When professionals cry 'WOLF'. A rather long rant.

The BBQ Pit
1

I had a bit of an incident last week when I got a phone call at work informing me that my child (aged 15) had been sexually abused and that I should go home urgently to sort out the problem.

I got the phone call from my daughter, who had gotten a phone call from my son’s school Counsellor. Incidentally, they DO have my work number, so why they relayed this info to my daughter to then pass on to me remains a mystery that WILL be sorted out this week!!

The story I got (via the initial phone message) was that when Kid had been doing a stint of ‘Work Experience’ (usual for Year 10 kids at Aussie schools) a couple of weeks ago, he had been sexually molested by the owner of the business, and had gone to the Counsellor to report it. The Counsellor had passed on the information to Human Services who had in turn passed it on to the Children’s Sexual Assault Unit of the Victorian Police.

So, I went into a blind panic and rushed home to find out what the fuck had happened. Many thoughts blasted through my head on that journey. Some are too horrible to mention, but the main one was why on earth my son didn’t feel safe enough to trust me with such a confidence. Why had he told the school first? Where had our relationship fucked up that all of this was ‘news’ to me? Why hadn’t I picked up any signals? What the hell has happened here?

I got home to a bewildered kid who was as shell-shocked as myself. As it turned out, Kid had been talking to a mate in the corridor at school about what an arsehole his ‘boss’ was (and it wasn’t his Work Experience boss, it was the boss from his part-time job at a local bakery). A teacher passing-by had overheard snippets of the conversation, and had dragged Kid in for ‘counselling’ about it.

Kid told Counsellor that boss was an arsehole (I knew this already 'cos the kid quit the job a few weeks ago for that very reason) but the Counsellor tried to make something more of it all. Kid (after much prompting and probing) acknowledged that the boss had touched him one day. So the Counsellor’s alarm bells went berserk…bringing in all the other agencies to deal with what was obviously a case of sexual molestation.

Problem is, Kid wasn’t molested. The boss had physically ‘moved’ Kid away from one of the counters or shelves or whatever so that he could gain access to the counter/shelf/whatever. He had grabbed him and moved him sideways. As simple as that. He may well have been a garden-variety cunt of a boss (but I mostly only take 1/2 of what my kids say as ‘gospel’ anyway) but he definitely had not ‘abused’ my kid sexually.

When the coppers turned up as ordered by the Sexual Assault Unit, they were as pissed-off as we were. This stupid bint of a counsellor had turned a kid’s ‘whinge’ into a full-blown fucking crisis of gargantuan proportions. Whilst I had a bit of a meltdown over it, my poor kid was in major panic mode wondering how the hell he had managed to be molested without even knowing it!!

So, next time Counsellor, get your facts straight before you start accusing some poor innocent schmuck of sexual assault. And next time, ring ME to tell me what has gone down with my child rather than one of his siblings. It could have probably have been sorted out easily had you deigned to speak to ME about it first.

Grrrrr.

2

Yikes! A major FUBAR, for damned sure. The thing that gets me most, though, is relaying this through the kid’s 15-year-old sister. WHAT THE HELL??? What about confidentiality? What about freakin’ COMMON SENSE???

3

Nah…Kid is 15…big sis is 22.

But the issue still remains that I should have been contacted first before anyone else needed to be involved.

4

Fucking hell!

It’s a good thing it got sorted before things got COMPLETLY out of control and boss ends up getting arrested!

5

Urff!! Every time some senseless schmuck does something like this, it makes the real cases more complicated to deal with. I’m glad that finally, as a society, we’ve decided to take notice of child sexual abuse, but making it up when it’s not there is not going to help anyone.
:mad:

6

Jesus, at least your other kid is an adult! I was picturing the councilor calling up a twelve year old to pass the info along. “Hi there, sweetheart. Is your mommy home? No? Well, when she gets home, tell her that your brother was molested by his boss. Do you know what ‘molested’ means?”

I hope the dumb shit who did this is sacked. And by “sacked,” I mean placed in an actual burlap sack. And hung from a tree.

