# Children's Protective Services: Ask Me Anything **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 5, 2017, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-protective-services-ask-me-anything/800750 "2017-11-05T04:39:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-protective-services-ask-me-anything/800750/61 "2017-11-10T00:40:51Z")
> [@Captain\_C](#): > > One of the most frustrating parts of the job is “shitty parenting or being an asshole is not against child protection law”. We hate it too. At least 75% of my cases are with a parent who has a mental illness. My husband is a child behavioral psychologist, and while he rarely sees egregious emotional abuse (he works primarily with OCD, Tourette’s, and a little bit oppositional defiant disorder and ADHD), he finds that getting parents to acknowledge their role in their child’s behavioral problems is the hardest part of his job. They think they are going to plop their kid down in front of him and he is going to do magic psychology shit and they don’t want to hear that they have to change their own behavior in order to help their child. It’s frustrating even on that level. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-protective-services-ask-me-anything/800750/62 "2017-11-10T05:53:54Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > There was physical abuse but I would call it comparatively mild - being held down and slapped repeatedly in the head, for example. Weren’t you told that might be one of the root causes of your epilepsy-style medical problems (I don’t remember the exact diagnosis)? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-protective-services-ask-me-anything/800750/63 "2017-11-10T06:01:33Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Weren’t you told that might be one of the root causes of your epilepsy-style medical problems (I don’t remember the exact diagnosis)? Yes, by my neurologist who recently passed. In all fairness, I also hit myself in the head when I was a child, and the actual cause of my epilepsy can’t be known. It’s just a hell I’m glad is over with. After I wrote about my Mom in this thread, I thought, “Right. So that’s why I don’t need to feel guilty for ending our relationship.” It’s easy to forget how things were sometimes. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2017, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-protective-services-ask-me-anything/800750/64 "2017-11-12T00:05:42Z")
Can I vote that everyone in this thread needs a hug? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2017, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-protective-services-ask-me-anything/800750/65 "2017-11-12T00:09:29Z")
> [@Captain\_C](#): > > Can I vote that everyone in this thread needs a hug? I’ll take it, thanks. Right back at ya. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Goob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c77e96/32.png) [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2017, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-protective-services-ask-me-anything/800750/66 "2017-11-12T00:43:45Z")
Hugs are nice but I want to buy all y’all lots of booze. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-protective-services-ask-me-anything/800750/67 "2017-11-13T19:03:29Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Thanks for doing your job, **Captain\_C**. How often do you get the Mongolian spot story? > > [spoiler]Every parent of Asian children knows the Mongolian spot story. > > My cousin, who is a pediatrician and was the head of the NICU at her local hospital, has two daughters adopted from South Korea. Asians sometimes have the aforementioned Mongolian spots, which are areas of dark pigmentation under the skin. They are harmless, but they can look like bruises. My cousin had her daughter in day care, the day care worker was changing the girl’s diaper, noticed the Mongolian spots, thought they were bruises, and (very properly) called the police to report suspected abuse. The day care worker did not believe what she thought was a lame excuse from my cousin. Fortunately, Asian adoption is common enough in her area that the police had, in fact, heard about Mongolian spots, and were able to convince everyone that there was no abuse involved. [/spoiler] > Regards, > Shodan Both of my children are South Korean adoptees. ManCub™ is 27, FemBot™ is almost 26. Both had the classic [Mongolian Blue spots](https://www.healthline.com/health/mongolian-blue-spots#outlook8) at the base of the spine. Hers was MUCH darker than his. He arrived first by about 16 months. Prior to his arrival ( about 3 months ), we were given printed documentation regarding this condition and were instructed to meet with our Pediatrician prior to the arrival day. If we didn’t have a Pediatrician yet because this was our first child, we were told to find one and have the meeting. This would avoid the horrific situation of having your new child placed into your arms and 24 hours later being arrested for beating him. No clue what other states required, but in 1990 New York State required that a newly arrived adoptee be seen by a Pediatarician NO more than 24 hours after arrival in the United States. Fortunately, in both cases, the Pediatricians had seen plenty of Southeast Asian babies and were well-versed in the Mongolian spots. They were both glad to see that the Agency had provided thorough documentation. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-protective-services-ask-me-anything/800750/68 "2017-11-15T03:33:06Z")
Jeez. Adoption is stressful enough without adding the fear you’ll be branded an abuser. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-protective-services-ask-me-anything/800750/69 "2017-11-15T04:32:02Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I truly believe there were points in my childhood that my mother could have easily lost control of her temper and killed me. I don’t think it would have been intentional, she was just reckless as hell when she was angry. Yep, I had a therapist who had worked with abusive fathers in prisons, some who had killed their kids, and he said the basic difference is that most of them were just “unlucky” in that when they threw the kid against the wall, the child impacted the wrong way and died. Many more parents, including my father, happened to not kill any of us, but just because of luck. For people whose greatest fear at night as a child was getting too cold rather than not waking up, it’s hard to understand the lasting impact growing up with such a legitimate fear. And the impact of emotional abuse. My cousin worked for a while as an investigator and said that looking back, my family was as bad as it gets. They just didn’t have a strong CPS back in the 60s. > [@Captain\_C](#): > > At least 75% of my cases are with a parent who has a mental illness. That was no doubt our case, although my father was never offically diagnosed. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > And once the parents figured out the doc thought they were part of the problem, the kid was pulled from therapy and gosh knows what horrors the parents dumped on the kid in retaliation. Yeah, we did family counseling until it became apparent that the problem wasn’t the kids. . . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-protective-services-ask-me-anything/800750.md?page=3)