© Copyright 2000-2001 by Dave Mielke The official copy of this document is at: http://mielke.cc/cas/diary.txt This document describes, from my personal perspective, the events surrounding the apprehension of our nine youngest children (of thirteen) by the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa Carleton in Ontario, Canada, on July 13, 2000. It includes details on the manner in which the CAS removes children from their home, the effects that this process has on the children and their parents, and my own thoughts regarding these things. Its intent is to be informative, and hopefully to be part of whatever it might take to improve the public awareness of, and the way in which, the CAS intervenes in domestic problems, but in no way whatsoever to minimize our responsibility with respect to those issues wherein we actually have erred. The material contained herein is a collection of the relevant parts of e-mails which have been exchanged between myself and concerned friends. A number of modifications have been made to the original text in order to accommodate the needs of those who might wish to quote from it. Spelling corrections have been made. Our children are only referred to by age and/or gender, and never by name, as it is neither legal to name them nor right to needlessly attract publicity to the innocent victims of a situation such as this. No details whose disclosure would betray a personal trust or confidence have been included. Work-specific details within quoted text from office-originated e-mails have been removed. The identities of those who have asked questions have not been disclosed. >If a group of lines are all prefixed with the character ">" (just like the >group of lines which constitute this paragraph are), then they are quoting a >question which someone else has asked me. My response to any such question >always immediately follows it. Any or all of the material within this document may be freely redistributed as long as all of the conditions listed below are satisfied: + No modifications may be made to quoted text. + Individual details may be paraphrased, without loss of either accuracy or intent, as needed for the production of other materials. + I would like to be informed regarding the production of any materials which include information gleaned from this document. + No attempt need be made to inform me when any of this material is passed along from one person to another, although a general awareness of this copyright notice should be maintained (mentioning the location of the official copy of this document would be sufficient). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 15:26:04 -0400 (EDT) About a month ago our 10-year-old daughter got a black eye because our 7-year-old son, in a moment of anger, threw a shoe at her. That was enough to cause the school to report us to the children's aid people. They just came by, without warning, to check it out, declared our house unfit for the children to live in, and took all of them who were 15 and under away. My wife is not doing well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 16:45:28 -0400 (EDT) About a month ago, one of our children (10 years old) had a black eye due to her younger brother (7 years old), in a moment of anger, throwing a shoe at her. That was enough to get the school (Severn Avenue Public) interested. They asked her what happened, she told them the truth, and then they, without even informing us, reported us to the children's aid. The children's aid came here today around noon without warning. My wife was home but I was at work. She, therefore, having been severely abused by the B.C. equivalent of Ontario's Children's Aid when she was a child, respectfully asked them to wait outside until I could get home from work. They threatened to call the police if she didn't let them into our home immediately. I got here just a couple of minutes before the police (two of them) did. I asked the children's aid people (again, two of them) why the police were here, and they told me that the police were called because they felt that their physical safety was at risk. They, in other words, gave my wife one reason, and gave me another. At least one of these explanations (and possibly both of them), therefore, was a lie (the first of a series). Lie number two was when our six-year-old asked them why they were here. One of the workers answered him by saying, "because we heard such wonderful things about you that we just had to come and meet you". Lie number three was in how they coerced our older children to go with them. They asked them to accompany the little children in order to help keep them calmed down. They did this in a manner designed to make them believe that they'd be returning after the trip. My first problem, therefore, given the fore-going, is that I have been forced to entrust my children to people who have openly lied right in front of me, i.e. people who are unabashedly morally unsound. After their supervisor arrived to reinforce them, I confronted her with this issue. At first she tried to avoid the issue, but, when pressed, justified their deceitful conduct. The reason that they took our children (the nine of them who are fifteen and under) away is that they felt that our house was unfit to live in. I don't know what their threshold for such things is, but I do agree with them that a lot of work indeed does need to be done around here. I still don't understand, however, why our children had to be removed, and why I now have to face a seemingly endless series of court hearings in order to have them returned. The option of leaving them here while we dealt with the various problems did not seem to be an option. The fact that all of our children pleaded with them to let them stay bore no weight. The fact that our children are obviously, to anyone who meets them, a very happy and well-raised set of people was not even considered. The fact that I gave them an open invitation to check with our doctor, as well as with all of the various hospitals, in order to verify that, given the number of children whom we have raised (or are still raising) (thirteen), we have had, proportionally speaking, very few health or physical problems was ignored. The fact that they're unlikely going to find foster parents who'll be able to look after all nine of the children whom they've apprehended means that I have yet another problem, i.e. they're going to be arbitrarily split up. I'm not claiming to be innocent in all of this, i.e. we surely could have done a much better job of taking care of the physical state of our home. I think, however, that the less than admirable way in which they conduct themselves, i.e. the cold-hearted adherence to procedure methodology which both they and the police used, as well as the blatant lies which they're obviously willing to tell in order to get their way, needs to be made known to the public. