Tag: Legal Guardian

One Reason We Never Trusted Others With Our Sons

I won’t publish her name as she has not been tried and found guilty, only charged with child abuse so far.

We have always kept our sons close and protected. We have wanted them to grow up and develop their character free from trauma and abuse. Certainly, we are not perfect parents but we do love them. They never spent a day in child care, they didn’t even go to local public school (where we were once told by a local parent that they practiced corporal punishment without parental consent) and they have never even had a babysitter. Never even spent the night with my in-laws who lived 5 mins away. Whether we did right by them or not is a subjective judgement, at least they are alive (yet another local youth appears to have met a bad end and we are sparsely populated here).

The woman shown in the picture here has been charged with child abuse. Video surveillance in the local day care is damning. She is accused of breaking the leg of a young male child and it was caught on camera. The poor little boy is also under the custody of a legal guardian. My heart breaks for him.

The child was dropped off at the daycare at 7:10am on July 14th. It is said that he was visibly upset and repeatedly attempted to go out the front door. I remember an incident with my daughter in day care. At first she seemed to love going to the family style home based day care while I had to go to work. But she became very upset and it troubled my heart so much, I left work. They had a half door and when I arrived I could see my daughter inside and a larger, older child bullying her with no adults present in the room to protect her. I removed her that instance. I found a woman with a child who wanted a companion for her daughter. In that arrangement, my daughter was always clean, well fed and rested when I picked her up at the end of my work day.

The woman shown in the photo above is said to have been a childcare worker for 12 years. She stated that when other workers have a problem child they bring that child to her. On the video, she is shown holding this child by the wrist with his arm extended above his head. Then she is alleged to have lifted the boy off the ground and dropped him – twice. No wonder the child was trying to get away from her. While he was on the floor, she was seen to lift her foot off the ground and come down hard on his right shin. The child began screaming in pain. He received no medical attention and no loving concern at the child care location.

The boy’s guardian was called to come and retrieve him. The guardian was not informed of the full situation until a Missouri Children’s Division investigator informed her of the events and that the woman involved would be charged. The guardian had taken the boy immediately to our local hospital ER, where it was discovered that he had a spiral facture of his right tibia. He was put into a cast which he will have to wear for 4 weeks.

Maybe we are overprotective but as my husband once said to me, our boys are too precious to allow them to be physically hurt by people who don’t love them the same way we do. I don’t regret it.

The Injustice of Disability

This is one of those issues that one rarely sees discussed.  Here’s the story –

The natural mom of an adult son who suffers with MS reconnected with him 2 years ago. She had him when she was 14 and her parents adopted him out.

His wife recently died and they have an 18 month old. He fell down with the child in his arms and she needed stitches. Hospital called Child Protective Services and they removed the child saying her son is not fit to parent the child due to his disability.

Both his adoptive parents have passed away. Natural mom is a nurse in New York.  Her biological son is in a different county in New York. She has tried to help him by calling and email but receives no response from the caseworker or the supervisor. She assumes it may be because she is not recognized as his family member.

This child is currently in foster care. The mother was asking what else she could do, to try and get custody of her grandchild? Her son supports her effort. He is heartbroken his child is now living with strangers.

The most obvious first step for this mother is to obtain the services of a lawyer and file an emergency petition for custody.  The father will need to name her as the legal guardian of his child.  This is admittedly expensive but it is usually the fastest way to address a situation like this.

And it almost goes without saying because it is so very obvious that the man didn’t abuse or neglect his child. He has a disability. The state should have helped him find resources to care for his child rather than taking his child away.

Bottom line – the son should be able to tell the caseworker that he wants his baby with his mother. As long as she can pass a background check, that should be where baby goes, regardless of legal relation.  The placement hierarchy is usually in this order – grandparents, then siblings, then extended relatives, then anyone else that knows the baby as requested by the child’s parents with random foster parents – a last resort.