Am I exaggerating?

[iamstillfuming]

Can you please tell me whether I am exaggerating and taken things too far in this situation, because I have been told by certain people that I must let it go.

My 10 year old son went out with my cousins boyfriend yesterday, he usually comes for him and takes him out for the day.

I got a phone call from the police to tell me that they had my son, and they were going to bring him home to me. I called my cousins boyfriend straight away, my instant thought was maybe something had happened to him, because why did I just receive a phone call from the police telling me that they had my child.

He didn't pick up, when the police arrived with my son they couldn't give me much detail on what had happened except they were called to a disturbance in a house and my son was found by them hiding in a wardrobe, he only spoken to them to give them my number.

My son isn't used to loud noise (he is very sensitive to noise) neither is he ever been exposed to any violence etc.

I asked my son what had happened, he told me that my cousins boyfriend had taken him to a house, people started shouting, arguing and fighting he got scared and hid in wardrobe, he thought that my cousins boyfriend would come and get him but he didn't and the police lady come and got him out.

I called my cousin once the police had left, she said that she'd try and get him on the phone then she'd call me back. I was told by her that something had gone on forgot about my child but he sent someone back to go and look for him.

All my cousin was concerned about is whether or not my son had said anything to the police i.e given them his name, then I got a phone call from him saying he is sorry about what happened and that he will come and take my son to go get a bike tomorrow, I hung up and called my cousin

I was very disrespectful to the both of then (with my words) I have had an argument with my cousin and then I called him and did the same to him.

My son is my only child, we have tried for years to conceive again but it just won't happen so we have accepted it. I can not even tell my husband about that has happened because I don't know what he will do to my cousins boyfriend.

I have had a few phone calls from family members and close friends, saying that I have taken things too far and that my cousin and I are too close for this to ruin our relationship.

I am also worried that social services might get involved, I have worked close with social services and they could put this down to neglect.

My son seems ok now, but I feel like I failed him yesterday, like I said above he is not used to things like this.

Sorry for my bad grammar or any mistakes, I didn't proof read before pressing send.

This is what I meant @carmak it was never my intention to cause any upset

I don’t want to hear anything about grooming or SA...

Your son didn't want to hear anything about grooming or SA either, nor be a possible victim of it - but your poor choices have put him directly in danger of exactly that. And now your poor choices have directly harmed him, you think that as a Mother you can just stick your fingers in your ears and say la la la can't hear you and it will all go away? Your poor son.

You may have known him years but you didn't know he was bringing your son to other people's houses. Where did he tell you he was bringing your son to on their trips out? Were you ever told it was to different houses?

OP knows exactly where he was and why. She isn't bothered that her 10 year old spends time in a drug den/brothel just as long as he gets brought home on time.

I'm sure they realised rapidly that they were not going to get anywhere with the OP given she refused to cooperate even by naming the perfect, innocent, lovely harmless saintly Uncle. This wasn't something the Police needed to battle on the doorstep. They will have just ensured the lad got own and the filed a report to Social Services for them to dig into the details later.

I concur with this. Your insistence & refusal to even contemplate the possibility of sexual abuse/harm comes across as phobic & dysfunctional sadly OP. It seems to evoke a very avoidant response in you that you are not able to tolerate/ or consider. As do your black & white, rigid, all or nothing like beliefs & attitudes to things like absolute faith that a trusted, well known person from being inside the family, who was self selected by them as a suitable spouse for your cousin, could possibly be capable of harm to your own kin, be that sexual abuse or criminal activity involving your son (ie exposing him to his line of work or criminal activity). It is precisely why SA is so insidious bcos it’s primarily conducted by those who are implicitly trusted & therefore evade detection & /or belief in their crimes.
I feel your fears of neglect by SS is that you allow this uncle to care for your son while you work & this uncle has a questionable & criminal “job” which you knowingly allow your son to be exposed to when he is under his care. Your loyalty to him is worrying.

