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AIBU?

To ask whether you would judge someone who did not live with their children due to SS?

163 replies

SharkiraSharkira · 17/02/2017 17:50

Assuming you only knew this and no other information about the situation? Would you automatically judge that they had done something wrong?

Just curious as there have been a few SS related threads recently and it's aroused my curiosity.

OP posts:

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SavannahLevine · 17/02/2017 18:56

Not now, but I would have until recently :( a friends experience has given me a new perspective.

Friend has a 4 yr old non verbal dd. Last summer dd came home from a contact visit with a large bruise on her thigh. Ex had a plausible explanation, friend thought nothing of it. Teacher at school saw bruise, and reported to SS, who gave friend a choice - dd could stay with a family member while they investigated if friend agreed to no unsupervised contact or SS would get an emergency order and place dd in foster care.

Friends dd ended up living with an aunt for 6 months! SS determined within the first month that friend wasn't with her dd when the injury occurred but it still took over 6 months for friend to get her dd back.

SS said they were concerned that friend had failed to safe guard her dd by not recognising that her ex should not be having unsupervised access (turns out he had lied about the cause of the bruise). Friend had to do all sorts of parenting and safeguarding courses before SS would allow her dd to be returned to her.

Friends ex is now banned from any contact at all with dd as he refused to co operate with SS and the police, and refuses to attend parenting classes.

Before this happened to my friend, I would have judged, assuming SS knew best.

I know better now.

Bluntness100 · 17/02/2017 18:58

Yes, I would judge, not as in are they a bad person but I would think that they were unable to protect and care for their children as social services don't remove kids for the joy of it normally.

SharkiraSharkira · 17/02/2017 18:58

Excellent post Hello. I'm so sorry for your friend that must have been truly awful to go through. How did she cope with it?

Very true anon.

OP posts:

Bluntness100 · 17/02/2017 19:02

But savannah did you not just prove that social services did know best?

The child came home with a massive bruise, what did the mother do, absolutely nothing, she bought the plausible explanation, it was left to a teacher to have to report it and social services to step in and now the ex has shown what kind of parent he is and has been banned from all contact. So they knew best, not the mother , who bought the abusers explanation and left her child in harms way.

KERALA1 · 17/02/2017 19:04

Still don't get "wouldn't judge". You can judge someone favourably or negatively. You can judge that they've had a hard life or judge that they are a bad person. On its own doesn't make sense to me anyway.

Misread thread as being about having kids taken away by ss. If the parent chose not to live with their children might be lots of reasons. A work colleague left her toddler in the Far East. I sort of see why she did but was slightly shocked. More so when had my own child.

harderandharder2breathe · 17/02/2017 19:06

"Wouldn't judge but wouldn't let them look after my kids" from a couple of people... so you actually are judging

Honestly, yes I would judge but I would like to think I wouldn't treat them any differently

OneWithTheForce · 17/02/2017 19:07

In all honestly, yes I would and I speak as some who has current involvement with SS with my DC.

AnneElliott · 17/02/2017 19:14

I'm not sure. The only person I know that has her kids taken away from her has MS and they were taken away as they were constantly truanting and she couldn't leave the house and so could not actually make them go.

Really unfair in my view and foster care has fucked up those kids. The eldest will definitely end up in prison. The father of course walked away without a backward glance - has now drunk himself to death which is no loss to humanity but has also caused the kids issues.

SavannahLevine · 17/02/2017 19:14

Not sure if your responding to my comment or previous poster, so I'll respond just in case :)

Friend coped mainly because her dd was with her sister. She said if her dd couldn't be with her, at least she was with the person friend trusted most in the world.

Friend is also very religious, and her church were incredibly supportive.

I think the hardest thing for my friend was realising that if her dd didn't have SN, this never would have happened, as she'd have been able to tell her teacher what happened and the police wouldn't have been involved. Once the police were involved the matter escalated quickly.

It almost seemed like SS were looking for excuses not to return the dd, so they weren't accused of wasting police time. At one point they were even claiming the SN were caused by bad parenting (because the dd is still in nappies, not talking etc) friend had to get dd's paed to confirm her dd had a genetic condition.

Personally, I feel with the amount of hcps involved in the dds care (she has 3 different peads, an ent specialist, optician, dietician etc) that SS should have realised if there were any concerns about my friend it would have been reported before this happened.

As I said though, my friend is very religious so big on forgiveness too, don't think I could be that accepting myself.

ChunderDragon · 17/02/2017 19:15

I would be inclined to judge (iabu) but social services strive to keep children with their family, things have to be quite awful for them to be taken away.
We are not all cut out to be parents.

atheistmantis · 17/02/2017 19:16

I wouldn't be keen to have them round my children but I doubt I'd judge them as a person.

AnnieAnoniMouse · 17/02/2017 19:17

Bluntness.

