MORE HARASSMENT

More Harassment after 9 months

Hi:

Our social worker and the parenting instructor came over for their joint home visit at 10am on Tuesday. Our 12-year-old daughter had stayed home from school (for the second day) as she was quite sick with a rather nasty cold. I let them know that I, too, was also quite sick with the same ailment, in case they wanted to maintain a safe distance. Our 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter were, of course, home too.

They started out by asking the two young children questions about their grandmother's and aunt's visit. Our children showed them some of the toys and books which their slightly older cousins, my sister's two sons, had given them. I don't know how much to make of it, but, when looking at our 2-year-old son, our social worker commented on how much he's grown up from a baby into a little boy. My wife and they spent some time discussing the merits of a new stain remover which she'd bought and which neither of them had heard of before. I was glad for an opportunity to prove that my wife had done something on her own, by asking what the name of the substance was, since the parenting instructor often states her belief that my wife relies on me for too many things.

Eventually, our social worker got down to business by announcing that they were here to see how they could help to ensure that the CAS would get out, and stay out, of our lives. The parenting instructor then said that she wasn't sure what our social worker wanted to achieve, stated that her desire was to determine what she should be working with us on for the remainder of the course, and asked if this could be the opening topic. Our social worker agreed, and never did get around to any specific agenda that she might have had. We never did find out, for example, her take on what the psychologist had told her during their meeting a couple of weeks ago (even though she'd told me, during the phone call to arrange this visit, that that's one of the things which she wanted to discuss).

The parenting instructor then began by stating what she believes to be our two main problems, i.e. that we still have a problem maintaining an adequately clean home, and that we don't follow through sufficiently when we make demands of our children. Dealing only with the former issue for the moment, we told them why that might appear to be true.

We told them that it's extremely likely that, every time the parenting instructor comes over, our home isn't in the best of shape, and then proceeded to tell them why. We described the typical hecticness of our mornings before school, reminded them that my wife walks with our children to school and is then at the play group all morning, told them that she tries to get some much needed rest between lunch and our children's return from school, and concluded that it's essentially impossible for the cleanup after our early morning activities, unless we get up an hour earlier, to begin until later in the afternoon.

They told us that this problem could be alleviated if others at home would help. We asked them who that might be since all of our older children are at school. Our social worker observed that I'm usually at home, and asked what I was doing. I reminded her, somewhat angrily as I couldn't believe the stupidity of the question, that I have a job to do, and that I'm busy trying to earn enough money to pay for the legal expenses and psychological assessments which were foisted upon me against my will.  She then said, rather matter-of-factly, "so you're quite busy". My wife said that the only real way to solve this problem would be to hire a daily cleaning lady. Fortunately, even those two experts agreed that that wasn't financially feasible. Unfortunately, they both went on accusing us without offering any constructive suggestions.

We then told them that, for the time being, we have an additional problem. We're somewhat short staffed in the evenings because our 18- and 14-year-old daughters are both spending a significant amount of time looking through everyone's hair for lice and nits. They first acknowledged the importance of this task, and then, without asking first, launched into a lecture regarding the need to reassign cleaning duties so as not to overload the two girls (as if we didn't already know that). They apparently missed the whole point. Firstly, jobs normally done by older children are now being done by younger children, which means that they're being done less perfectly. Secondly, we're still trying to maintain a reasonable balance between work and play. By the way, although we forgot to mention it, our 11- and 9-year-old daughters are also taking turns vacuuming all of our furniture and towels.

To prove her point to our social worker, the parenting instructor then recounted an isolated incident wherein she saw half of a sandwich, and a bunch of crumbs, on our kitchen floor. I told her that the most likely scenario which was at the root of that one was that a school lunch (extra, not taken, forgotten, who knows) hadn't been put away, and that one of our little children, in search of a snack, had probably gotten into it after lunch while my wife was resting. She persisted in trying to make it appear as though it was a remnant of the previous day's mess, but I resisted.

I insisted that it couldn't be, and, since I would have been home at the time, accepted full responsibility for not having been aware of, and dealing with, the problem. They said that that didn't solve it, and told us that all children, even young ones, must be taught to put such things into the garbage. We told them that we agreed, and that we do teach our children such things, but also added that our children aren't perfect. I told them that it'll always be possible for them to fault us for infractions committed by imperfect children, but that that ought never be used as evidence that we don't try to teach them.

