Glad she quit

[MCgunner]

My wife used to work for CPS (Texas Children's Protective Services) a couple of years ago. She quit, burn out, tried using her nursing degree, but she was in a crash in 99 and has pins in her leg and partial use of her right hand and really can't stand up long, a sciatic nerve problem. She's currently trying to get her disability. Heck, she'll be getting social security in another 7 years anyway.

But, when she was a case worker for CPS, she was always getting death threats, sort of unnerving. Well, it finally happened. A CPS case worker was killed by a "client" in Victoria the other day. When she'd have to remove kids, she always went with an LEO. But, when she went on investigations she was on her own. Pepper gas, firearms, stun guns, all taboo of course. I'm just glad she's not doing that anymore. It's a job with a lot of potential danger. My heart goes out for the family of the slain case worker and I hope the person responsible gets the needle. Rather they got a noose, but I'll take what I can get.

 

[CAnnoneer]

MCgunner,

There is a new sub-industry involving nurses visiting homes of the elderly to provide on-site medical monitoring or treatment. The hours are flexible, the pay is very good, and she will not need to stand for long, although she will have to drive a lot. You might want to check out healthcare providers in your area. Good luck.

 

[Third_Rail]

Hospice care pays well, but it is tough work. My MIL worked hospice for a while; she was never more emotionally distraught in her life.

 

[neoncowboy]

It's a job with a lot of potential danger. My heart goes out for the family of the slain case worker and I hope the person responsible gets the needle. Rather they got a noose, but I'll take what I can get.

If some state services worker came to my house to interfere with my family and (God forbid) try to remove one of my children from the house...they'd definitely have a fight on their hands.

If they came unarmed, I'd probably win. Hell, for that matter, if they came armed I'd still probably win.

You know that thing about bears and their cubs? State agencies need to start figuring that one out.

 

[itgoesboom]

My wife was also a social worker. Not the type to go and take kids, that wasn't her job. Her job was to help first time parents who wanted help. Always made me nervous when she would go out in the boonies, even though supposedly the families wanted the help.

As for the State taking kids, I think if you are cooking meth in your house, I think the State should take your kids.

I.G.B.

 

[Lupinus]

I know what you mean. Down here in florida they have people that on sundays sell newspapers, you get a street corner 75 papers and you sell them, it is actually pretty decent money for about six hours of work.

She doesn't mind guns but doesn't really care for them one way or another, it also took an hour of explaining how you can get a gun back and forth to the range or buy one much less with out a permit. She doesn't think you should need one, but from jersey and she is still getting used to living in a free state. Doesn't really care for them one way or another basicly.

Took me a half hour to convince her to put some fox labs spray in the apron.

There are some things that you just really don't want to do unarmed.

 

[Lonestar.45]

Neoncowboy, I understand what you're saying. I feel the same way. But consider this-if someone's a drunk child molester/abuser/wife abuser/drug dealer (like many are who get their kids taken away), guess what? The state better come take the kids out of that situation. And I'm 100% for that and I bet you are too.

 

[TexasRifleman]

You know that thing about bears and their cubs? State agencies need to start figuring that one out.

Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, but generally the kind of parents CPS calls on are not the "bear protecting the cub" type. More like the leech protecting the welfare check.....

YOU would get in a shootout with CPS to protect your kids because you are a decent parent, which means you wouldn't see CPS to begin with.

Get it?

 

[neoncowboy]

you are a decent parent, which means you wouldn't see CPS to begin with.

I don't believe that for a second!

Am I all of a sudden not a decent parent if I supplement my income by growing marijuana?
Am I all of a sudden not a decent parent if I homeschool my kids?
Am I all of a sudden not a decent parent if I refuse state mandated innoculations?

It's sort of playing with a stacked deck when it's the opposing side (the state) that decides at it's whim just where the line is drawn and at what point they 'need' to come and relieve me of my right to parent my children.

Personally, I don't trust them to draw that line.

My mother used to work at DFCS, if only the cases where people's kids were taken from them were the 'there's a meth lab in the basement' type cases. That's simply not the case.