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 07:01:22 -0400 (EDT) Our 12-year-old daughter got up at 6am and gave us a call. I know now that our children have been divided up as follows: 14- and 12-year-old daughters 10- and 8-year-old daughters 7- and 6-year-old sons 5- and 4-year-old daughters 2-year-old son by himself Apparently our 10-year-old daughter told the social worker in charge of this case, Heather Clark (747-7800 + 2778), "Thou shalt not steal, and you're stealing us children from our family". They were taken to the CAS offices, and given something to eat while they were being placed. They were not badgered with probing questions while they were there. Whether or not that is yet to happen is, of course, unknown. The people with whom our 14- and 12-year-old daughters are seemed to be open to the idea of bringing them to church on Sunday. They are old enough to make that sort of request clearly. Our younger children may not be. I have not yet heard from any of our other children, even though we were promised that they'd call last night. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 17:30:32 -0400 (EDT) The nine children whom they took have been divided up into five homes: 14 and 12 year old girls, 10 and 8 year old girls, 7 and 6 year old boys, 5 and 4 year old girls, 2 year old boy by himself. Yesterday, we were promised that our children would be giving us a phone call during the evening. No phone calls were received. This means that all five foster parents didn't call us. Did they all refuse to call, or did the CAS not keep its promise to request them to do so? I just pressed the social worker's supervisor for phone calls from our children again, and, while I'm writing this, a couple of calls have been received. The first one was from a lady who has our 2 year old son. She was very rude. Even though the CAS supervisor said that we'd be able to talk to our children, the foster parent said, in very terse tones, that, since she didn't know us, she would not put him on the phone. She just wanted us to trust her promises that he was being adequately cared for. While talking to the CAS supervisor this afternoon, I found out something which they didn't tell us about yesterday while they were here, i.e. that they're going to attempt to portray me as a person with a trend of child abuse (close enough to her own words). My deduction, based on what she said, regarding how they have come to this conclusion is as follows. They simply count the total number of known injuries per family, and do not take into account that each child should be expected to have a certain number of injuries originating from normal play. Since we have thirteen children, the family total is way above what they would consider normal (for one child). Having said the fore-going, I must also say that there was one incident, way back during the spring of 1991, for which I, personally, was indeed guilty. The combination of an extremely stressing (for me) incident one evening, plus extreme stubbornness on the part of our then 3 year old, stimulated me to throw her onto her bed. My aim was rotten, and her cheek hit the bedpost and was punctured. Immediately thereafter, I, personally, took her to the nearest hospital and openly acknowledged my guilt. They plan to use this incident, which I made absolutely no attempt to hide, and one for which I openly repented, as their lead-in, and then point to all of the other "normal" injuries to "prove" the trend. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 23:47:03 -0400 (EDT) >HOWEVER... CAS's are extremely pressed to find enough foster homes. They >would not take a large family of kids into care without weighing the >decision seriously. It would *never* happen that CAS would arrive at the >door for the first visit and apprehend the kids unless they found their >well-being significantly jeopardized. As you'll see from what I've added to the details today, there was an element that I did not know about yesterday ... their suspicion that I have a trend of child abuse. I won't redocument it here, since I'm sure that you've already read it there. This was not our first visit from them. Other examples of visits include: We had a young child (perhaps five) who was very accident prone one year. Once she wanted the baseball bat which her brother was swinging, snuck up behind him to grab it, and got clobbered on her head. Once she found a very sharp-ended stick outside, started to chew on it (sharp end inside), and punctured the roof of her mouth. I don't remember them all off-hand, although I'm sure they'll all come out in Tuesday's hearing, but there was really nothing which could have been done to prevent them. The problem, however, was that the hospital had an injury counter which clocked over too many times in too short a time. They, therefore, called the CAS, who reluctantly had to close the case because they were unable to prove that the truth was false. We once had a serious problem with cockroaches. I called an exterminator to deal with it. They, of course, do their thing while you're out of the house. When we got home it was evident that he hadn't done anything at all, yet he had collected his fee from me (in advance). I reported him to his boss, and then he reported us to the CAS for having a house full of cockroaches. Once I had a service person in the house on valentines day. Two of our school-aged children were at home, that day, during regular school hours. I can't remember, off-hand, why one of them was at home, but the other didn't want to attend his school's valentines day dance. The service person turned us in for having children at home who should have been in school. There have been more just like these, but these are probably enough to make the point. The only legitimate previous visit was the one in 1991 which you already know about. The only other one which raised perhaps legitimate suspicions was when another one of our children had a black eye. The problem with that one is that, to this day, she herself insists that she doesn't remember how she got it (even when I myself ask her privately). A doctor, in the presence of the CAS worker, looked at it and felt that it might have been due to her having been inadvertently kneed while rough-housing with her siblings. The CAS worker pressed the doctor to get him to admit that there was even a remote possibility of abuse, but he insisted that he did not feel that that was a possibility. >Children would not be apprehended >because the house is messy. Messy does not mean scattery. There was food lying around in various places. I am not questioning their insistence that the problem be resolved, but I am questioning their decision to remove very healthy children from a home which they merely felt (perhaps very strongly) was unhealthy, and I am also questioning the manner in which they conducted themselves. >Were they sleeping 5 to a room, both genders together? The 5 oldest girls in one room. The three oldest boys in another room. The 5 youngest children (both genders, 7 and under) in the third. >Was there a history of kids coming to school with unexplained >bruises? No. Just the other, never explained, black eye. >Had the parents previously refused recommended treatment for >managing their children's health, behaviour, safety or well-being? No such recommendations have ever previously been given. I have, however, dealt forcefully with them in the past with respect to the manner in which they try to manipulate young children into saying what they want them to say. I have also never let them interview our children further away from myself than I could over-hear what was being said by both. >Children can only be apprehended when they are deemed to be "in need of >protection", and the caseworker has to defend this decision in court within >(?) 