The parenting instructor, insisting on making her point, then recounted another isolated incident wherein our living room was a mess. I reminded her that, as we told her at the time, we weren't able to get to that one room the previous evening due to lice related activities. She mentioned that there had even been a used diaper on the table, implying, as best she could, that it, too, had been left there overnight. My wife told her that a far more likely scenario was that our 2-year-old son, who's now getting interested in using the toilet, had probably, shortly before she came, just taken it off and put it there. This developed into a second lecture on the importance of teaching our children to put such things into the garbage, as well as another one on various methods of toilet training (forget the fact that we've successfully been through this twelve times already).

They asked us how we handle it when a child doesn't do a good enough job at whatever his chore is. We told them that we bring him back and ask that the job be completed. They told us that they hoped we didn't slip into the temptation to do it ourselves in order to quickly get it done right. We told them that, in general, we don't as we don't want to remove an opportunity for him to learn. I added that this approach, while being the correct one, also makes our situation look worse to an observer since it means that a mess, unknown to the observer, is sometimes left as it is for a longer period of time than one might naively expect. They then made a big deal about the fact that they expected my wife, and not I, since she can see, to be the one who inspects the quality of the work.

Our social worker noticed some toys on the floor which our children were no longer playing with, and asked us why we weren't asking them to put them away. I answered that we may be up against a difference in philosophy, and that we don't believe in turning children into robots who repeatedly perform the mechanical step sequence of take, play, stow. My wife told her that our children do know how to put toys away when asked, and then recounted a play group incident wherein our children helped clean up while all of the others continued playing, and wherein ours, therefore, received a major compliment for their conduct from the leader (or whatever her title is).

I told her that, in my opinion, it's perfectly okay to allow them to leave toys out for later use, but didn't bother giving her a lecture regarding how children don't always plan out their days with adult-like precision. I then added that most adults don't even behave that way, and asked her what I would find were I to go into her own office. I asked her if I would find a totally clean desk, and then answered for her, saying "maybe I would, but, then, maybe I wouldn't". She didn't answer.

The parenting instructor told our social worker that she'd observed, on several occasions, our not insisting that our children comply with requests. My wife, not using the wisest terminology for the moment, told them that we didn't believe in humiliating our children in public (what she really meant is that public discipline is wrong because it achieves humiliation rather than correction). Our social worker responded by exclaiming that she hoped we wouldn't ever humiliate our children. I tried to clarify the issue by explaining that, unless the situation is really urgent, we prefer to defer matters of child discipline until we're alone. She asked me what I meant by "alone", and I told her that it meant that no visitors are present, adding that it's impossible to ever be truly alone in a family the size of ours.

In addition, I told her that neither our children, nor we ourselves, felt like putting on a special performance for either of them, especially given who they are. She told us that they're only here to help because they don't want to see our home fall apart again once they're out of the picture. I told her that I found this to be a somewhat offensive statement, and asked if she thought we're merely trying to impress them. She said that she hoped we weren't doing that. I told her that we aren't, reminded her of my commitment to that effect a few months ago, and explained that I wouldn't allow such a thing anyway since I'm only interested in permanent solutions.

I added that it ought to be obvious that we're not trying to impress them since we clearly don't go out of our way to tidy things up when we know they're coming over. Although I didn't say it, the fact is that sometimes, if it's too close to their expected arrival time, we leave messes just the way they are so as to avoid the appearance of wrong doing. This, of course, does work against us, but I still think that it's the better route to take.

Our social worker returned to her insistence that both of them really only want to help. I told her that I really did believe her, and that, were she on her own, I'd even be willing to trust her, but that I didn't trust her employer. I explained that her employer, due to its attack upon our children and deep injury to their souls, gives her a stigma which she can't get away from, and said that I'd be glad to work with her should she not work for them. She said that that would be impossible since, were she to quit, they'd assign another social worker to us. I observed that, were that to happen, the next one would probably be a nerd, and then told her that she could take that as a compliment.