I don't think the state belongs in the 'how to parent your children' business, but that's just me.

 

[71Commander]

neoncowboy

I'm with you.

These Social worker types advocate a nanny state in order to justify their positions of future employment.

I don't need them to tell how to raise my kids. In fact, they're not needed anywhere by anyone.

 

[Sgt.Slappy]

Then again, we constantly hear of tragedies involving the various state child agencies; either removing children from good homes on questionable grounds and starting a ruckus, or leaving a clearly abusive situation in place... resulting in the death of a child.

I can't even begin to tell you guys what I would do if a state agency tried to forcibly remove my child! (...and not because I don't have any children yet.)

 

[gunsmith]

child abuse really sucks and so does cps

my late dad was in law enforcement and very politically connected, while he had good traits (like being a staunch 2a supporter) he got arrested for child abuse and deserved it. (but he ended up getting away with it, he had an ex judge for a lawyer)

the only time he was ever nice was when he was drunk, which only happened on new years once in awhile. the rest of his life he was a mean sob who beat his wife and kids and dogs.

cps took my little brother because my dad kept whipping him with big leather belts and metal hangers and would punch and kick him. dad was over 6ft and had been in the Korean war and law enforcement, my little brother was 4 years old and weighed 50 or so pounds.

dad would have us kneel on uncooked rice while holding a british enfield .303
straight out in front, palms up, when we couldn't hold it up he resumed the beatings, the punches the kicking he put me and my little brother in the hospital several times and nearly killed my mom.

CPS took my brother away and put him in a foster home where he was tortured and abused by people working for the state of new york

my point is some people need to have the state intervene and take the kids away, the only problem with that is the state is sometimes as bad as the parents they try to protect you from.

Due to my dads lack of impulse control I thought all Conservatives beat their wife, kids and dogs and I voted Democrat for a long time because dad was a republican....

last time I was in NY a cop and his wife were arrested for child abuse, they like my dad , said they were a disciplinarian....B&D is a bad recipe for rearing children.

 

[Bigreno]

Am I all of a sudden not a decent parent if I supplement my income by growing marijuana?

Yes.

If you teach your children that breaking the law is ok because you don't agree with said law then you are a bad parent. If the parent is incapable of instilling integrity and the ability to make sound judgement in the children then they will turn out just as sorry as their parents. Children learn by example. You may not beat or mistreat them on a physical level, but teaching them that it's alright to do what ever they want with no regard for the consequences is poor parenting and setting them up for failure.

 

[MCgunner]

Here's the story. http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/front/story/3382977p-3913731c.html IMHO, if you kill a social worker, you committed murder, and you deserve to die. My wife knew this lady, worked a different county, but worked with her on several cases in the past. She's going to the funeral. As Ron White says, in some states they want to get rid of the death penalty, in my state they're putting in an express lane. Whoever commited this deserves the express lane.

My wife told me once, most of the kids they had to take custody of, the parents weren't so worried about the kid as they were the loss of welfare money for the kid. Would probably have to prostitute more for their crack habit, I reckon. The people she dealt with were worse than pond scum. I hope they sentence this "person" to death for what they did. This lady was just doing her job. I see it no different than someone killing an officer.

When she did have to make a removal, my wife always had an armed law officer with her, usually deputy sheriff. She made investigations alone, though, in some of the worst neighborhoods. I always worried about her.

Once, there was a threat to her office when she worked here. A guy was threatening to come to the office and kill 'em all. I was off, she called me, and I sat down there all afternoon with a loaded shotgun and a sidearm and waited. If this joker would have showed up armed, I would have made sure he lost his kids..or at least that they lost him. Turned out to be an idle threat, but she was always getting threats like this.

She put in 13 years with CPS, vested, will get her insurance and retirement in 10 years when she turns 65. She liked the work, but hated the scum she dealt with. She transfered from our home county to Matagorda county, about 50 miles away, because in this small town, she kept bumping into "clients" around town, sometimes when we were out at a restaurant. I was always armed, even before they passed the CCW law. I was in the first CCW class in Victoria to get legal after it passed.