48 hours. It's not done frivolously. That would have been the unspoken suspicion of a trend of child abuse. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 22:16:20 -0400 (EDT) We just had a visit with the CAS social worker in charge of our case, as well as with her supervisor. I asked why they weighted the evidence in their favour by reporting half truths, e.g. by declaring that our children were hungry and in need of diaper changes while not explaining that they had arrived just before lunch, spent three hours here, and wouldn't let us back into the house. Their answer was "that's why you have a lawyer to refute our claims". I asked about the lies which they told to our children (even right in front of me). They tried to get out of the issue by replying regarding the reason that they felt the need for police presence. When I pushed harder, their next evasive tactic was to say that we'd have to agree to disagree regarding the correctness, or lack thereof, of their methods. When I pushed even harder, their final explanation was that it was okay because our children didn't interpret it as a lie at the time. I asked about the fact that the foster mother who has our 2-year-old son refused to put him on the phone because, as she rudely and tersely put it, "I don't know you from anyone". Their answer was that the foster parent felt that our talking with our young child would cause problems. I asked if it was really the foster parent who had the final say in the matter, and was told "yes". I asked if we could expect to finally speak with him because the judge, yesterday, gave a court order granting open phone access for all children, and was told that the foster parent still had the final say. They tried to force an elder of our congregation (who accompanied us) to tell them that members of our congregation were aware of problems but didn't report them. Since it is illegal nowadays for anyone to fail to report even a suspicion that anything at all might be amiss, it looked like they were trying to pin such guilt upon other members of our congregation. This whole incident started because our 10-year-old daughter had had a black eye a month ago. Her teacher asked her how she got it, and she told them that her 7-year-old brother had thrown a shoe at her the night before (which he openly admitted to when we asked him about it). The school principal then asked him, i.e. our 7-year-old son, he denied it, and they immediately suspected us. They, in other words, refused to accept our daughter's firsthand testimony regarding what had happened to her. Contrast this with the fact that, after apprehension, they somehow coerced that same daughter into telling them that I swat our 4-year-old daughter every time she wets her pants. In both cases they ignored firsthand testimony while accepting secondhand testimony. Perhaps the more likely explanation is that they only accept whichever testimony seems to make the parents look more guilty. They claimed that it would take several months of carefully arranged and supervised (by them) visits between ourselves and our children in order to rebuild our family. They told us that, being as young children are involved, they would, in all likelihood, be monitoring us for several years. Monitoring means unannounced, randomly scheduled visits to, and inspections of, our home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 23:44:50 -0400 (EDT) >could you tell us whether >you have been told exactly where your children are staying We have been told that we're not allowed to know where they're staying, what their phone numbers are, or who the foster parents are. >and what kind of >families these are (husband and wife)? The three foster parents we've talked to (we still haven't talked with two of them) are male/female couples. It's not possible for me to determine whether they're married or not, but I suspect that they are because one is Roman Catholic, one is Salvation Army, and one is Anglican. I'm glad of these religious affiliations because all of them have been open to, and appear to have honoured, my requests for Bible reading and church attendance. One of them even asked permission from us to say grace before meals. >Their age? Don't know. >Any of their own children? Yes, although one is older and their children are all grown up. That couple is very knowledgeable regarding children with developmental problems, which made them an ideal choice for our child who has cerebral palsy. >The cleanliness of their house?)? Don't know. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 01:35:08 -0400 (EDT) The court hearing went very well. The court papers, which we were given late the previous evening (around 8pm), indicated that they were really going to go after their abuse allegations. In the courtroom, however, the only remark bearing on this topic was when our lawyer said "Your Honour, the situation is really not as bad as this might make it appear to be". I can only assume that this was an outcome of the fact that he had held a private discussion with the CAS lawyer for about a half an hour before the hearing in which he must have convinced them of something to the effect of "this whole courthouse can be filled with people who'll refute this stuff so you'd look fairly foolish if you give it a try". The CAS attitude now seems to be that, rather than fighting this issue in the courtroom, they'd rather see it proven in real life. They, therefore, now want a lot of supervised visits during which they can observe how we interact with our children. They have told us that they'll probably be involved for several years to come. The judge ordered open phone access, which means that any of our children has the right to call us at any time and without foster parent monitoring. While this has been ordered, our lawyer warned us that we shouldn't assume that it will be honoured. N.B.: We still haven't heard anything from our 10- and 8-year-old daughters, and the lady who has our 2-year-old son has still not called since her one call on Friday during which she said that she wouldn't put him on the phone because, as she put it, "I don't know you from anyone". We have found out that they've somehow coerced our 10-year-old daughter into saying something which they've interpreted as "I swat our 4-year-old daughter every time she wets her pants". They've also claimed that our 4-year-old daughter had suspicious looking bruises on her