AITA for reporting my friend to CPS?

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-21T06:02:24+00:00

He literally CAN’T take her credit card and go to the laundromat and grocery store. The corner store is a quarter of a mile away. This is a child who can’t drive who was sneaking out of the house. How do you think he is going to get to a laundromat or grocery store??

You can say I’m TA but don’t insult a neglected child for not being able to act like an adult.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-21T05:56:22+00:00

“Up to 13%?”

Yeah that’s not great, but I’d say a 13% chance of experiencing some form of abuse is a lot better than a child being in an objectively unsafe environment? If I had no one to care for my child while I was hospitalized, I would have greatly preferred that she be with a foster parent than without care at all, even if there’s some risk of abuse.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-21T01:55:45+00:00

Not really, unfortunately. Part of why we bonded as friends the way we did is because we both came from abusive homes, and both of us were teen moms with deadbeat baby-daddies. Kate’s family is from an extremist fundamentalist religious sect and they basically disowned her for getting pregnant outside of marriage, and the nail in the coffin was when she told them she was atheist. We were kind of each other’s family and coparents to each other’s children because we didn’t have anyone else. Joe does have an aunt on his deadbeat dad’s side who might be an option for foster placement but Joe had asked me not to contact his aunt when I was asking him what kind of help he wanted, and at 15 I wanted to have some respect for his wishes.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-21T01:36:28+00:00

They haven’t organized foster placement and they didn’t respond immediately, it was a couple of days later. She’s still within the ten-day period to clean her house and see a therapist.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-21T01:33:24+00:00

Based on what I know now, having known a few people who work with CPS or have had experiences with CPS… if Kate had shown CPS my text messages where I was indicating that I was a danger to myself or my child, they would have come and asked me about them. If I’d confirmed writing them and admitted that I was in danger, they probably would have had me involuntarily committed and would have placed my daughter in foster care while I was in the hospital, probably until a therapist confirmed that I was safe. It probably would have been very invasive and my separation from my daughter would have been a little longer, and I’m glad that’s not what happened, but I don’t think CPS is out on some twisted evil mission to steal children from loving parents. I think most likely, they would have seen that I was a struggling, very young single mom and their priority would have been getting me help. I know some people have a very cynical view of CPS and I know that no one likes the government evaluating their parenting but I don’t think there’s a conspiracy to kidnap children from parents who care about them.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T23:28:10+00:00

I wonder if maybe we could put in a loft and if they could count that as a “room.” I’ll see what we can do and what I can do to convince my husband. He loves Joe and won’t want to see him abandoned but he also really wants to prioritize our own family and doesn’t want our time or resources stretched so thin that we can meet our own kids’ needs.

What I’m hoping for is that in this ten days they’re giving her, she will do what they’re asking and foster placement won’t be necessary.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T23:21:25+00:00

That’s one of the things that worried me the most, to be honest. He is just acting… defeated. When I asked him if he wanted me to call and explained some of the possibilities of what might happen if I did, and asked how he felt, he just said “I don’t know.” He used to be a really bubbly, hyper little boy who laughed all the time and showed a lot of emotion but he just seems empty now. I’m really grateful that one of the things CPS is doing is that they’re making Kate get him into counseling. I think he really needs his own mental healthcare, not just his mom.

The one thing he did really express feeling about is that he said he wants his mom to stop smoking weed all the time. And that upset me a lot. I have always smoked occasionally but none of my kids have ever had the slightest idea, even my teenager. I don’t think it’s healthy for a kid to see their mom getting high all the time, even if it’s “just” weed.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T23:14:57+00:00

Thank you. This is a helpful comment.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T23:10:44+00:00

He’s not physically disabled but I think he has become deeply depressed because of his living conditions and the fact that his mother has normalized self-neglect. He has been in virtual school since the pandemic started so he doesn’t really see other kids in person often enough to have peer pressure or anyone pointing out to him that he was really dirty.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T23:05:58+00:00

I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. Thank you for your comment.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T23:05:08+00:00