To illustrate my point, I hypothesized that she, with the best of intentions, and with the greatest of accuracy, might document something which one of her colleagues might later twist. I pressed this point by reminding her how often this very thing has actually already been done to us by others within her organization. She insisted that she's very careful regarding how she documents things. I told her that I didn't quite believe that, and recounted how, a few months ago, she'd concluded that my friend from work did all of our meal preparation just because she'd seen her showing our 20-year-old son how to prepare some special food which she'd brought over one evening. She told me that it wasn't a conclusion, and that she'd merely put that possibility on the table to open it up for discussion. I told her that she had to understand how we'd take such a statement.

I further explained our distrust of her employer by saying that it, at least its in-take branch, was very sick in that it seems to have forgotten what children are. By very deliberately forcing our conversation onto this tangent, I wanted to, and believe I did, achieve two things. Firstly, I wanted to make it crystal clear to our social worker that our resistance to her help is rooted in our feelings toward the CAS, and not in any way related to either her intentions or her person. Secondly, I wanted the parenting instructor to have a clearer understanding of the underlying issue, and to know that, in addition to making the occasional remark to her privately, we really do openly discuss our concerns with our social worker.

I told our social worker how it appears to me that any piece of negative data, no matter how small, always seems to be grabbed onto immediately and with great fervency, whereas mountains of good data don't seem to carry much weight. To illustrate my point, I referred to the nearly two hundred hours of carefully supervised child visits which we had. She said that she didn't doubt my figure, and then explained that that was an unfortunate side effect of a system in which they're called upon to prove our guilt.

I said that one of the problems with the in-take people is that they don't understand simple math, explaining that they maintain an expected number of injuries per family rather than per child. She said that that isn't quite true, and then explained that, when there are a certain number of file openings with respect to a given family (not much difference to me except that it makes it worse) then they take more intrusive action. I hate nice phrases which cover up evil deeds, so I forcefully asked just what that more intrusive action had been, and then answered my own question by declaring that it was the abduction of all of our children.

Our social worker told me that I was welcome to document my concerns in a letter, and address it to the CAS's executive director (I think that's the title she used). I said that I doubt I'd get a favourable hearing since she (I happen to know that her name is Susan) obviously supports the methods which her people are using. She told me that I shouldn't prejudge her.

I told her that I didn't expect the management to be too concerned with its organization's treatment of the children any more since, after having bullied the government into granting it more powers, after having such an increase in its case count, after having yet more people to manage, and with overloaded workers, it must now be preoccupied with issues like employee satisfaction. She told me that we industry types have it good, and insisted that social services organizations treat their staff like scum (she put it more politely but I can't remember how). I cautioned her that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and then asked her how, if they treat their staff so poorly, could they possibly expect their staff to treat those precious members of society, the children, properly. She didn't answer.

I told her that I suspect that, in many ways, she probably regrets what's happened to us, but added that I didn't expect her to say so because she might be scared that I'd quote her. She seemed to laugh a bit. I then promised to not quote her should she ask me not to. She responded by asking "Quote who?".

The parenting instructor, apparently catching one of the reasons that I'd elected to engage our social worker in this discussion in front of her, showed what I believe to be a great deal of sensitivity by saying that she worked for a different employer. Our social worker, also showing what I believe to be a great deal of sensitivity, quietly told her that she may have a different employer, but she works in the same building.

My wife, near the end of our conversation, heard a suspicious noise in the kitchen and went to see what it was. One of our children had apparently gotten into some food while we were preoccupied with CAS business. She was so quiet about correcting the problem that I don't even know what happened (I never did ask). When she came back, she asked our social worker and the parenting instructor if they'd noticed that she'd properly dealt with an issue which required an immediate resolution and proper follow through.  Our social worker said that she had.

They then asked us if we felt that our methods are good enough. I told them that they aren't perfect, and that we're always working on improving them. They reiterated that they're both here to help should we choose to avail ourselves of them. Would that the system were sound enough that we'd feel comfortable in doing so.

That ended the business portion of their visit. Some friendly discussion followed, during which our social worker told us that she'd be calling in a couple of weeks to make another appointment. They left on a happy note, i.e. as guests whose departure time had come rather than as hated intruders who were being expelled. I think they both understand that we have nothing against them as people, that we even kind of like them, and that we actually do trust them. I think they also understand, however, that there's absolutely nothing they can do to encourage us to trust the system within which they work. If only the CAS would acknowledge its error, especially the harm it inflicted upon and within our children, and would ask us for forgiveness. It would work wonders for us as well as for them.