Something that REALLY bothers me..... (probably long)

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gh4

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Just to be very up front, it’s not just this board but several of the boards that I post on, some are for dogs, some are for singles etc. and so forth.

I am always amazed at how people threaten to turn someone in for something and at how often people really DO turn people in for some kind of supposed infraction. It might be because they think someone’s dog is too skinny or that someone isn’t home schoolinig their kids properly or someone is unhappy with the way a neighbor is raising their kids or whatever, there are a million reasons I would guess.

People have NO IDEA what it can do to a family. By calling in the CPS without facts and real problems, there can be devastating repercussions on the family. Years ago a neighbor had CPS called on her (and the end results were that the complaint was unsubstantiated) and they were told that my neighbor beat her kids. When CPS arrived, the kids were sequestered and questioned, then they had to submit to go to a doctor for the doc to check every inch of their bodies for bruises. Those girls were humiliated and horrified and it left mental scars on both of them, just because someone “Thought maybe” they were being beaten. The parents were upset and CPS then had the right to “drop in” on them when ever they wanted to, and believe me, they did.

I took care of my parents for 7 years, they both had Alzheimer’s. After 6 years, someone decided that I might be abusing my parents (I’m an RN) and I was subjected to 2 visits from the Eldercare folks to make sure I wasn’t hurting my parents. I was flabbergasted. Turned out to be a neighbor who ‘hadn’t seen the old folks for a bit.’ My parents hadn’t been outside for a couple of years because they were bedridden. I was humiliated as a lady checked my cupboards in the kitchen and went through my fridge and then tried to ask my parents if I hurt them and then checked their skin out looking for bruises and so forth. Good night, I got up every 2 hours 24 hours a day to turn and move and change my parents. I took tender loving care of them. They are both gone now, but I still remember how I was treated and it still makes me upset.

Perhaps the neighbors in both of these cases should have minded their own business since they really had no real idea of any thing wrong happening.
Make sure that you are CERTAIN and would stake YOUR reputation on it before you call the ‘authorities’ about anyone. Because if you are wrong, you could scar the family forever.
 
Your parents were very blessed in your faithful and generous loving care. God bless you!

Thank you for sharing your painful experience and distressing observations.
I’m sad to think that people wrongfully go through such ordeals.
I’m sorry that you did. It’s tremendously degrading for innocent persons.

And it is a warning for people to check their facts. I can’t say I’ve seen evidence of any such misjudgement in this forum…and in balance, sometimes people have died because abuse wasn’t reported when suspected by neighbours.

God grant that balance, charity, and wisdom prevail in suspected untrue or true situations.
 
gh4, I’m with you: it is appalling to see how many people—across the board, not just at forums—have bought into the idea that The State needs to micromanage our lives. (And what about all those 800 #'s you can call, anonymously, to report someone? Brave New World, here we come!)

I was already the target of one such action all the way back in about '86, in a podunk town of N.C., no less (but the town was a bastion of Leftism, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised)! Each morning, while I got ready for work, I’d let my rabbit out of his cage for about an hour, and again in the evening, for several hours. In each case, after he had sniffed and hopped around the rooms for about 5 minutes, he’d stretch out in a corner under the kitchen table and snooze, just as he did during the day in his cage. One day, upon returning from work in the afternoon, I found a note from Animal Control to the effect that someone had driven by and seen my rabbit in the cage, and felt it was cruelty to have him pent up in there “24/7.” !!! I called A.C. back and explained how I handled him, and the woman (a very sensible person) just told me to not worry about it, but to perhaps put the rabbit somewhere out of view. So, I was delivered that time. But supposing she had been a rabid PETAist? Supposing they had taken my rabbit away from me? Supposing I had been fined? (Aside from the principle of it, I was living hand-to-mouth.)

That incident sent shivers down my spine, bec. it reminded me of the tales my mother and grandmother (both native Germans) had told me about living under the Nazis (where you could get denounced for something as innocuous as mumbling disagreement at a picture of Hitler!) and later the Bloodshirts (“courtesy” of Yalta). There has been a “slow boiling of the frog” here in the U.S. since the late 60’s: more and more, we are becoming accustomed to a Police State mentality. (Red Diaper Doper Babies, congrats! You have succeeded beyond your wildest dreams!)

And the **last **people in the world who should be even in a small way participating in that development are believers in Christ.
 
I can completely relate. When I was a child, someone called CPS & told them that we were beaten & the only thing we were fed was mac & cheese. We had the whole medical examination as well. I will never forget it. In some places, like my hometown, Detroit, people use the PS as a weapon against people they are angry with (as in our case). My husband had his youngest sister removed, though not him & his other sister, because of allegations of abuse. She was returned. Several years ago, when my husband was deployed to Iraq, I came home from picking up my daughter from school to a note on my door. I was being investigated by CPS & they would be back. They had come to school and spoken to my daughter without my permission. I never found out from whom the report came from. I was supposed to be neglecting them. They came to my home & looked in every room, in every cupboard, fridge & freezers. My answers had to match my 7 yr olds. In all these cases, no reports were filed as they were unsubstantiated. Yet me all know that there have been hundreds of cases of children under CPS supervision, who were neglected, beaten, starved, abused and/or murdered!I wish people would think of how much time is wasted on these unsubstantiated cases & how many good parents/families can be harmed.
 