buttocks when she was taken into custody. We were, and still are, unaware of any such bruises or of any incident which might have caused them, and, therefore, have no explanation to give them. This, in turn, is making them suspect that we're hiding something. I can only hope that my openness to discuss any and every issue will eventually convince them that we really don't know. The judge ordered that the four older children (14, 12, 10, 8) be assigned a children's lawyer. It was decided that it would be of little benefit for the younger children to have one. Our lawyer explained to us that a children's lawyer is in no way a mouthpiece for the CAS. The government has a department of the child's lawyer, and it conscripts a number of privately practicing lawyers to serve on its roster for a period of time (I think it was two years). Then, whenever a child's lawyer is needed, they rotationally call upon the members of the current roster. Each such lawyer is given a special set of courses before his tour of duty so that he knows how to interact with children. These lawyers, therefore, are totally independent from the CAS, would advise the children of whatever their real rights are, and would unbiasedly speak on their behalf. Our lawyer told us that, for example, he himself was called upon to be a child's lawyer a number of years ago. We have been granted a whole day visit at our church each Sunday starting before morning worship and ending after evening worship. Whether or not a CAS CYC (child and youth counsellor) will be present is still unknown. If yes, then he/she will have to listen to a couple of Pastor Ganz's messages each time (which might do him/her some good). If no, then members of our congregation will be trusted to do the supervision. Whether or not the first such visit will be this Lord's Day depends on whether or not the necessary arrangements for things like transportation can be made in time. We have been granted three visits per week at the CAS offices. Each visit will be with a few of our children: one with our 14- and 12-year-old daughters, one with our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and 7- and 6-year-old sons, and one with our 5- and 4-year-old daughters and 2-year-old son. These visits occur in a room which is about 20x10 feet, and are supervised by a CAS CYC. The next court hearing is on August 17 at 11am. The purpose of this hearing, at least at present, is to authorize the move of our children from their current foster homes into the homes of willing members of our, and perhaps other, congregations. These people, and their homes, will have to be approved by the CAS. I hope that this won't initiate any problems for them. As you may know, we have committed to buying a much larger house which is better designed for a family as large a ours, as well as to some sort of maid service three times per week. Even though this will cost us most, if not all, of our savings, the CAS is giving no guarantee that our children will ever be returned. If they don't, then, after all of this strife, we'll have lost everything except each other. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 21:55:41 -0400 (EDT) We have been repeatedly warned against discussing the case with our children. We're only supposed to say things like "don't worry, you'll eventually come home", "everything is being done to get you home", etc. Our children have informed us, however, that they were given copies of all of the court papers which contain all of the CAS lies. The CAS staff have also been expending lots of effort to tell the children about why it made so much sense for them to be taken away from us, and about how helpful the CAS is to children. The CAS, in other words, can tell our children anything they want, and we can't tell them anything substantive at all. They've also all been taken to stores and been given the open invitation to "buy anything you want". It would appear that they're attempting to placate our children's emotional loss with material gain. I noticed a significant lack of discipline among our younger children during our morning worship service, e.g. talking amongst each other, walking around, etc. I mentioned this to one of our elders afterwards, and he confirmed that he had made the same observation. Our 4-year-old daughter was also crying a lot for no apparent reason at first. This all settled down about two hours after they had arrived. Who says that 2-year-olds don't know what's going on? When they came to take him away after evening worship, he tried to hold onto me tight enough to stay. They forced him to let go, and, as he was carried to the car, he began to cry louder and louder, "home, home, home". As he was being seat belted, he began to scream as loud as he could, "home, home, home". They just closed the door and drove off. There is a bit of good news. The two CAS spies (visitation supervision people) who were there, one to follow me around and one to follow my wife around, had to sit through both worship services. They, therefore, were obligated to be under the hearing of the Gospel two times today. They made it quite clear, though, that their primary duty was spying. When our baby started to cry and my wife left the sanctuary with him, one of them immediately got up to follow her out. All day long, too, whenever we were in different places, one spy was near me and one was near her. Both spies were women ... at least they had the dignity to refrain from following me into the washroom even when I was accompanied by a child. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 00:43:29 -0400 (EDT) >sounds like this family in Ottawa is >really hurting. Yes, it does indeed hurt a great deal. When a couple has spent the last 21 years devoted to raising lots of children, expending a great deal of effort to the end that those children would all grow up to have hearts which are healthy, it hurts one great deal to have a bunch of unethical self-proclaimed experts cart them all off, split them up, and rather heartlessly treat them like a bunch of manipulatable objects instead of people. They may be justified in wanting to protect them from a house which had fallen into serious disarray, but their methods do this at the expense of inflicting emotional harm which is far more severe. >my suggestion as a >friend and brother in the Lord is as follows: I always welcome advice from my fellow siblings in God's family. Thank you for having taken the time to put your thoughts into writing. >1. Above all, the family should seek support from their pastor - I have >found this helpful with families in the past - and pray for reconciliation. Our elders (our pastor being one of them) were the first people whom I immediately informed about the problem. We even contacted one of them while the CAS was still here. They're very wise men, and I'm glad that God has given them spiritual oversight and authority over us. >2. Meet with managers/senior managers to seek resolution of outstanding >issues or concerns regarding professional conduct by social workers. I