS is a criminal offense.

5

That’s really sad, especially when I think about all the times I have seen on the news that children died because CPS didn’t have the time or manpower to investigate complaints. I guess the situation is better where you are, because where those things happen, CPS wouldn’t investigate unless someone’s arm was hanging off.

I’m glad that there are dedicated CPS agents, and that they have the time and dedication to do that. I’m sorry their time and dedication are being wasted like this.

But I would go batshit if someone did that to me. It’s ridiculous, and your neighbours should be fined. Bravo to you for being so mature about it, and for giving their dog a pull-up. (Funniest mental image ever, BTW.)

6

I think there’s a fair bit of neglect around here. I take my youngest one to a play center where, one of the services offered at the center is supervised visitation for parents whose kids have been removed from their custody. It’s a pretty popular service. But these parents tell stories of how the situation just wasn’t bad enough to warrant having the kid removed, and I don’t buy it. In fact, one social worker told me “You can’t really get a kid removed from a home unless you see the parent setting the kid on fire or something”. This is because of the shortage of good foster care, which is sad, because I’m certain there are kids remaining in homes that are truly neglectful. But, yes, we have good, dedicated workers, and the ones I’ve met don’t seem of the “storm the home and take the kids at all cost” variety. I think most of them would really like to try to help solve the problem, and keep the kids with the parents. Another good thing about small city life is the cops respond quickly, and if you call the cops because you were a bozohead and locked your keys in your car, they’ll actually come unlock the car for you. In the Baltimore suburb I grew up in, any cop you called would have politely (or not) invited you to call a locksmith!

7

{hijack}

They all invite you to call the locksmith now. It seems slim-jims can cause damage to certain central european sedan door locks…and that the Asshats who generally drive those sedans have sued for damages successfully. All it takes is one precedent for towns to change their policies like Dominoes…

{hijack}

8

We got lucky; when I was about three a very unpleasant neighbor called CPS about me. (Among other things, she had an extremely bratty kid who kept leaving his bike on OUR doorstep and whatnot – of course, he could do no wrong.) Apparently whoever they sent came in, took one look at me peacefully napping, and came to the conclusion that I was NOT abused. Thank God.

These days, depending on where that happened, they could have taken me away and asked questions later. I am all for protecting children, but calling CPS for revenge is so far beyond wrong that I don’t have words for it.

Then they don’t always do what they’re supposed to, like with the drug dealers across the street and their several small children. Other people have called about THAT situation. Yep, apparently it’s okay for them to deal drugs in front of their kids…

9

The situation is beyond fucked up! The CPS, must, by law, investigate every report it gets. At least here in Maryland, if the same neighbor called and made the same report about us 2 weeks from now (and she may feel the need, because you can believe I am done being nice to her!), they still have to investigate, even though they know it’s bogus! And then, the foster care system is so screwed up that even when a child should be removed, it often doesn’t happen. Of course, that’s generally what happens when the government solution to a problem is to throw more money at it!:rolleyes: