Oh my goodness your mother-in-law sounds worse than difficult! How awful for you. (And good thing that the child abduction hotline person knew what he/she was doing.)
I remember thinking, "Our neighbor is a judge. He'll vouch for me. People at TBO will vouch for me." So that part was covered. But it still felt awful.
I understand the angst of such a situation, second-guessing yourself, etc.., and I am glad all ended well for your family.
We’d been fostering two siblings, and applied to adopt them. All was going well until one day the social worker showed up, unannounced, telling me I’d been accused of various things. Long story short, adoption was ended, social worker appeared a couple mornings later, with a Mountie, who happened to be a friend of ours, and amongst many tears they took “our” children away, and I was left to explain to our daughter why her “brother and sister” of two years were no longer part of our family. A few weeks later, a neighbour strutted up our footpath while I was working in the garden to let me know I’d no right to those children, and admitted it was she who had called social services. Fast forward 20 years, and that daughter contacted our older daughter on Facebook, and we were re-united. Unfortunately, the system had damaged both beyond repair, and it has been difficult for all of us.
oh aviva, what a heartbreaking story. i am glad you had that reunion 20 years later but that neighbor- what a horrible thing she did. thank you for sharing.
I was a Registered Social Worker for decades in BC, including a few years as a designated child protection worker and many years in child protection adjacent roles (family support, family therapy and so on) so this story riles me up on a few different levels, including the fact that I am a parent and grand parent! Child protection policies and practices go in cycles, meaning, there is clear policy based on legislation that gives social workers the powers to do certain things like investigate suspected child abuse (usually without an advanced calling card!) but the practice that determines which cases get formally investigated and which are informally investigated and why are sometimes influenced by the social and political atmosphere of the times. So, for instance, if there has recently been a big case in the media, social workers tend to "over-do it" and I wondered, when I read your blog if something like that had been going on. Because, I can tell you that, what you have described here and the way in which it happened would not be considered standard practice (at least in BC) at that time, when I was working in the field. A single, isolated phone call alleging abuse would not (usually) trigger a home visit, unless the call came from the police, a doctor or a teacher. Because child protection social workers are used to getting all sorts of specious calls from angry ex-spouses, crazy neighbors, what-have-you. The first step, after receiving such a call (out of the blue, with no history) would be to investigate the caller, who is encouraged but not forced to leave their name. Even if the call is made anonymously, every effort is made to find out as much as possible about them because it's an important part of the investigation, if it comes to that. Plus, it's usually fairly easy to find out who made the call. What's their relationship with the child and/or family? Has this person ever made a similar allegation anywhere else? (Often a crazy neighbor, for instance, has called suspected child abuse more than once). Then calls are made to "collaterals" - those who have first hand, on-going contact with the children: family doctor or teachers, who, by law, have a duty to report suspected child abuse and whose responses are protected by law to be confidential. Sounds to me like, in your situation, either Alberta has or had a different child protection policy than BC or something was going on to cause the social workers to over-react to what was obviously a specious allegation. And, just to be clear, all allegations are investigated, but because of all of the rampant false allegations, they often stop before it is deemed necessary to make a home visit that includes a separate interview with kids. So bizarre that you had to go through this!
wow. thanks for all that clarification. i sure wish i had known that 23 years ago. I would have followed up with someone higher up the food chain. it galled me so that someone could accuse me and my husband and not be at all accountable...,
Debby, that’s a traumatic experience - especially for a sensitive and introspective person. Your heart’s carried many burdens. Your writing has reinforced, at least for me, the reality of the ways we can be spiritually injured (the related psychological term is moral injury). This adds to the weight of other pressures and unanswerable questions in life. As for who reported, that person’s motive that day will likely not surface.
They may have been ignorant, genuinely concerned, now deceased, or a changed person. As you can probably tell I spend perhaps too much time addressing the question: How do we transcend the pain of the hidden assaults we’ve borne in the past?
Your fine and honest writing helps us all focus on good questions.
Debby, I can’t imagine the shock and anger that you felt going through this. I don’t know if I could ever sleep after that! I would want to know who had accused me. So I’m glad that you found out and confronted that person, even though they denied it. Thank you for sharing this really sad and upsetting with us.
The confrontation was so weird—I went into it so sure that I was finally going to have some closure and or vindication, and her reaction caught me so off guard. She had me convinced she had no clue what I was talking about, but my neighbor had me convinced that she knew exactly what had happened. People have faulty memories. I’m never going to know, but I’m okay with that now.
I haven't quite gone through that, but I have definitely faced the assumption that I've committed violence because I'm male. I get it, but it's a horrific feeling, so I can appreciate how you felt. Once was when Lee was out on a bike ride with the kids and fell and broke her shoulder. She called me to come get her, I tried to drive her (and them) to the hospital but she was in too much pain so I stopped at the local ambulance station, where they went into immediate "get the man away from her" mode. Same at the hospital. Another time, I took the kids ice skating, and Lee, who does not skate, happened to come with us. Thank goodness, because within 3 minutes of each other both kids had fallen and one had a pretty serious cut (her glasses broke and cut her in the eyebrow), so we had to take them both to the ER, where I was definitely suspect and, had Lee not been with us, would absolutely have been interrogated more than I was.
I had a very difficult mother-in-law who was from Eastern Europe.
When I was breastfeeding my first baby, my MIL accused me of not having enough milk and starving my child! I was outraged!
She didn’t call authorities thank goodness! And she lived two states away, which was a blessing.
But years later, she called a child abduction hotline when she saw a fair-skinned child in a shopping cart being pushed by a darker-skinned woman.
I don’t remember the details — by that time, we lived even further away — but I was horrified at her actions.
As I recall, the person on the hotline was able to assure my MIL that no crime was being committed.
There are some really crazy people out there.
Oh my goodness your mother-in-law sounds worse than difficult! How awful for you. (And good thing that the child abduction hotline person knew what he/she was doing.)
I could tell you stories …
But the woman had so much trauma in her life, she was very messed up.
As long as we minimized contact with her, it was fine.
Glad she didn’t see how bruised my older child was — to this day she bruises easily and is so fair-skinned.
Debby, how terribly upsetting. I’m glad it blew over but am not at all surprised the memory lingers.
I cannot imagine having to experience any thing like that, it is no wonder it is something you would never forget it!
I remember thinking, "Our neighbor is a judge. He'll vouch for me. People at TBO will vouch for me." So that part was covered. But it still felt awful.
I understand the angst of such a situation, second-guessing yourself, etc.., and I am glad all ended well for your family.
We’d been fostering two siblings, and applied to adopt them. All was going well until one day the social worker showed up, unannounced, telling me I’d been accused of various things. Long story short, adoption was ended, social worker appeared a couple mornings later, with a Mountie, who happened to be a friend of ours, and amongst many tears they took “our” children away, and I was left to explain to our daughter why her “brother and sister” of two years were no longer part of our family. A few weeks later, a neighbour strutted up our footpath while I was working in the garden to let me know I’d no right to those children, and admitted it was she who had called social services. Fast forward 20 years, and that daughter contacted our older daughter on Facebook, and we were re-united. Unfortunately, the system had damaged both beyond repair, and it has been difficult for all of us.
oh aviva, what a heartbreaking story. i am glad you had that reunion 20 years later but that neighbor- what a horrible thing she did. thank you for sharing.
