CPS
4:36 p.m. x 2003-09-29
I think it's total crap when someone calls child services on someone out of revenge. (Don't flip. It isn't me. Ok, do flip because it's just plain wrong.)
To call when you've never even laid eyes on the child(ren) is even worse. How the hell does one know the kids are being abused if they don't see it? While someone is making a false report, they're costing money and time for the social workers and preventing them from being where they're really needed.
Hypothetical situation - you call on your ex-friend and report them saying oh.. I dunno... they're afraid of their father. The social worker is sitting there shaking her head because there's no signs of abuse, the kids are happy, the house is only "kid messy" and certainly still a safe environment, and she can't understand where someone would get off saying these people may cause harm to their kids.
Meanwhile, the kid across town comes home from school. He got a B on his report card. His stepfather is drunk again and pissed off at his mother. He sees the grade, takes it out on the kid, and starts beating on him and throws him across the room. The kid scrambles to the phone. He gets the call in to CPS but the social worker can't get there til she's done with the first case. By the time she gets there, the stepfather has discovered he called. He beats him, harder and harder, and by then it's too late. When the social worker gets there, the child is dead.
All because why, kids? The social worker was investigating a false report on someone else.
It is against the law to make a knowingly false report on someone. It's called fraud. You're defrauding the agency out of time and money, you're defrauding the people investigated out of their trust and their lives as they knew it, and you may just be defrauding a child somewhere else out of his or her life!
When my cousin was 9, she came to live with me for 6 months while DCFS investigated her father. There was a report on him that he was molesting her and because of the nature of this, they removed her from the home and put her in family placement. While she was with me, her grades slipped, she wet the bed, she had poor hygiene, and was just not a good kid.. not that she did anything major, but she lied a lot and was just troubled. This wasn't because I didn't try to give her a good life but she missed her dad.
The case was found unfounded. This poor girl had to be away from her home, her bed, her life for 6 fucking months!
Turns out, her mom and sister called on him out of revenge because he left his wife for another woman.
No, that wasn't right, but it didn't call for revenge. She would have rather seen her daughter in foster care than with him simply because of her own anger. There was no way she could get custody. She was in prison. The sister was underage so she wouldn't have gotten it either.
When she went back to her dad's house, she turned into a straight A student with good hygeine and hasn't wet the bed one time. She's truly one of my best friends and just the way she turned out in general goes to show that she wasn't under any duress while living with her father. She still isn't, at least not in that sense.
That will follow her for the rest of her life. All because her mom thought it neccessary to get back at her dad.
By making a false report, you are hurting the parent but you're also hurting the child. It isn't some joke. It's someone's LIFE.
The person that did this has cost me a friend. It isn't that she thinks I did it, but she doesn't know who she can trust anymore so she's leaving everyone behind.
This time the childish games went too far. Just because someone doesn't like you doesn't mean you have the right to shatter their lives. People have to earn trust and affection from people and constantly stabbing them in the back isn't going to make them say "I like you lots. You're my buddy!"
In some cases, I honestly have either forgotten to give out my number or had a miscommunication, but in other cases I intentionally stall people when they ask me for my number. The simple reason is that I don't want people knowing how to find me and doing something like this. If they can't say where I live, they can't make a false report on me. At this point, if a situation has come up where you needed my phone number and I've given it to you, I trust you with my life. If you've wanted it and haven't gotten it I don't trust you. (of course if we're close but you've never needed my number, neither applies to you.)
This friend of mine is more trusting than I am and it's a shame that she's had to have that shattered in every aspect of her life, right down to giving up something she dearly loved (a hobby) just to be on the safe side.
I don't know. I think I'm about all talked out now but it doesn't stop me from thinkinng how shitty it is that she's going through this.
(If you're reading this, You know who you are and I stand behind you no matter what.)