CPS Allows Abusive Mother to Decide Dad’s Involvement with Child « Fathers & Families

oneiorosgrip · 2012-10-14T01:43:26+00:00

CPS did something very like this to my brother-in-law's family. I don't talk about it much because it was a complicated situation, and I can't dwell on it without becoming horribly angry, but it goes right along with the article linked here.

He had a child from a previous marriage, and three with his then-girlfriend. They didn't get married. After the way his previous marriage ended, he did not want to wed a second time.

After having children, the girlfriend decided she couldn't hold a job any more. To support his family without relying on welfare, my BIL took two full-time jobs. When he had long days at work (going from one job directly to the other, with driving between, so basically a 17 hour shift) the girlfriend would leave the kids - ranging from pre-school age to 11 - home alone while she went out with friends. (For the record, at the time there were two uncle/aunt couples and a set of grandparents begging for visits who would have provided free babysitting had she just taken advantage.)

CPS was called by a neighbor, someone who knew the couple but not the family, and had no other way to help the kids. My BIL came home from a long day to find his kids gone and his girlfriend angry & offended, as though she had done nothing to cause this.

CPS blamed everything on him - it was apparently his fault for trusting his girlfriend, not her fault for being absent. It was his fault for being lied to, not her fault for lying to him. And apparently wanting to raise your kids free of the need for public assistance makes you a greedy bastard, not a responsible man.

Worse, they placed the kids - including the one not biologically related to the girlfriend - with the girlfriend's mother, ordered my BIL to get counseling, and limited him to short, weekly supervised visits with his kids. The girlfriend's mother psychologically abused the child who was "not family." My parents-in-law and my other brother/sister-in-law filed for temporary custody of at least him, citing CPS's own policy in the request.

They were denied. CPS refused to place the boy with any of his paternal relatives, even though the people he was with were not, and did not consider him to be, family.

It took months, another incident, and several abuse complaints from the boy himself to get him out of that house and placed with my other BIL.

During that time, both parents were ordered to pay child support to the "foster parent" through the state. Of course, the same social worker who told him off for having two jobs had no problem with basing my BIL's support order on the income from them.

The (at this point ex-)girlfriend had a much lower amount to pay, and still never made her payments. She never even got a job.

My BIL paid his support, but still spent weekends in jail more than once for nonpayment because of a CSEA case worker's data entry error. The second time, he missed my my husband's and my wedding, and then that Monday was fired from his job for no-call-no-showing when he was wrongfully arrested.

My BIL and his ex-girlfriend both were given the same set of conditions for being allowed a chance to regain custody. My BIL did everything he was told. The ex-girlfriend violated more than half of the orders. Guess who got custody! That's right - she did. After failing to complete or commit to the stipulations she was given, failing to pay support, and violating visitation schedule orders, she somehow was determined by the agency to merit greater consideration than the parent who did everything they'd said was necessary to prove himself capable of handling the responsibility. No explanation was ever given by CPS as to why they considered that decision appropriate.

He was in the process of fighting that decision when a previously detected heart condition caught him by surprise and we lost him. As far as I am concerned, the damage CPS did to him and his kids is immeasurable - they kept that family apart for the last 2 years of his life, the last chances the kids had to be close to their Dad.

masgrada · 2012-10-13T16:31:09+00:00

Is there any hope to gain temporary custody of my daughter?

Lawyer the fuck up.

herbandmargie · 2012-10-14T05:28:18+00:00

Government bureaucrats sure do hold the power. So glad we trust them with so many aspects of our life. Makes me feel really warm and fuzzy inside.

Title	CPS Allows Abusive Mother to Decide Dad’s Involvement with Child « Fathers & Families
Author	DougDante
Upvotes	49
Comments	21
Date	October 13, 2012 4:19 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/11f2oh/cps_allows_abusive_mother_to_decide_dads/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/cps-allows-abusive-mother-to-decide-dads.1011443 https://theredarchive.com/post/1011443

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