 

[JohnBT]

"Am I all of a sudden not a decent parent if I homeschool my kids?"

I thought homeschooling was legal everywhere.

John

 

[neoncowboy]

If you teach your children that breaking the law is ok because you don't agree with said law then you are a bad parent.

I disagree.

I don't think things are nearly so cut and dried anymore.

Here you are with your proud, Molon Labe signature, telling me that to be a good parent I must obey all of the endless 'malum prohibitum' laws that are now or ever will be passed...for the sake of my children.

That smells more than just a little hypocritical. What do you think 'molon labe' is...a call to obedience of the state?

Blind obedience to whatever assinine new 'zero tolerance', prohibitive, liberty sapping, individual killing, rights reducing, homogenizing 'law' is not one of the family values I have any intention of teaching to my kids.

Pot farmers aren't necessarily bad parents, regardless of what you might hear from the statist media. I would never endorse DFCS sending in the parenting police to confiscate someone's kids simply because they grew weed. That's ridiculous.

Let's frame it another way:
Back in 1774, were those 150 men who raided Boston harbor and threw the recently arrived cargoes of tea overboard into the sea fit as parents? Or were they guilty of corrupting their children by demonstrating that "it's alright to do what ever they want with no regard for the consequences"? Should the state child welfare agencies have stepped in and forcibly removed the kids from those homes? What do you think would have happened had they tried?

my point is some people need to have the state intervene and take the kids away, the only problem with that is the state is sometimes as bad as the parents they try to protect you from.

That's a tragic story, I'm really sorry for the destruction that I'm sure was sown into your life as a result of this.

I disagree with the conclusion though.

Surely, there are homes where an intervention is appropriate and necessary for the safety and security of the children. I believe that is the role that family, friends and neighbors and church (NOT the state) is supposed to play in our lives.

We need a generation of men who will stand up to men like your father in defense of the defenseless...while telling the state to back off and mind it's own business.

 

[CentralTexas]

We could eliminate the CPS folks if we could just progress forward a bit quicker. Your children will be better off in the camps anyway, trust me.

CT

 

[beerslurpy]

Honestly I can understand why CPS workers get death threats. If anyone tried to take me or my siblings away from my parents, my pacifist dad would probably explode like a bomb.

Messing with families- even with good intentions, even with government approval- is asking to get shot.

In the old days, we would let parents raise their kids as they saw fit and let the criminal justice system sort them out if they did a really bad job. The main problem with today's sytem is that the good parents are the ones getting harrassed for spanking their kids while Betty Sue Crackhead raises the next generation of rapists and murderers.

 

[HadEmAll]

In response to the original post:

"A CPS case worker was killed by a "client" in Victoria the other day."

I haven't seen any news that they know who killed her or how she died. Have you?

 

[tellner]

I'm not a CPS/DFS/whatever employee, but I've worked with enough and trained a few in self defense. All this talk about "Get rid of them. Nobody takes my kids away fer nuthin' !" talk is frankly ignorant. There are plenty of people who just plain can not care for children. The man who began raping his daughter when he brought her home from the hospital. The ones who prostitute their kids to pay for drugs. The ones whose idea of "discipline" involves stove burners and electrical cords. The ones who are so drunk or drugged that they don't even notice the kids are there. The ones who starve their children. The ones who think that line-breeding is for them.

And on.

And on.

And on.

The same people who damn the case workers for interfering with The Family are the same ones who scream when they leave a pathological family alone and some kid ends up dead or maimed.

If government has any legitimate purpose it is to defend those who can not defend themselves. Sometimes that means defending children from their parents. Maybe not your children. Maybe not mine. But you would be appalled to know just how many and how horrible it can be.

Unfortunately it isn't easy. It requires judgement, skill, dedication and a lot of damned hard work. The answers aren't always simple, and the stakes are very high; lives ruined, sometimes ended. There are never enough resources, not enough staff, not enough money, not enough decent foster homes, not enough treatment or help for the families that could be salvaged. The politicians are always ready to tear you up if it will get them points for re-election. Err on the side of caution and people will excoriate you for being an interfering government bureaucrat who hates liberty and wants to destroy families. Err on the side of recklessness and sooner or later some kid will die because of your inaction. Scylla or Charybdis.