No way, no how, would I not want to know how my 10 year old, primary age child, ended up in the hands of the Police having been found hiding in a wardrobe when I thought he was safe in the hands of a family member - who had fled the scene apparently having forgotten the kid

I completely and totally agree, I know I said it could be something like just an argument, but that's just it - we don't know and the OP's complete lack of interest in finding out more totally baffles me.
Surely the first instinct would have been to get the 10 year old the hell out of there, not just run off leaving him?! Even if you "forgot" - why was he in that much of a panic?
The just "I know what he's like, it's all fine" attitude is scary.

Oh come on...

@iamstillfuming You are doing a great job at playing an ostrich by the way you are sticking your head in the sand.

The "not being a tell-tale" (tattle-tale) is also quite informative. It leads me to think that you live a life of dodginess, so you find nothing alarming about what your DS has been through. If he is traumatized at all, I doubt he would tell you, as you seem unable to see anything but what you wish to see.

I truly hope SS gets involved, so that, perhaps, you'll wake to the reality that what your DS experienced is NOT a normal, everyday occurrence and that your cousin's BF may not be the great guy you think he is. Actually, I think you know he is not, which is why you refused to give his name to the police.

No idea what culture you are from, but nothing of what you posted makes much sense.

For goodness sake, if that's what you think to be the worst thing to these people! They betrayed your trust, the Uncle abandoned your frightened child, but sure, give them the silent treatment, that'll show them, eh?

The proper thing would have been to cooperate with the Police. I honestly don't know what lessons you think you are teaching your child here, OP -

Police can't be trusted (them being the ones that came to "rescue" your son from where he was hiding in the wardrobe for goodness knows how long ("rescue" being the work you said your son used in an earlier post)).

So-called "Uncle" can be trusted (him being the one that ran off and left your son - your much loved and cherished son - in a strange house, so terrified that your son felt he had to hide in a wardrobe).

Do you know how long your son was hiding in the wardrobe? Do you know how scared he must have been?

You're going to be talking to your Cousin and this idiot "Uncle" again, probably in a couple of months when you need your free childcare.

If boy was sitting downstairs in the house as he should have been, easiest option would have been run out the front door.....

The fact he chose a wardrobe means he was obviously upstairs in a bedroom at the time.....

I think op is having the ladt laugh on us. Her
title is, ‘ Am I exaggerating?’ And I’ve concluded she is, in that the story is made up. Op can’t be that naive or unconcerned if it were true.

I've read all your posts OP, but skimmed the last 10 pages or so because this really blew up and it was nigh on impossible to keep up. To your (likely) distaste though, I'm going to echo what everyone else on here has said.

The biggest reason people don't investigate or report child abuse of any sort is their own feelings.

It changes everything. It's disruptive, it's unsettling, it brings guilt and anger, it changes or ends relationships, it's stressful, it's frightening.

It's something no one wants to experience. People make excuses, find reasons to resolve it in their own minds, ignore it because it's going to disrupt their daily life and cause significant change, so they don't have to face it.

A lot of your posts make me and others feel like you're avoiding a possible life changing reality. You're going on holiday, you don't have time for this, lets just move on. Your kid would tell you, he's told you nothing ergo nothing happened. The one that stands out most for me is that the police didn't give you a contact number so you can't ask them what happened. I don't believe that it's so difficult to contact police, it's 3 numbers drilled into us from a young age, you're online, you have Google.

Please don't put the consequences of how you feel onto your son. If he is your only child and you are as protective as you say, any inaction is not to protect him, but to protect yourself.

Regardless of any drugs, SA, whatever happening, your kid went through something that scared him. It's your duty as his parent to ensure you rule out the things no one wants to think about. Speaking from personal experience, people can initially act surprisingly normal after an event that will affect them later in life. It can take years to emerge, especially when you've been taught to suppress and ignore what happened.