When I worked at a volunteer telephone counselor for the Youth Crisis Hotline here, I ran across this exact sort of thing.

Once we had training with a child protection services worker. She explained how almost all the time she can bluff her way into a home without a warrant by telling people, “I’m so and so, and I’m mandated by the state to investigate this complaint … blah blah blah” and makes them think they don’t have a choice but to let her in.

What was chilling, is that she seemed to have no concern about screwing up families. She talked about the difficulties of false reports such as the ones you are describing. We asked her how many false leads does she investigate, and what impact does that have on the family. Her attitude is that she doesn’t care how many families she gets into, if she can only save one child. We weren’t so sure, and after hearing some stories of our callers, we became less sure. Child abuse is terrible, but to screw up 200 families to save one kid? I’m not so sure that’s the right way to go.

Her biggest fear seemed to be bad PR. Her nightmare scenario is when she can’t get a warrant and thus is unable to remove a child from a family, then the child gets hurt or killed and it’s in the newspaper and the story goes that the SRS-CPS had reports on the child, but did nothing to remove it from the family. So our children are protected based primarily on avoiding bad press.

Alan
 
I TOTALLY agree with you.
Actually, it was people on CAF who advised me AGAINST calling CPS.
Here’s what happened. There were three girls and a boy who lived down the block from us. The toddler, about a year and a half old was left in front of the house (no fence, easy access to street) with only the four-year old to ‘watch’ her. Additionally, I would see cars coming and going all night (this was when the twins were first born, so I was up like every hour or so) and I would see a car pull up, a single man get out, enter the home, leave 30 minutes later and then another single man pull up.
VERY SKETCHY!
I thought ‘Call CPS’ - but here’s the rub. Their mom was the only family these kids had. Anyway, so what I did instead was I just kept INSISTING to the girls (they liked to come over and hang out at my house) that I needed to meet their mom. They kept saying I couldn’t, and the mom when I knocked at the door, would give me the brush-off. FINALLY, she let me in.
It was all about saying certain things WITH CHARITY. Nothing against CPS, but I simply cannot predict what others will say or do, and I knew that at least I cared about this woman and her children.
I mentioned how (and this part is true) a 13 year old boy had been run over several months back only a block away and how it made me scared for the safety of my OWN children, and of hers. Turns out, the baby wasn’t hers - it was her niece’s, who was also living there, and the niece pledged (and kept the pledge) of staying IN the front yard when the babies were out there.
Then I mentioned how busy our street was at night, and how that made me nervous. She said her oldest son had friends over all the time, and she was worried about him, because she thought the boys were sketchy, but I did notice a drop in the number of visitors at her house afterwards, so maybe she had a talk.
My point is, a visit from CPS was prevented because someone finally just went over and TALKED to her. I would much rather have a nosy neighbor at my door than CPS.
I’m just saying, I think alot of people who call CPS (or some such agency) might be better off knocking on the door themselves. Just my two cents.
 
rwillenborg,

What you did sounded like it really touched that household in a positive way. 👍 One call to CPS, and I promise you the outcome would not have been pretty. :nope:

Alan
 
My brother had a very rebellious teenage daughter who used drugs, threatened to kill them, stole from them, ran away, etc. She was totally out of control. You get the picture. One day, in retaliation for my brother’s attempts to discipline her, she called CPS and told them she was abused and my brother had beaten her (not true). The police came and my brother spent the night in jail, and CPS came out to investigate. He has 3 other children, and he feared their removal. They found no evidence of any child abuse, but they became a presence in their lives. He was released the following day, but after that he gave up and terminated his parental rights. He felt that he was now at the mercy of the state when it came to his children,his parental authority was being undermined by their visits, and he had a concern for his other children being constantly exposed to her violent and unpredictable behavior.

The problem was not that CPS was called and came to investigate, it was that he had been thrown in jail before the investigation, they continued to make their visits even though they knew the problem was with the girl and there was no abuse going on, he felt harrassed by them, and they did not offer any help or resources for the family to help with the situation. He did not know where to get help, and that seems incredible, but it is not unusual, even today. So he turned her over to the custody of the state, she ran away and lived God-knows where for about a year, got pregnant and returned home when she was 18. Thankfully, some church group found her on the streets and helped her get her act together. She is now married, has two grown sons, has totally turned her life around, does her best to live a Christian life, and is a sweet lovely woman. A true miracle.

Now I think CPS is very much needed, and my husband and I have reported 2 cases of WITNESSED child abuse and neglect with PROOF, but what happened to my brother was uncalled for, and I sincerely hope that they’ve changed their tactics in that city, and work with the families instead of just “spying” on them, esp. when they found no eveidence whatsoever of child abuse after numerous visits. I hope in the past 20 years they’ve improved somewhat. Anyway, that was my family’s experience with CPS 20 years ago.:mad:
 
Thanks for bringing up the topic of CPS and social service workers abuse. People need to be informed of this.

Government employess do not have the right to stomp all over our constitutional rights based on annonymous tips. Average parents (or family members) care far more for their own children (and family members) than the average government worker.

One big concern of mine includes the potential for child abuse and neglect that can happen within the system. Allowing strangers to strip-search children or vulnerable adults seems a form of abuse. Removing people from loving homes and placing them in foster homes or institutions (for even just one night!) seems an abuse.
 
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