have spoken to the social workers' supervisor, and found her to be as dishonest as her employees, and to be loaded with excuses and justifications for their conduct. I'm at a loss to know how to best deal with people who seem to lie to me at every turn, and who have no apparent conscience whatsoever about doing so. If that's the way the supervisor behaves, and given that the person at the top openly brags in the local media and on the CAS web site about how many children are removed from their homes, I can't help but suspect that the entire organization is sick to the core, and that it just isn't worth the effort to try to tackle it from the inside. >3. Thoughtfully examine what changes may need to be made in the family life >in order for the children to be reunited with the parents. This is a tricky one. They are right that our house was a seriously unacceptable disaster. We are in the process of cleaning it all up with the hope of at least getting our older children back so that they can start their high school years in a stable way. We are also looking for a new house which is better designed for a family as large as ours. Our current house was great for when we bought it, i.e. when we only had 4 children, but we have indeed way outgrown it, and there are a number of things about its basic design which make it next to impossible to maintain when it is so full. We also plan to be much more strict about simple rules, e.g. food shall only ever be eaten at the kitchen table by children of all ages as well as both parents and any visitors. We also plan to engage the help of an external house cleaning service 3 times per week so that, even if we start to fall behind a bit, it'll be corrected within a very short time. This latter step will leave me freer to do my job, and will also leave my wife freer to do recreational things with our children. Where we're going to have extreme difficulty is in proving to the CAS that there really is no seriously underlying problem which led to the current situation. They're convinced that such a hidden root cause must exist, and they have told me that they don't intend to return our children until they unearth it. The fact, however, is that there isn't any such thing, so they'll ultimately be digging forever without success. I'm not sure how to convince them to the contrary. I'm not too worried about their abuse allegations, as they're solely based on anonymous reports, innuendos within their reports, and guesses by their workers. We have a congregation full of people, and a bunch of other people as well, who are more than willing to testify to the contrary. Also, as a result of the CAS-supervised visits between our children and ourselves, they'll eventually have to conclude that they're wrong. Again, though, I'm not sure how long it'll take. >4. Allow a judge to make a ruling, if necessary, with all the "facts" from >the CAS and the family. I agree that this is the ideal. I have a great deal of respect for judges, so I intend to fully cooperate with them. My problem, of course, is that the CAS is even lying in court, but charging them with perjury doesn't seem to be part of the protocol. It's sad when an agency as powerful as the CAS is not forced to be held responsible for the commission of serious crimes like perjury. >5. Trust God's providence, Yes, we are. It's a strange thing to be so sad at the loss of our children, so lonely in our empty home, so fed up with unethical and heartless bureaucrats, so frustrated with the various laboriously slow processes, and yet so at peace. I know that God is not in the business of destroying His people, and fully trust that He will bless this situation and direct it toward a wonderful conclusion as long as we act responsibly and sincerely, and, above all, never deviate from truth telling even when it is most unpleasant. I have tried to make a sharp difference between my statements against CAS conduct and my goal to take very seriously those of their stated concerns which are valid. I want them to stop being the kind of people they are, but I also want ourselves to correct that which we have not done right. When all is said and done, I interpret this current situation as divine discipline because we have failed in this one area, i.e. the cleanliness of our home, to be Godly. >adhere to the ruling As stated above, I have no intention to argue with the judge. Judges are, after all, God's servants on earth to enforce His justice. They may fail on occasion, but, then, so do I. >and don't impose parental >anger at the CAS onto the children. I don't, but even if I felt like it, there would be no need to. Our children are just as annoyed at the CAS as we are. The older ones were given copies of the lie-ridden court papers, and they have told us on their own, after having judiciously read through them without even a single parental prompt, that they are well aware that the CAS, at least the people we've been dealing with, are a pack of liars. The younger children, while they can't read those papers, are just as upset because they know that they've been ruthlessly taken out of an environment which has offered them a great deal of protection from the world, and that they have been thrust into an environment which is much more threatening to them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 22:56:42 -0400 (EDT) As you know, all nine children visited us at church last Sunday from 10:00 to 19:00. While talking to the CAS in-take social worker with respect to another issue (she wanted our 6-year-old son's walker delivered to his foster parents), she mentioned that the report she received regarding that visit was good. Her only objection was that the two visit supervisors overheard our children refer to them as "spies". On Monday we had an hour and a half visit with our three youngest children (2, 4, 5) at the CAS main offices. We were first brought to a toy room where each child could select a toy or two. We were then brought to a visiting room where the visit supervisor just sat there, quietly observing, while we did our thing. Our children played with the toys they'd selected for about 20 minutes or so, got bored with them, and came over to play with us, without the toys, for the entire rest of the visit. They wanted to be picked up and held, often two at a time. The only time the visit supervisor spoke up, other than at the end, was when all three wanted to be picked up simultaneously. She didn't wait to see if I'd have the common sense not to do it, and cautioned that, in the interests of safety, it should not be done. The visit supervisor, during this visit, portrayed herself as a grim-faced, completely unemotional person. On Wednesday we had an hour and a half visit with our next four older children (6, 7, 8, 10). The location, the visit supervisor, and the protocol were all the same. In the toy room they selected a ball and a couple of books. The visit supervisor hinted to them that, since an hour and a half is a very long time, they might want to get more books to help pass the time. They