To think that even in the 1970s, social services should have been involved?

[KickAssAngel]

DH comes from a family that I think was deeply toxic. He, of course, minimizes and normalizes a lot of this. From what I know, it's clear that there was considerable verbal and emotional abuse. When he was 18, in the last year of 6th form, a friend's parents sat him down and offered him a home with them, because they thought things were so bad.

there are some things that happened that make me astonished that social services weren't involved. He thinks I'm exaggerating, and that's just how things were back then. So, I'm wondering what other people think? DH would hate to discuss this with friends in RL, but am I being a drama lama? I know it makes no difference now, but I'd just like to get things straight in my own head.

DH's mum re-married when he was about 6. His Step-dad had a daughter who was 12-ish. This step sister lived with them full time as her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

1. When the parents married, step-sis became the main carer for DH. St-sis would pick him up from school, walk home, give him dinner, supervise homework & get him ready for bed. At weekends they were almost always left alone for at least 12 hours a day as the parents were building a house several miles away, so the children were left home alone except for overnight.
2. After one day out, the family returned home to find it had been broken into. Step-sis's mother had broken in, and committed suicide in the bath.
3. A couple of years after that incident, step sis had major problems with anorexia. DH's memory is hazy, but he thinks she was in hospital for several months. I think she was around age 16 by then.

I think that 1. would probably fly under the radar, unless someone made a complaint, but that either 2 or 3 would trigger some SS involvement, and that both together must have alerted someone.

I mean, the police and hospitals were involved.

MIL is an accomplished lier. I've heard some amazing things from her that I know aren't true, and other family have said the same. FIL passed away several years ago. MIL no longer speaks to, or even acknowledges the existence of, any other family. Step-sis was cut off decades ago. So I don't have any other details, just DH's hazy memory from his childhood.

So - would SS have got involved back in the 1970s, or did MIL & FIL lie/conceal things?

2 must have been very traumatic, but why do you think that would attract SS involvement- families sadly have difficult times, they cope with them, unless there are clear indications that they AREN'T coping.
Similarly, 3, the girl was getting treatment, what else would you expect to happen? Clearly the parents didn't conceal things, as you say police/nhs were involved. Are you suggesting there was other stuff going on that your DH doesn't remember?

It sounds very difficult, but no I don't think SS would be involved based on what you have said.

I can't see any reason why 2 would have resulted in social services being involved unless as newtlover says the death impacted on the parents' ability to care and/or it resulted in aberrant behaviour by the children.

So far as 3, would social services even be involved today if the anorexia is being treated medically?

I wouldn't have thought in the 70s SS would have been involved tbh. Dh and his ds were left alone most days during school holidays from age 7 and 5. They never had a babysitter ever and so even at night they would be alone once in bed at an even younger age. Dh remembers being rescued by a neighbour age three when they had a chimney fire as his parents were out and he was left with his sister aged 5.There was no SS involvement and they were a nice middle class family
PILs couldn't be held responsible for someone breaking in and committing suicide or the anorexia and step sister obviously got support (whether through PILs or some other route) if she was hospitalised

I don't think so. What could SS achieve if the house was broken into?
Any family can also have someone suffer anorexia. It is an illness. SS wouldn't intervene in something like asthma so I would imagine it would be the same for anorexia.

Sounds like he had a hard childhood though

I don't think they would be now tbh unless someone felt they needed help accessing services to support the dd.

Even if they were the most emotionally abusive and neglectful parents in history, chances are now that some people wouldn't bother reporting them because too many people don't believe mh or emotional neglect & abuse are real concerns.

And the childcare side was more common back then.

Ss can't get involved if nobody tells them about a family. I blame lots of people for my childhood, and only one of them was a sw. I don't blame ss, because except that one occassion nobody bothered to even raise a concern. And I don't even blame that one sw back then, she should have looked a bit deeper but when she had other professionals telling her bollocks it wasn't entirely her fault that she made a mistake. And that was in the early 90's.