Not when SS knew, in under a month, that the mother wasn't involved & had deemed the cause 'reasonable'. What if it had happened at school & she had believed the school - would you still think her 4 year old, non verbal, child should be made to live be elsewhere for six months?

A bruise on a child's leg & a reasonable explanation from the person caring for the child at the time, does not make her an 'unfit mother'.

BaconMaker · 17/02/2017 19:18

I certainly wouldn't assume anything about him/her other than they'd gone through a difficult time at some point. If I knew only that and nothing else it may give me pause about leaving my own child in their care (for example I found this out about a new babysitter I was using) until I'd found out the circumstances surrounding it. Maybe that's unfair of me though.

JayzuzMaryJoseph · 17/02/2017 19:19

I'd never judge without knowing the full facts. I know several people who have not been able to be the full-time carers for there children due to mental ill health or serious alcoholism - very serious conditions that haven't been connected to how much they love their kids and how well they could care for them IF they were well.

Doesn't mean they are bad people. Just mean that for a certain period of time, they were not able to provide adequate care for their children. Very sad all round, but judgement and blame don't help,

flapjackfairy · 17/02/2017 19:20

I have a long term foster child who has complex needs and his parents have low intelligence (sorry horrid term) and cant understand how to look after him. His mother loves him dearly.
A lot of children who are adopted or fostered are much loved by birth families who cannot care for them for all sorts of reasons.
I do not judge at all because you never know the hell they have been through losing their children.

MTB1003 · 17/02/2017 19:20

I honestly would judge, based on the fact they had failed their child by being removed from them.

SavannahLevine · 17/02/2017 19:21

Bluntness, but there was no abuse. Friend wasn't wrong.

What actually happened was that friend had always been the dds main caregiver. Her ex had never looked after dd alone, so didn't really get that she needed more supervision than his NT kids, and as a result she got injured.

The injury occurred somewhere there was CCTV so SS knew he wasn't abusive.

The problem is he refuses to accept his dds prognosis and insists on treating her the same as his other kids.

Until friend and her ex split, he'd never cared for dd alone, so friend had no way of knowing that he wouldn't be able to cope.

Kikikaakaa · 17/02/2017 19:22

I judge someone I know who kept giving them up because they were hard work. She's a terrible mother and the kids hate her. I don't blame them.

But I know the circumstances, otherwise I would not judge if I don't know anything that would be cruel

SavannahLevine · 17/02/2017 19:24

To clarify, teacher reported because of location of the bruise. SS and police got involved. Within a few days they'd seen the cctv and realised the injury was accidental.

The issue wasn't abuse, it was that SS were concerned about the parents ability to cope with a SN child.

SheepyFun · 17/02/2017 19:26

I have a friend whose children are with her, but under a child protection order, and she sees a lot of SS. Given what I know of what has happened in her life, I think she's coping well, but I've seen enough aspects of her parenting to decide that I'm not willing to leave my DD with her. Am I judging her or protecting my DD?

Bluntness100 · 17/02/2017 19:26

What if it had happened at school & she had believed the school - would you still think her 4 year old, non verbal, child should be made to live be elsewhere for six months?

frumpet · 17/02/2017 19:27

As someone who has reported two parents to SS , it would very much depend . I reported because I wanted to see the children cared for and happy and I wanted SS to support the parents to achieve this . None of the children were removed at the time , although in hindsight at least one of the children would probably have been better off if they had been and I don't say that lightly .

I have known people with addiction issues who have not had their children removed , where their living conditions would make the most ardent pearl clutcher on MN rip their pearls clean off , but who were loved and cared for , who always had clean clothes , attended school regularly , never went hungry and were cherished . Not a perfect life but a happy satisfying life non the less .

The parents I reported didn't offer any of the above .

redexpat · 17/02/2017 19:29

I usually assume illness or addiction is the cause. Im almost a qualified SW and the people I met on placement had all had their kids removed due to drug abuse. But then I only met the adults with a substance abuse, I've never been inside the children and family department.

Obviously I would never react visibly. If it was an aquaintance I would probably offer to try and answer any questions they have about the process, or help them find organisations that could help with specific problems like planning budgets, clearing debts etc. Something I see a lot on mn is that people just dont seem to understand the process, or the bigger picture. Many dont seem to undestand their rights or their responsibilities. I think that is something that needs to be addressed, I know that there is a website which I think was set up by MNers. Great initiative.

BaconMaker · 17/02/2017 19:29

Wouldn't judge but wouldn't let them look after my kids from a couple of people... so you actually are judging

I think the thing is that I wouldn't assume that they were bad carers for my child but it would make me think the probability of them having some issues about caring for a child was higher. If you took a thousand people whose children had been taken into care I imagine a majority of them are responsible people who just had a temporary difficult in their lives (possibly out of their control) but the proportion of them that couldn't look after a child effectively would be higher than that in the general population so it would give me pause for thought.

80schild · 17/02/2017 19:31

If they weren't nice then yes I would judge. Until I knew them well enough I wouldn't make any judgements.

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