started reading the books, but, after only about ten minutes, they put the books aside, and the rest of the visit was spent having lots of fun passing the ball around very cooperatively and in various ways. Occasionally it was tossed to the visit supervisor, and this got her to smile and to become much more friendly. On one occasion our 7-year-old son, whose natural roughness didn't fit in very well with that small room and the absence of his older brothers, hurt our 6-year-old son. This incident gave the visit supervisor an opportunity to see how we handle such things. On Friday we had an hour and a half visit with the two oldest of the nine (12, 14). This time the visit took place much closer to home, i.e. just behind Lincoln Heights, where they occupy some space within the Pinecrest Queensway Health and Community Services Centre. The visit supervisor, this time, was a very kind and friendly lady. She brought us coffee and tea, and, for the most part, left us unattended (although, of course, she might have been listening outside the door, via hidden microphones, etc.). No toys, this time, although, knowing that those two children like doing word puzzles, I did bring that day's newspaper. Most of the time, however, was spent in lively conversation. I have learned a couple of things about visit supervisors during these visits. First, it's important to involve them in the visit so that they can clearly see that we are not trying to turn our children against the CAS. Second, they are not told anything whatsoever about the case so, not even knowing what they're looking for, their reports should be quite unbiased. Tomorrow, i.e. Sunday, we're supposed to have all nine children at church all day again. The foster parents of the two older children, however, have decided that they're going somewhere near Lake Ontario for a week (starting early tomorrow morning). This will prevent those children from at least two, and perhaps three, court-ordered visits (this Sunday, next Friday, and, perhaps, next Sunday). We found out about last Monday's visit only at almost the very last minute, i.e. last Sunday evening when the visit supervisors at our church, just before leaving, happened to mention it (just in case we didn't yet know). It almost ended up, therefore, with our three youngest children being brought to the CAS offices to meet us, and ourselves not even knowing about it. Five very helpful people with whom I work (at Nortel Networks) have spent a few evenings here this week helping us get our current house back into reasonable shape. Two more, who have just found out what's going on, have offered to add their efforts to this endeavour this week. The mother of one (of the first five), who will be out of town this week, has offered to add her help starting next week. We have made an offer on a new house this evening. There already is another conditional offer on it, so we won't know for sure whether we'll get it or not until perhaps Tuesday. It's a house which has about twice as much space as this one, is much better designed for a large family, is in a much nicer neighbourhood, and has an empty basement which, money permitting, leaves us free to add several more rooms. It's also in a wonderful location for us, i.e. just south of Carling and east of Woodroffe. It's quite expensive, though, so we'll end up with no savings should we get it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 06:28:36 -0400 (EDT) Either the CAS bureaucracy messed up, or there was what I would interpret as a very good sign. The strange event was that no visit supervisors showed up at our church. We figured that they'd at least make a surprise visit at some random time during the afternoon, but even that didn't happen. It would appear that the CAS dared to leave us entirely alone with our children for a whole nine hours. The five older children, i.e. those seven and up, seem to be handling this ordeal quite well. They have remained polite, are making honest and complete assessments regarding what is going on, and, from what little I'm able to observe, seem to know how to cooperate, in all things reasonable, with the CAS staff. For the four younger ones, however, it's a different matter, the toll being greater as the age decreases. Our 6-year-old son (the one with cerebral palsy) keeps telling us that he wants to go home. He also keeps hoping, even though we openly inform him to the contrary, that each visit will end with us being allowed to take him home. He quietly leaves with his foster parents, however, when they come to pick him up. Our 5-year-old daughter just can't stop talking to us. She knows that these short times are all that she has with us right now, and seems to want to make the most of them in spite of what's going on around her. She, for example, had an unending list of things to tell us, and questions to ask us, even during the communion service and the time of congregational prayer. While, once in a while, I would gently hint that these were times where quietness was more appropriate, I didn't have the heart to ignore her, or, worse yet, insist that she shut up. I know that God understands, and we also have a very understanding congregation. Our 4-year-old daughter cries a lot, and wants to be tightly held almost all of the time. She, too, knows that she'll eventually have to leave us, and these are her ways of letting us know that she's not happy about it, and that she deeply misses the closeness which we, as a family, are used to sharing. Our 2-year-old son has taken to hitting people, to running around uncontrollably, to bouts of plaintive whining, and to restlessness. Whenever we change his diaper he really kicks up a fuss, and we think our best guess, so far, regarding this is that he thinks that any activity regarding the changing of what he's wearing is related to preparation for his departure. Since he's the only one whose language skills are still very weak, he's the only one with whom we can't yet hold a proper two-way discussion. We can tell him lots of things, but he's unable to confirm his understanding of them, and he's also unable to ask us his own questions. I think that a lot of his currently wilder behaviour is an outward expression of the incredible frustration which he must be feeling within. I mentioned in an earlier message that the foster parents of the two older children (12, 14) planned to take them along on a trip to Lake Ontario, which would deny us two Sunday visits, and one mid-week visit, with them. They gave in a bit, in that they brought them for morning worship and lunch, picking them up at 12:30 for the trip. This, to me, is still unacceptable as I see no other way to interpret it than it being flagrant disobedience to a court order. By their conduct, they are declaring that their needs supercede ours. One of our children has complained to us that the father of one of his foster parents (I forget which one right now) drinks beer. This, of course, may, in fact, not be a serious problem at all, but it does highlight the fact that our young