I was a Registered Social Worker for decades in BC, including a few years as a designated child protection worker and many years in child protection adjacent roles (family support, family therapy and so on) so this story riles me up on a few different levels, including the fact that I am a parent and grand parent! Child protection policies and practices go in cycles, meaning, there is clear policy based on legislation that gives social workers the powers to do certain things like investigate suspected child abuse (usually without an advanced calling card!) but the practice that determines which cases get formally investigated and which are informally investigated and why are sometimes influenced by the social and political atmosphere of the times. So, for instance, if there has recently been a big case in the media, social workers tend to "over-do it" and I wondered, when I read your blog if something like that had been going on. Because, I can tell you that, what you have described here and the way in which it happened would not be considered standard practice (at least in BC) at that time, when I was working in the field. A single, isolated phone call alleging abuse would not (usually) trigger a home visit, unless the call came from the police, a doctor or a teacher. Because child protection social workers are used to getting all sorts of specious calls from angry ex-spouses, crazy neighbors, what-have-you. The first step, after receiving such a call (out of the blue, with no history) would be to investigate the caller, who is encouraged but not forced to leave their name. Even if the call is made anonymously, every effort is made to find out as much as possible about them because it's an important part of the investigation, if it comes to that. Plus, it's usually fairly easy to find out who made the call. What's their relationship with the child and/or family? Has this person ever made a similar allegation anywhere else? (Often a crazy neighbor, for instance, has called suspected child abuse more than once). Then calls are made to "collaterals" - those who have first hand, on-going contact with the children: family doctor or teachers, who, by law, have a duty to report suspected child abuse and whose responses are protected by law to be confidential. Sounds to me like, in your situation, either Alberta has or had a different child protection policy than BC or something was going on to cause the social workers to over-react to what was obviously a specious allegation. And, just to be clear, all allegations are investigated, but because of all of the rampant false allegations, they often stop before it is deemed necessary to make a home visit that includes a separate interview with kids. So bizarre that you had to go through this!
wow. thanks for all that clarification. i sure wish i had known that 23 years ago. I would have followed up with someone higher up the food chain. it galled me so that someone could accuse me and my husband and not be at all accountable...,
Debby, that’s a traumatic experience - especially for a sensitive and introspective person. Your heart’s carried many burdens. Your writing has reinforced, at least for me, the reality of the ways we can be spiritually injured (the related psychological term is moral injury). This adds to the weight of other pressures and unanswerable questions in life. As for who reported, that person’s motive that day will likely not surface.
They may have been ignorant, genuinely concerned, now deceased, or a changed person. As you can probably tell I spend perhaps too much time addressing the question: How do we transcend the pain of the hidden assaults we’ve borne in the past?
Your fine and honest writing helps us all focus on good questions.
Thank you , Linda. I really appreciate that encouragement and feedback.
Debby, I can’t imagine the shock and anger that you felt going through this. I don’t know if I could ever sleep after that! I would want to know who had accused me. So I’m glad that you found out and confronted that person, even though they denied it. Thank you for sharing this really sad and upsetting with us.
The confrontation was so weird—I went into it so sure that I was finally going to have some closure and or vindication, and her reaction caught me so off guard. She had me convinced she had no clue what I was talking about, but my neighbor had me convinced that she knew exactly what had happened. People have faulty memories. I’m never going to know, but I’m okay with that now.
Oh, how awful!
I haven't quite gone through that, but I have definitely faced the assumption that I've committed violence because I'm male. I get it, but it's a horrific feeling, so I can appreciate how you felt. Once was when Lee was out on a bike ride with the kids and fell and broke her shoulder. She called me to come get her, I tried to drive her (and them) to the hospital but she was in too much pain so I stopped at the local ambulance station, where they went into immediate "get the man away from her" mode. Same at the hospital. Another time, I took the kids ice skating, and Lee, who does not skate, happened to come with us. Thank goodness, because within 3 minutes of each other both kids had fallen and one had a pretty serious cut (her glasses broke and cut her in the eyebrow), so we had to take them both to the ER, where I was definitely suspect and, had Lee not been with us, would absolutely have been interrogated more than I was.
Just realized I had already commented but tells you I read that chapter again!
Susan
So very sorry you had to go through such a devastating experience. I cannot for the life of me imagine who would ever do that to you!
Susan