7

Professional, eh? :eek: :mad: Not sure how it is down under, but it seems like here in the good ‘ole US of A that many of those in the education industry take their jobs as surrogate parents a bit too far. A good part of that problem lies with those parents who truly believe that their school is responsible for the raising of their kids; moral values, ethics, sex ed., everything. Teachers, in fairness, are now *expected * to perform these duties for too many children.(Oh, and standard education also, of course). I’m not really sure where the drift from classroom teacher morphed into quasi-parent, but there it is. Unfortunately, there does seem to be more and more of this type of over-reactive hyper-vigilance on the part of these alleged “counselors”. I don’t think it is reported much (the false accusations, that is), as school heirarchies here are fairly powerful, and could pretty much squelch a lot of this stuff. Besides, they were acting in the kids’ best interest, right :dubious: ? What about the falsely accused guy (or gal)? Some things really stick on you, true or false. Child or sexual abuse, animal abuse, rape, porn, etc. - these things, and others, if only circumstantially associated with your good name, will forever taint you, whether you are vindicated or not. I agree; there needs to be as serious (or pretty darn close) a consequence for the false accuser who rushes to judgement, as there is for the accused if found guilty. The boss may be an arshole, but he does not warrant that type of reaction. People in a position of power, such as this counselor, simply MUST determine ALL the facts before phoning off some glib message to “come get your kid; he’s been molested”. Seems like that’s not the way it works, tho’… :frowning:

8

I don’t mean to be flip or anything, but I simply must know the definition of “bint” that you used to describe the counsellor. I like the sound of it, and hope to use it myself some day!

9

I believe it’s British for “bimbo.”

10

On the other hand, here, people in such a position can be sacked, prosecuted, sentenced for not reporting suspected abuses immediatly. I don’t know how it works in Australia, but I suspect it’s probably quite similar. Saying “I wanted to determine all the facts first” probably would get you nowhere. You’d be told that determining the facts is the police job, not yours, while reporting is your absolute duty. And be villified for your lack of concern and reactivity, lose your job and probably end up in a courtroom if the molestation turns up to be for real.

11

And beaten like a pinata.

12

Actually, I’m an Aussie, and down here it is shorthand for ‘Stupid Fucking Dimwitted Shit-fer-Brains’.

Often associated with bimboism. but not necessarily.

Sometimes there are otherwise smart folk who can be called Bints. I’m sure my kid’s counsellor is a smart sheila who knows her stuff, but in this case, she was a fucking bint.

:smiley:

13

Can’t say I’ve ever heard bint before.

I remember this one time, this girl I knew used to say she always had gotten raped, and name guys who had done it… and like crying wolf, people would believe her for a while, and then she’d have to find new friends. Well once, her friends actually told the guidance counsellor about it, who promptly called the police, who discovered her story was bupkis, girl was expelled for a multitude of reasons, and I hope she learnt her lesson.

14

Thanks for the definitions. I’ve learned a useful new word!

15

I’m shocked at all the folks here claiming to have never heard the word ‘bint’ before.

“If I claimed to be an emperor just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d lock me away!”

It’s things like this that make me wish there were a “makes false accusations” registry to go along with the “sex offenders” registry.

16

Oh, and that last line refers to the case in the OP, not people unfamiliar with “bint”. Those people are just in need of a good spanking.

17

And after the spanking?

18

Well, I’ll let those in need ask for it themselves.

19

I’m sort of suprised too. Although, it wasn’t until I saw “The Vicar of Dibley” that I understood what it meant. The line in MP:tSFtHG didn’t really register before that.

20

Kambukta - I know how you feel, I work in a school and there are some members of staff that seem to want every kid to have some kind of mental problem, disability, family crisis, etc. Can’t really blame them though, the dozy bint we had training us for ‘Child Protection’ bombarded with so many symptoms of so many disorders and kinds of abuse that all the kids have got some symptoms of something (underweight? then they’re either abused or neglected, it can’t possibly be they’re naturally thin).