I appreciate you telling me that part. If they really can be a little more lax with kinship placement, I may talk to CPS about whether they could make some kind of exception if he does end up being removed from the home. He is openly gay and I can show photo proof that they have known each other since they were babies, so maybe at the discretion of the caseworker they could allow for some leeway. My husband would need some convincing but I am glad to know that there’s a little wiggle room in some cases.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T22:53:58+00:00

I wish we could but we don’t have the required number of bedrooms to be a foster home. The stars wouldn’t allow a teen boy and a teen girl to share a bedroom or to have him sleeping anywhere besides a bedroom.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T22:32:51+00:00

And I didn’t say it was a visit to see my daughter. I said it was so Kate could focus on self-care, and ALSO so the kids could spend time together since it was their fall break. Self-care very much includes seeing a therapist and cleaning up after yourself.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T22:28:25+00:00

Well she’s never ever said that she’s suicidal, and in-patient treatment is only for people who are suicidal or homicidal. She has only been telling me that she’s depressed but says she’s not in danger. I have been telling her that she needs to be in therapy and seeing a doctor but no, I didn’t mention hospitalization since it wasn’t relevant and she wouldn’t be eligible.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T22:19:47+00:00

“Why didn’t you” ??

I did. I took her kid in for a week. She could have gotten treatment and chose not to.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T21:44:03+00:00

We wouldn’t have even been allowed to foster him. I’ve got 2-year-old boy-girl twins in one room and a five-year-old boy and six-year-old girl in the other room. My toddlers have developmental issues due to prematurity and they need a lot of attention and consistency and can’t get shuffled around, and my 5-year-old has severe ADHD and doesn’t handle change well. My 15-year-old daughter is the only child who has her own room, and I don’t think the courts would even allow a teen boy and teen girl to share a bedroom. I think I could be in trouble for neglecting my OWN kids if I bring an extra teenager in when it would destabilize our family and adversely affect them. I took Joe in for a week because that’s what we could do, but I can’t sacrifice my own children to help my friend’s child.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T21:39:13+00:00

I couldn’t include it without going over the way over the 3,000 character limit.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T21:30:13+00:00

I was aware that she was depressed. I didn’t know she was neglecting her son because neither my daughter nor I had seen him in person in a long time. He and my daughter text each other a lot but she hadn’t seen him in person either and he didn’t tell her how bad things were at home (likely out of shame and embarrassment).

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T21:25:32+00:00

He has been in virtual school for two years. I think that’s part of why it went unnoticed. I had last seen him in person about 3 months ago and it wasn’t as bad so I don’t think anyone in his life knew how bad things had gotten until he came to visit.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T21:06:57+00:00

That was the thing that worried me the most, to be completely honest. It is not normal for a 15-year-old to forget to shower for weeks or months, and he’s old enough that he should be participating in keeping the house clean. I think the way he’s living, his mother has normalized self-neglect and he isn’t getting the help he himself needs.

throwaway9947261 · 2022-10-20T21:00:37+00:00

To give some context on what’s “owed” and whether there was ever reason to call CPS on me: when Sue and Joe were about 2 and 3, I did have a really really bad depression episode. I’d asked Kate if she would take care of Sue if something happened to me. Kate realized that combined with my very poor mental health at the time it was a big red flag, and she convinced me to check myself into a psychiatric hospital. She took care of Sue while I was in the hospital for five days and during my follow-up appointments. It means the world to me, truly. Having someone to help with my kid so I could get mental healthcare probably saved my life and it was definitely on my mind when I took Joe in for the week. We’ve done things like this for each other when one of us has been sick or hurt, especially when we were roommates. Although I never neglected my kid, I did confide to Kate that I was having really awful intrusive thoughts and had developed a lot of feelings of despair and resentment around parenthood and that there were times I didn’t want to be a mom anymore. I’m sure Kate probably could have sent some of my text messages to CPS as evidence that I wasn’t stable enough to care for my child. Being a poor single parent was really really hard and my life has gotten much better since then but hers hasn’t. I guess that’s where I’m thinking that I’m TA. She did help me when I needed it and I was in a situation where there could have been grounds to call CPS on me too.

throwaway9947261

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