[blparent] Happy Thanksgiving, eh?

[Jo Elizabeth Pinto]

Hi.  To tell the truth, I had a fairly happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you all did as well.  But I had a really unpleasant surprise yesterday afternoon.  Count me among the eighty percent of blind parents, I guess, who have had encounters with Child Protective Services.  I hope that was my first, last, and definitely only encounter.

I was minding my own business, doing dishes in the kitchen.  Stephen was up for the weekend, and an older woman from my church had left her two grandchildren with me while she went to serve a Thanksgiving dinner at the local affordable housing complex.  Stephen and the two younger kids had just come in from outside.  Ballad, my guide dog, started barking, so Gerald went to see who was at the door.  A few moments later, I came around the corner into my living room and met up with two city police officers and a social worker.

It seems that an anonymous caller put in a complaint that I wasn't capable of taking care of my baby, along with some other allegations iincluding that I had a vicious dog who has bitten me before.  (Ballad is a friendly, goofy black Labrador who would barely know how to bite anybody if she had to.)  The social worker talked to Gerald and me for a few minutes and then, since we didn't get upset and threaten her or anything crazy, I guess, she told the police officers they could leave.  hung out for a little while longer, then told us that she was going to file a report saying that she saw nothing wrong, and the complaint was completely unfounded.  She said Child Protective Services had no problem whatsoever with blind parents or parents who had other disabilities, as long as the children were well cared for, and she could see that Sarah was fine.  One of the complaints had centered on the fact that Gerald is married to someone besides me, and the case worker said that wasn't the business of her agency.  She left soon after.

The thing is, the case worker gave enough hints about exactly what was said that I know who filed the complaint, even if it was anonymous.  It was a friend of mmine, or rather an ex friend.  We haven't spoken for over a year because when I told her I was pregnant with Gerald's child, she went off about how selfish and stupid and immoral I was, and decided she didn't want to talk to me.  It hurt, but I let her go without much of a fight after eighteen years of friendship because in my book, friends stick by each other and don't judge.  She sent a nasty little note at about the time the baby was born, which I ignored because I had bigger fish to fry at the time, like caring for an infant and getting my gallbladder removed.  I don't know now if she called Child Protective Services because of a genuine concern for my baby--she sure didn't check with me at any point--or whether it was some kind of weird vindictive thing.  I'm just in shock.

I guess I'm wondering if it's really going to end like the case worker says.  If she reports that the case has no validity, will it ever come back to bite us if something else is filed later?  Is my ex friend a threat in the future?  So far, my gut feeling is that I better not contact her about this.  I'm mostly too numb to have any emotions of anger or the like, but I'm guessing they'll come in time.  The two kids I was babysitting didn't say anything abot what happened, though I did tell their grandparents in case they mentioned it later.  But Stephen asked me why there were police officers in the house.  I told him the lady had come to check on how the baby was getting cared for, and he asked again about the cops.  So I said some people got mad when a person came to check on their babies, and the lady brought the police so she could be sure she was safe.  He seemed to accept that.  But I feel violated and a little fearful about the future.  Actually, I feel sick.

Jo Elizabeth

It is easy--terribly easy--to shake a man's faith in himself. To take advantage of that to break a man's spirit is devil's work. Take care of what you are doing. Take care.--George Bernard Shaw in "Candide"