It doesn't always have to be a "big" trauma to cause an impact either, just something upsetting enough to the individual. If your child was with someone he trusted who then abandoned him in the middle of an altercation he found frightening, that might mean he develops fear of abandonment or trust issues. He's safe now, he's with you, and you're protecting him from someone you've realised you can't trust him with. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily over. I think you need to keep an eye on him and be prepared that he won't deal with it how you're hoping.

I don't think even he can save someone as deep in denial as you. Your son deserves better than someone this utterly clueless. You know exactly where your son is being taken and you know exactly what criminal behaviour goes on there. And that's why you're scared, because your son is being groomed into a life of crime.

My son is also very close with her daughters, there's never no arguing, spitefulness etc instead of hanging out with all the girls my son prefers to go with her boyfriend, it's been like that for years.

How can he be "very close" with your cousin's daughters but not want to hang out with them?

It's a very vague bonkers situation full of contradictions. Why is a man with kids of his own to look after sniffing around his partner's cousin's son and taking him out to unspecified places the child's own parents don't know about? Wherever he took the OP's son sounds dodgy and I bet he wouldn't expose his own kids to that level of risk or forget about them once it all kicked off.

However, I see OP is unwilling to take on board anything posters are saying best of luck to her son.

I think most of us have established that this isn’t a real post now. But in the off chance that it is is there anyway at all to report anything to mumsnet if you feel a child or poster could be in danger? How would it get investigated?I’m relatively new to this type of posting so apologies if that’s a ridiculous question!

But that’s the right thing to do for your child isn’t it ? The worst possible thing to me, would be letting your son anywhere near your cousin or her boyfriend ever again. They put him in danger and neither of them have offered an explanation of what happened.

Your son was in a strange house with strange men, something kicked off and the police were called, the boyfriend ran off and left your son so scared he hid in a wardrobe and the police brought him home. Your cousins’ only interest is in her boyfriend’s name not being given to the police, and the boyfriend himself has offered to buy your son a bike !! To me that sounds like the equivalent of ‘hush money’ because after this incident he’s scared your son is going to tell what’s been happening up to this point.

OP let’s face it you have no idea where this man has been taking your son, and despite your protests, you can’t possibly know whether your son is OK until you get to the bottom of what happened. Why do you care more about keeping your cousin and her boyfriend protected than you do about your son’s welfare.

You’ve minimised what’s happened from the start of this thread. You were angry with your family because they accused you of exaggerating so you came here looking for reassurance that you weren’t. When you got that reassurance and people told you that you weren’t exaggerating and that you should take it further, you then became angry at them, so l’m not sure what you’re after at this point, or even why you posted.

If the police do their job properly this won’t be the end of the matter. Their only lead is you - your son was discovered at the scene and he led them to you. You lied to the police to protect your cousin and her boyfriend. If what happened at the house is linked to criminal behaviour the police will be back, and there will likely also be a safeguarding referral to social services for your son. So l think you may yet have some explaining to do.

This. Well said.

Agree - it’s batshit and OP knows it. It also sounds like hush money to me. Something dodgy has been going on for some time which OP had no idea about until this incident. Her son has at least been privy to it, if not used in some way and now boyfriend is scared the whole thing will come to light. The bike is not a peace offering but a ‘keep your mouth shut’ bribe.

Oh be quiet, look at you making up scenarios in that head of yours.

I beg your pardon? I would never need free childcare!

And I will not be speaking to them again, you don’t know me but yet you think you know everything.

That's the thing OP, poster's don't know you. How can they? they're just filling in the gaps that you're leaving wide open.

Your short, cryptic comments aren't helping.

I give up trying to get through to OP. The more I see her ignoring everyone’s questions about the very basics of what happened in that house, the more I think she knows full well what’s been going on.

It’s very clear that the whole family is dodgy. The lack of interest in what the fight was about, or in why the police were searching the house, the fact that she never knows where cousin takes the son or who with, the don’t snitch code that’s more important to her than investigating what happened to her child… It’s like the bloody mafia.

Poor kid doesn’t stand a chance. And all OP wants to do is insult everyone here who is concerned.