Posted on 02/12/2018 11:31:54 AM PST by nickcarraway
"The parents of special needs children are especially vulnerable to state intervention."
This mom's story in The Washington Post will kick anyone in the gut. Texas writer May Cobb was out for a day with her mom, her husband, and their autistic 5-year-old who, miraculously, was doing great. By great, Cobb explained, she meant he had not had a single meltdown during the hour they were at a park and on the boardwalk near Lady Bird Lake in Austin. He hadn't stripped off all his clothes, and he wasn't banging his head over and over again.
Sure, his hair was messy—his sensory issues render him distraught when he gets his hair brushed. And his pants were too short—but at least he'd actually chosen a pair to wear, rather than tearing them off. So all was as right as right can be when you have a kid with autism.
But then, as the family was heading to the car, a pair of cops approached Cobb:
"Can we talk to you a second," he asked, "about your son?"
My husband called out over his shoulder, "He's autistic," and kept walking my son to the car.
The officer's face burned with embarrassment. I assumed he was getting ready to inform me that rock-throwing wasn't allowed, but he said, "We got a call about your son. The people who called were worried that because of his hair, and because of his pants, that you weren't taking good care of him."
Because strangers care so much more about kids than their own parents do.
Now my faced burned with anger and my stomach was sick with shock.
"He's autistic," I told them, "and because of his severe sensory issues, we have difficulty brushing and cutting his hair."
Both officers nodded their heads in understanding.
"You're talking about my grandson," my mother hissed.
"Yes, there's clearly nothing going on here," the red-faced officer said.
"I'm so glad you were called to investigate this instead of more serious crimes," I said, tears threatening to strangle my voice.
"It's clearly just a case of bed-head," the same officer said by way of apology. "Sorry to have bothered you."
We bid them goodbye and joined my husband and son and walked back to our car.
They were worried you weren't taking good care of him.
This happened in November but Cobb just wrote about it last week because it has taken that long for her to process the event with a modicum of serenity.
As she ticks off all the other times her family probably looked strange to outsiders, she is grateful for the many people who did not call the cops. But the fact remains that "the police were called on us because my son was having a bad hair day. What does this say about our society?"
It says that we are increasingly convinced that it is up to every onlooker to assume abuse rather than to give parents the benefit of the doubt when anything, even a child's hair, seems amiss—that this is good citizenship.
This presumes that the authorities are going to make things better, and that an outsider can really tell what's going on.
"I have to praise the common sense of the police here," Diane Redleaf, a longtime family civil rights lawyer and director of the Redleaf Family Advocacy Institute at the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare, told me. "The family had the good fortune not to have child protective services called against them. Others have not been as lucky."
She recalled one case presented to the federal court: Dupuy v. McDonald, a class action challenge to policies that banished parents from their homes when they were victims of child abuse calls. In that case, Chicago high school science teacher James Redlin had been the target of an anonymous tip to state child protection authorities after a commuter thought he'd fondled his mildly autistic 6-year-old son on the subway.
Redlin explained that he'd been tickling his boy, as therapists had encouraged. Without verifying any of the context, authorities threatened to take his son into foster care unless Redlin's wife, who uses a wheelchair, provided 24-hour supervision of any contact between her husband and their son. The case dragged on all summer, with the authorities finally determining the charges to be "unfounded."
"The parents of special needs children are especially vulnerable to state intervention," said Redleaf. "And as for anonymous calls to the authorities, this practice needs to end. It is far too easy to disrupt or even destroy a family with one quick call from a cell phone."
My friend Linda Gasten, mom of a young man with autism, has this advice for onlookers: if you see kids "making unusual noises," consider that they may have a disability, and that it's likely the parents are doing the best they can. It's abundantly less likely that they are monstrous abusers who are taking their victims out for a day of fun, in public, at the park.
Cops have to pursue every call, unfortunately. Happily, the cops in the story had some common sense. I can’t imagine calling cops over a kid’s messy hair and odd pants. But some people are just busy-bodies.
I agree. The cops were just doing their job. And did it well. And the other parents acted out of good faith with limited information.
I always err on the side of letting the parents get away with abuse. I take very seriously the motto, “not my kids”.
It has to be quite blatant before I’ll get involved. And I don’t mean seeing parents beating their kid in public. I mean seeing them SEVERELY beating their kid in public while smelling of Jack Daniels.
Not my kids. God gave them to someone else. I’ll intervene only when asked, unless the situation is unquestionably grievous.
My take as well. I hope the cops had a word with the busy-bodies after speaking with the parents.
Have we lost the right to simply be left alone?
Agree
I live in Georgia so Hell yes I would damn sure seriously consider it, if you lived here you would too.
Especially since the policeman was so apologetic. He was required to follow up on the call.
Effing jerks. My son with autism had a tantrum in McDonald’s one day and kicked his dad to the point of injury (dad had a severely bruised hand for weeks). Some idiot asked an employee to call the cops because of child abuse. The employee had the guts to come see what was going on and rightly chose not to get the police involved.
It is very difficult to take kids with autism into public. Please think twice when you see kids with issues. My son was so smart he would even yell “this is not my mom!” when he was tantruming in a store, and I was dragging his butt out, knowing that was what he SHOULD yell if he were being kidnapped.
And one night the neighbors in the apartment below came up in their pajamas and demanded to see the baby that I wasn’t torturing him. I was only trying to put his pajamas on him, which he did not want.
Life with a kid with autism is 300% harder than life with a kid without autism. I agree that the public needs to consider this possibility when they see a conflict with a child, or a child with weird clothes or hair.
I live in New York where people walk around in bicycle shorts with temperatures as low as the teens. I’ve been to Georgia, and yes it gets very hot, but I would never call the cops over somebody’s clothing choice. We need to stop being such busy bodies!
Messy hair does NOT indicate “mistreatment”!!!
Sorry, I think YOU are way too budinski!
Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.”
Exactly!
I agree. The people who called probably were not thinking of Autism. They likely did not call just because the hair was messy and the pants too short. They may have observed that the parents were not interacting with their son as much as expected when families are together at a park. People just don’t think neglect because of hair and pants. They had no way of knowing about Autism. I think the police handled this very well. I think the parents should be happy that there was someone observant enough to be worried that something might be wrong and cared enough to call.
We homeschooled our kids with powerful academic success. Hardly a day went by that my wife wasn’t questioned by strangers because the kids were out and about during school hours. As far as I am concerned people can mind their own damn business. Fortunately my wife handled those circumstances and not me. As you may well imagine. The world is full of useless busybodies. It most certainly does NOT require a whole village of idiots to raise a child.
It was my first child and I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. It was horrible. By his age 10 I learned to leave him home for everything. He couldn’t handle family parties or a trip to the store. He is still so smart, he can compensate much better now, and he is a great person.
I saw an Asian mom in a very Asian neighborhood with a boy having an obvious autistic meltdown in front of a mall she wished to enter. Poor thing, she was terribly embarrassed and was still trying to get him to go in. I was driving or I would have tried to help, but it could have been she didn’t speak English and I would have only mortified her more. (Help would have meant give it up, go home, or distract him with a bit of favorite food, etc)
I hate to ask people personal questions, but when you put it that way... You lived up to your end of the bargain did she...
Apparently these idiots that called the cops never tried to comb a kid’s hair.
Requires a bribe, a sleeper hold, and some amount of super power.
Austin- Texas’ Sh!thole City.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.