Worse still I know someone who was regularly and violently sexually abused in the 70's. Even if nobody else noticed, which I find unlikely, some medical professionals had to have been aware. Ss weren't involved because nobody ever bothered to tell them.

I don't think any would attract social services to be honest. Once step sisters mother had died what would they do? I suffered mental health problems as a teenager, including hospitalisations, social services weren't involved, why would they be? We dealt with psychiatrists and doctors.

Agree with pp. v sad but nothing SS would need to be involved in.

Tragedies do happen.

No SS would not be involved for the reasons you stated . I'd be pretty surprised if they were that interested now . The only issue would be the 12 yo looking after a 6 yo but even that's not too bad . Many teenagers suffer from anorexia / other eating disorders why would SS be interested in that .

Sounds like a pretty shit childhood, but I don't think it logically follows that SS must have been involved.

More responsible parents would have tried to get psychotherapy for their children after something as traumatic as 2., and gotten more treatment for the anorexia sufferer in 3, but that's just neglect, and strangers wouldn't know any details on what the parents do or don't do.

Anorexia only became widely known about after Karen Carpenter's death. I doubt there was much if indeed any support for it in the 70s.

Agree with PP, can't see anything SS would be interested in there unfortunately. I suspect very little help was available for anorexia at that time too.

No, I agree with other posters, I don't think they would have been involved.

No. They wouldn't be involved then or now for that.

I doubt there was much if indeed any support for it in the 70s.

I don't think it was generally well-understood. A school friend had it when I was in the 6th form in 1972-73 and I never even heard it called that. We just knew that she got too thin and had to go to hospital. She would be absent for a few weeks and fed through a tube in hospital and then come back for a while and the whole cycle would just start again.

A family member suffered (and suffers) with it and there seems to be a lot more in place now than there was then.

No, I don't see why SS would have been involved, even in the 70s.

In the 70's children who were beaten black and blue and raped teenagers were fobbed off ignored and sent back to parents usually after telling the parents exactly what they had disclosed so they could be punished.

nothing in what you have said would have brought social service attention, even today. People die, its horrible, and that must have been particularly horrible, but social services don't get involved just because a parent dies. People get ill, but again, anorexia isn't something that social services would get involved with. 12 year olds babysit 6 year olds every day of the week

I doubt SS would get involved with any of that today, to be honest, let alone in the 70's.

No SS involvement although the parenting may have been labelled as "inadequate" and flagged with or by school. Different time and different place. For instance in 70's lots of homes, especially period properties that are so desirable now, had outdoor toilets and very poor or no bathroom facilities. Lots of children were latch key kids and older children were expected to mind the very young ones.

SS weren't interested in a lot of stuff. It was apparently OK that I would get home from school on my own (two buses and a 15 minute walk each end of the bus stops) at age 7 and then wait in the shed with all manner of dangerous chemicals and tools until my parents came home from work. I told my teachers who just said I was lucky not to have to wait in the garden.

Nope. It doesn't actually sound a bad childhood for your DH based on that. Sounds like stepsister had a very, very sad time with her mother and her own issues - but presumably the effect on your DH was minimal? He was picked up from school, someone walked him home, fed him, supervised him doing hw and put him to bed. His DM/SF were working.

Nope SS would probably not have been involved even if someone reported the issues to them.

My DH was adopted in the 70s and it was a very very different process to today and there was very little SS involvement in the adoption even though his birth mother was 14 with very significant mental health problems.

1), absolutely of the era. Siblings brought younger siblings up. Still happens nowadays in some families.

2. How were his mum and step dad to blame for this? In a way that would have warranted SS involvement? Oh, and he family being out together on a day out makes a lie of them always being left home alone.

3)Stepsister traumatised by her mums suicide in their house succumbed to anorexia and got appropriate treatment, again, why would that warrant SS involvement?

I think you need to realise that the benefit system was not as it is today, if they had not worked, there was no other way to bring money in.

It's interesting that you think numbers 2 and 3 should have provoked SS involvement but not 1. I think the opposite! A 12 year old alone with a 6 year old all day every day is surely neglect? I had an anorexic sister and we never had any ss involvement and I don't see why we would.