If you can come up with better guidelines than the ones we have, for G-d's sake jump on in. But make sure it's informed by facts and experience, not just the sort of gum-flapping anecdotal nonsense that lets you think it is simple and easy.

Home schooling? It can be good. Some of the best teachers I ever had never studied education. But I've seen a fair number of kids who didn't get any real schooling. They were functionally illiterate and forever handicapped in the real world because their parents' pride exceeded their ability or interest in teaching their children. I've also seen a smart, dedicated woman who would do anything for her children quit homeschooling because it was about to ruin her relationship with her daughters and because she just couldn't do as good a job as the public schools. Of course, she's also very honest with herself which is a rare enough trait. At the very least home schoolers should have to rise to the same standards as schools do under NCLB. If they can't the parents should have the common decency to admit that they aren't up to the task and let professionals do the job.

 

[beerslurpy]

That doesnt make sense. Florida already requires all students, homeschooled or not to pass the florida proficiency tests that measure academic progress.

And I am sick of every CPSer giving the stories about the rapist uncle or the child molester father. That is a very small minority of parents, and I dont feel that it in any way justifies the unwarranted intrusion into all the normal families.

 

[Ryder]

By the time someone needs to use deadly force to protect their family they don't care if you give them the needle later. Their life has already been ruined.

Get it?

 

[Optical Serenity]

I've went plenty of times to help DFCS "take a kid." And it sucks...

However, typically you will have the DFCS agents escorted by 2-3 officers, and you know what? I've NEVER seen a situation where the parents cared at all. I've had parents say "Go ahead, take the brat, i gotta be somewhere in an hour to pick up some more dope."

 

[tellner]

That doesnt make sense. Florida already requires all students, homeschooled or not to pass the florida proficiency tests that measure academic progress.

And I am sick of every CPSer giving the stories about the rapist uncle or the child molester father. That is a very small minority of parents, and I dont feel that it in any way justifies the unwarranted intrusion into all the normal families.

Good for you beerslurpy. You don't know the facts, have never been and done but just "know" that the ones who have done either or both must be wrong. How many child deaths by abuse or neglect are there in this country? What is an acceptable rate? How do you propose to achieve it without having people investigate? What do you do when the "intrusion" is warranted? How do you make the call?

It isn't easy no matter how much you'd like it to be.

 

[gunsmith]

child abusers are often undetected

Starved Children Released from Hospital
http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/2362786.html
Two Carson City children, allegedly locked in a bathroom for five years, have been released from the hospital.
And, tomorrow...prosecutors will try and prove their mother, stepfather, and grandfather were responsible.
Sheriff Ken Furlong says the children are doing well...considering what they've gone through.
He says they were strong enough to leave the hospital tonight, and be placed with child and family services.
The sheriff says the next step is preparing them to take the witness stand.
These graphic evidence photos...show the deplorable conditions the 16-year-old girl and her 11-year-old brother had to live in for five years.
The cabinet, underneath the sink, where the boy allegedly slept.
A bowl of food fit for a small pet...which prosecutors say they ate from.
Yet, there was a fully-stocked fridge...just on the other side of the bathroom door.
Amazingly, sheriff Ken Furlong says...it's the emotional wounds which are going to take longer to heal.
The sheriff says keep in mind, a month ago, the daughter weighed 41 pounds...and the brother, just 31 pounds.
Deputies didn't believe the girl, when she first told them her age...after she was found pushing a shopping cart full of food.
But Furlong says its important those in the courtroom understand what they went through.
That case officially begins Friday morning...when the children's mother, Regina Rios, their stepfather, Tomas Granados, and their grandmother, Esther Rios, have their preliminary hearing on child abuse and false imprisonment charges.
At this point both children are expected to testify...and even with the overwhelming evidence, the sheriff says their testimony could decide the verdict in one of Carson City's worst cases of child neglect.