Got a visit from Child Welfare services last Friday.

[TimBone]

My wife and I both work evenings. When we arrived home from work Friday night, there was a letter on the door saying that Child welfare URGENTLY needed to meet with us. This was extremely odd. We have one son, that is 2 1/2 years old, and I consider him to be taken care of very well. I immediately went into panic mode, as I assume a lot of parents would. I do spank the kid when necessary and use time out with it. Never hard spankings, though. Just enough to get the message through.

So, I ask my wife if he's had any weird bruises(I assume all young kids get a lot of bruises because kids are a bit reckless on their own). She say no.

I next start to worry if some random weirdo driving by didn't like something I was doing in the yard with the kid. Our driveway is off of a highway, but the house sits back about 200 yards. He is outside working with me a lot. He loves riding the mower, so we do that quite often. Sometimes it's spur of the moment, so he's not always wearing his ear protection. We also check the mail with the mower which requires driving right up to the highway. I always make sure there's not even any cars in sight though, so that there's no danger. Anyways, I started nit picking stuff like that to see if there was any way some random asshole reported us as they drove by.

I also worried that maybe the babysitter was under investigation. Maybe he was being harmed there. Lots of crazy shit went through my head.

Like I said, we got this notice on Friday night. Their offices are closed until Monday. We were left to worry about this all weekend.

I called them first thing this morning. The lady who left the note was out in the field, and she didn't call back until 1:30 this afternoon. She casually explained to me that they put the notice on the wrong house.

I was relieved and pissed off all at the same time. I calmly explained to her the worry that note caused and that maybe they should create a policy of not leaving those kinds of notes on the doors of people on Friday afternoons if they have yet to have any initial contact with those people. If it's someone who already knows there is an investigation going, then fine, leave a notice if you want. But leaving us that note left us on the dark and worrying for 72 hours.

Am I crazy for suggesting that?

[Loneiguana]

Originally Posted by Flybone McTimmerson

I agree that I should have hit the internet and did some googling. That is a very fair point. I'm not sure why it didn't cross my mind. It may be because I was working most of the weekend.

I figured you had to be associated with them in some fashion. Like I said before, I could only imagine how mentally taxing it must be to deal with what a CPS worker deals with on a day to day basis. The type of people that they have to deal with must be unbelievable. I couldn't imagine having to be cordial with a child abuser as I'm removing their child from the home. I'm not so sure I'd be able to handle it.

It's fine that you're coming in here to add your perspective, and defend your wife's profession, but it seems as though you don't want to acknowledge at all that this specific situation could send a parents mind spinning. I don't think that is fair.

I don't want you to see it as defending. You had every right to be concerned and worried, and I can and will not hold it against you. And I can see why it would send a parents head spinning.

Which is why I want to give out the best possible information to calm those fears now and for anyone reading in the future.

99 percent of people are great parents. CPS exists for those who are not. The 99 percent of great parents should never fear CPS and my goal is to help them understand that and Why.

[TimBone]

Originally Posted by Loneiguana

I don't want you to see it as defending. You had every right to be concerned and worried, and I can and will not hold it against you. And I can see why it would send a parents head spinning.

Which is why I want to give out the best possible information to calm those fears now and for anyone reading in the future.

99 percent of people are great parents. CPS exists for those who are not. The 99 percent of great parents should never fear CPS and my goal is to help them understand that and Why.

Understood. Thanks for the info.