So hubby and I discuss this “concerning” turn of events after we get home. He is outraged, of course. We decide to involve Social Services. We send an e-mail to the therapist that sees the children and verify that this is something “reportable.” Should be a no-brainer, right? No. The list they’ll actually respond to can be bizarre. She verifies that this is reportable and hubby makes the call. Here’s where things begin to get interesting.
Hubby discusses this most recent issue–the fact that the kids are living in squalor and have no clothes that don’t have dog poop on them. He fills the caseworker in on The Egg Donor’s (ED) refusal to fill Stepson’s prescriptions. He tells the caseworker about the long history and asks her to check the file. He discusses our many concerns, including the discussion that Stepson had with the Dental Hygienist recently where he told her that “at Mom’s we don’t brush our teeth usually, because we don’t get home until one o’clock in the morning.” He spends at least 20 minutes on the phone with this woman, explaining, then nodding, and saying “Uh-huh” a lot.
Now it’s my turn. She and I have a nice long chat, during which I reiterate all of the things that hubby told her. Then comes the good part…
She tells me that it seems strange that all of these other folks–the hygienist, the therapist, etc.– have concerns about the kids but haven’t reported. It just doesn’t “gel” for her, she says. She’s been doing this a long time and perhaps we’re just overreacting. I tell her that no one wants to get involved. That’s why they haven’t heard from all of these people. It’s not that it’s not happening, just that providers don’t want to the be in the middle. She explains to me that these providers are mandatory reporters.
Yes, I know this. I tell her that perhaps they’re not reporting because they see that we’re getting it done, even if ED is not. I explain that the hygienist is having this conversation with a kid while he’s sitting in the dentist’s chair getting a cleaning. She’s talking to him about how often he brushes, but this time he’s cavity-free. Nevermind that he’s had a head full of them in the past. If he were being neglected, he wouldn’t be in this excellent shape right now, right? That’s how people think about this.
She disagrees. “Neglect is neglect,” she says. No kidding? Isn’t that the purpose of the phone call? Isn’t it neglect when your kids don’t have clothes without dog poop on them?
I get the distinct impression that our upcoming court date is a mark against us in her eyes, instead of another avenue we’re pursuing to get this done for the kids. She tells me that she’ll likely just give ED a call and “check in” on this issue. I come unglued. I know. I shouldn’t have. But I can’t even fathom the logic someone would use to come to this kind of a conclusion.
“What? I certainly hope to heaven you don’t actually CALL her,” I say. “If you don’t believe us about this situation, wouldn’t it be better to at least stop by, knock on the door and see for yourself? Surely you know that if you call it will be cleaned up by the time you arrive? That would be worse for the kids than if we had never made a call to you.”
“I’m not saying that I’m going to do anything at this point,” she responds (with the “don’t get all freaked out about this” attitude–I hate the placating tone, I really do). “I simply don’t have enough information to make a decision on what to do. I haven’t even looked at the file. I can’t just send someone out at 7 o’clock at night without basis.”
“I agree that this is not an immediate threat to the children, since they are with us,” I answer. “I can certainly understand that you don’t want to send someone right this second. But I am begging you to at least have someone go and take a look. Please don’t call ahead. That would defeat the purpose of this call.”
She repeats herself, over and over and over again… “I can’t say that I’m going to do ANYthing at this point.”
I get frustrated. “What about the medication?”
She proceeds to tell me that we just don’t have proof that his meds are not being administered.
“Oh, but we do,” I tell her. “We have the date the prescription was issued, the number of pills in the bottle, the dates that they were with her, and the e-mail from her stating that he had some left. Obviously it has not been administered appropriately.”
“Well, that’s subjective,” she replies. How in God’s name is that subjective???? “Further, these medications are maintenance medications. It’s not like his life is in danger if he doesn’t take them.” Unbelievable.
I remember that the meds weren’t the actual reason we called, just an aside in an already long list of grievances we have with ED. I return to the dog poop issue.
“Well,” she says, “I don’t think a child wearing long sleeves on a hot day is an emergency.”
Do these people just not listen? I answer her slowly, teeth gritted…
“We… are…. not…. calling…. about…. the…. clothing. If we had an issue with the long sleeves, which we do by the way, we would just send her an e-mail, or discuss it with the child. We most assuredly would NOT call you to take care of it. However, we do have a HUGE issue with the fact that this child has no clothes to wear–except this one long-sleeved shirt–that aren’t covered in dog poop. This is unsanitary and unsafe for them. This is neglect!”
She explains again, with the same condescending tone, what she already explained to my hubby. “We deal with all kinds of issues regarding children and there are some very immediate cases we have to handle. We see children getting raped, beaten, burned, locked up and tortured. Those are the cases we deal with on a regular basis.”
I don’t disagree with her. I’m sure they see a lot of ugliness, every day. I can’t imagine doing the job they do. But the fact that they see things that are “so much worse” does not make this NOT wrong… It doesn’t make this less of a safety issue… It doesn’t make this small… It does NOT make this OK.
I eventually hang up after she talks to hubby one more time and we sit, dejected, beaten, and weary. It’s frustrating to deal with the many issues there are but by far the biggest frustration is the absolute refusal, by folks who could fix it, to step in. Hubby tells me that the worst part for him was when he asked her why they come to our house so readily every time ED calls. They have been to see us eight separate times in the past seven years now, on allegations of abuse–unfounded every time. But they still come every time she calls.
Her answer? “It depends on the egregiousness of the claim.” I guess next time we’ll have to claim that she’s making them eat it and see if they come running. I wonder briefly–if it was her kids that were living in a houseful of dog poop if she’d do something about it. Maybe she’d think it was pretty egregious then.
In the meantime we’ll just have to live with the fact that these kids, not kids from Darfur or Somalia or Afghanistan or Tijuana, but kids from the good ol’ upper-middle class US of A, live in squalor exactly 49% of the time. We’ll just go to bed on the nights they aren’t with us wondering if they’ll come down with something because they sleep on a mattress on the floor, right next to bacteria-filled dog feces. We’ll wake up on the mornings they aren’t with us and wonder if they have something not feces-covered to wear. We’ll be able to do exactly nothing about it. And we’ll do this until they turn eighteen because their Egg Donor, and the Social Services folks we pay with our tax dollars to protect our children from just this sort of thing, don’t care.
I HATE this system.
Recent Comments