children's consciences are at great risk of being seared by the ways of the world which are being intimately presented as being acceptable. Our children have reported to us that they are, on occasion, left in the care of others when their foster parents have other things to do. While I suppose that this situation must inevitably arise, it's really, in my opinion, not right. Normally, it would be we, i.e. the real parents, who would select the babysitter. Given that we can't, and (casting the best possible light on the situation) assuming that the CAS staff are qualified to make such judgments, it ought to be them who do it. The foster parents, however, should, in my opinion, not be given the freedom to leave our children, even temporarily, in the care of non-CAS-approved personnel. My wife and I share another conscience-searing concern, i.e. that our efforts to teach our children to avoid strangers who attempt to entice them is being systematically undone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 16:33:53 -0400 (EDT) As I wrote in an earlier message, our 2-year-old son has been showing increasingly worse behaviour during this ordeal. We had a visit with him and our other two youngest children (4, 5) this morning during which his behaviour was even worse than yesterday. He claimed ownership of all of the toys, and, when his 4-year-old sister took one of them (during a moment when he wasn't playing with it), he began to uncontrollably fervently cry. My wife made the right call (in my opinion) in deciding that they had both exhibited unacceptable selfishness, and removed that particular toy from both of them while I held him and waited for his crying to stop. During a moment when his crying subsided for a moment, I asked him if he wanted the toy back. His response was "no", which confirmed my suspicions that the incident was the catalyst, but that his crying was really over his situation. Either way, my course of action would have been the same, i.e. if it was selfishness then ignoring him until he stopped was the correct thing to do, and if his crying was an expression of his frustration at his current situation, i.e. everything stable he'd ever known has been ruthlessly stolen from him, then patiently waiting for him to stop, and providing him a shoulder to cry on, was the right thing to do. During all of this, of course, the visit supervisor was making all kinds of careful notes. Since I'm not sure regarding what they think would have been the right thing to do, and since I'm not even sure whether or not they understood our children well enough to really know what was going on, I'm not sure how this morning's proceedings will reflect on us. At one point I told the visit supervisor that "this is an entirely new phenomenon which only began during the last couple of weeks after what you guys have done to them". She said, "I'm not even going to go there". I said, "I just thought you should know". She repeated, more emphatically, "I'm not going to go there". He finally did calm down, after probably more than a half an hour, and enjoyed a bit of the visit. When, however, the expensive sandals which were bought for him (which he doesn't like to wear) were put back onto his feet, he, knowing this meant that he'd be taken away again, began to kick and scream. The further down the hall we walked, the louder he screamed. When the visit supervisor started to take him, he clung to my wife for dear life. She finally applied enough force to get ahold of him, at which point his screams became more like shrieks. She told him stuff like "it's okay", and hurriedly took him behind a door where we could no longer hear either of them. My wife immediately broke into uncontrollable sobbing, saying things like "they just don't understand", and I, in a moment of weakness, spoke the phrase "children's destruction society" twice before we left their building. It's almost unbearable for us to see our baby being destroyed, right before our eyes, and knowing that there's nothing we can do to stop it. We've protected our children from everything, and now all we can do is stand by helplessly while others reek havoc. Upon arrival at home, we received a call from the in-take social worker (Heather Clark). She told me that the foster parents were reporting that we (implying my wife and I) were making big scenes when our children were being taken away from us on Sunday evening, and that this means that she feels that the supervision of our Sunday visits would have to be reinstated. I tried to impress upon her that we were doing no such thing, that the eight older children were also doing no such thing, and that the only scene being made was our 2-year-old's expression of unhappiness when he was being taken, yet again, from the only stability he's ever known. I also tried to impress upon her that there was a whole congregation of people standing around who would be able to confirm that my version, and not that of the foster parents, was correct. The in-take social worker threatened to shorten the Sunday visits for our three youngest children (even though only the youngest is an issue), and claimed that she would undertake to "manage our children's feelings" (whatever that means ... drugs?). She also resented my reference to our children "being taken away again", and wanted me to remember that our children were, after all, only visiting us. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 07:27:54 -0400 (EDT) One of the things the in-take social worker has said on more than one occasion is that she would not consider returning our children until the CAS has performed an investigation in order to uncover the deep dark secret(s) which contributed to the serious deterioration of the condition of our house. I can understand this, even though I know that they'll only find a bunch of little things rather than even one big thing. What I don't understand, however, is why that investigation hasn't even begun yet. Three weeks, therefore, have now been entirely wasted. A very helpful lady with whom I work has taken the time (not more than a half an hour) to discuss the issue with us, and believes that she fully understands. We met for a couple of hours with a lady in the crisis section of the Pinecrest Queensway Health and Community Services offices (in order to see what community help might be available and in order to tap into her wisdom regarding such matters), and she believes that she understands. A long-time friend of ours happened to drop by during our first meeting with our lawyer (which lasted about two and a half hours), and, together we explained to him what the nature of the problem was, and he feels that he understands. The CAS, however, doesn't appear to have made even the slightest effort. While they wait, our children suffer and deteriorate! I know that you have already tried to talk to the CAS about our situation, and all they did was invoke silence. The lady from work, whom I referred to earlier, also wants to give it a try. I wrote up the following waiver, and both my wife and I signed it. Let's see if the CAS will honour it. We, Dave and Ruby Mielke, hereby release the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa Carleton from any and all obligations to maintain confidentiality regarding any and all information, reports, assessments, opinions, etc. which it has pertaining to our family. If anyone at all asks any question at all to any member of the CAS-OC staff, it is our desire that the response to that question be open, honest, and complete. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 14:42:39 -0400 (EDT) As I've already mentioned, the foster parents of our 14- and 12-year-old daughters decided to take them on a week-long trip to Lake Ontario. This has eliminated two Sunday visits and one mid-week visit with them. To be exact, it must be noted that they did come to church last Sunday for morning worship and lunch, and were picked up at 12:30, even though the original plan was that they'd be leaving very early in the morning. We had an hour and a half visit with the four middle children (6, 7, 8, 10) this morning. Our 8- and 10-year-old daughters have been put into a day-camp, and their visit with us this morning was cut short by a half an hour because promptly returning to the day-camp was deemed to be more important than their having a full-length visit with us. Our 7- and 6-year-old sons have told us that they're being sent off to a 10-day camp starting next Tuesday. This will mean that we'll miss two mid-week visits and one Sunday visit with them. Since visits apparently don't take place on statutory holidays, and since next Monday is a holiday in Ontario, we'll be missing next week's mid-week visit with our three youngest children (2, 4, 5). The only problem we've been having at the end of our Sunday visits is that our 2-year-old son struggles not to leave. The CAS, however, has decided that this is really evidence that he's too tired because the visit is too long. They have decided, therefore, that he, along with his two older sisters (4, 5), will now be picked up from our church at 3pm. It must be noted that the two girls (4, 5) have not shown any problems at their normal 7pm departure time, so, insofar as they are concerned, the CAS has created a problem out of a non-problem. In so far as our 2-year-old son is concerned, they've misattributed the problem. It must also be noted that we, as a family, have stayed over at our church all day Sunday, every week, for the past few years, and none of our children have ever shown signs of it being too long an undertaking. On the way home from today's visit we ran into a member of our congregation. Among other things, he told us that he had noted an unusual degree of upsetness in our younger children during these past few weeks which he had never seen before. This morning's visit, by the way, went very well (other than the enforced early departure of two of our children). This time the visit supervisor observed us from behind a glass, so, although she could see everything, she was not physically present with us. Although a number of toys were selected, most were not used. Our 10-year-old daughter played scrabble with our 16-year-old son (who came with us), and the other three children sat with us, and talked while playing with some playdough. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 22:04:05 -0400 (EDT) Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters were, as previously expected, not present. Their foster parents have taken a lengthy trip to some place near Lake Ontario called, I believe, Prince Edward County. Our 2-year-old son was not present. We were informed, several minutes into our morning worship service, and only after my wife explicitly asked one of the visit supervisors about his absence, that he had contracted a very contagious disease called "hand, foot and mouth disease". I've never heard of it, so I guess I'll have to do a bit of web browsing to research it. Our children were theoretically removed from our home because our house was too unhealthy of a place for them to be living in. While here, however, other than for the normal colds and flus which passed through the community, our children tended to be extremely healthy. During these past few weeks, however, i.e. ever since the time they were taken away from us, they seem to be getting sick much more often: our 4-year-old daughter has has ring-worm and scabies, our 6-year-old son has had an unexplained fever, and, now, our 2-year-old son has "hand, foot and mouth disease". It seems to me, therefore, even from a health perspective, that they were much better off here. Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters left in the middle of the afternoon, i.e. at 3pm, instead of being allowed to stay until after evening worship. We expected this change, although there is no good reason for it. The CAS has arbitrarily decided that the whole day visit was too long for them, and that they were finding it too tiring, even though staying all Sunday at church has been a normal family practice for all of us for the past few years. Two visit supervisors arrived before morning worship, one of whom was the same as a couple of Sundays ago. One of them (the new one) left a few minutes after our younger children left in the middle of the afternoon. The other one, however, stayed until the older children left. As near as we could determine, these two visit supervisors had not met one another before today's job assignment. Our children were able to determine that one of them (the one who stayed for the whole day) was 33 years old. There was a change in the procedure which they used to remove our children at the end of the visit. We used to walk with our children to just outside the door of the church, and the foster parents would come to pick them up and take them to their cars from there. Today, however, we were to wait in the sanctuary (the nursery for the 3pm departure) while the visit supervisors escorted our children out of the building. Our 4-year-old daughter is still showing her newly founded, and very uncharacteristic desire to monopolize her parents' attention. She has taken to forced lengthy whining when she wants a toy that someone else has, falsely claiming tiredness when another child is being held, etc. This seems to be the method which she's decided to use to get as much of her parents' attention as she can during as little time as she has with us, and to show her extreme discontent at having been removed from her home. A teen-aged girl, who used to attend our church until her family moved out of the area, came by and spent the afternoon with us. Her family has also been involved with the CAS, and, right in the presence of the visit supervisors, she spent a lot of time telling our older children that she knew what they were going through, how unresponsive the CAS was to her needs, and how the CAS had "messed up my sister". I can only but wonder how all that went over, but did absolutely nothing to stop her. Our children have confirmed to us that none of them have been told that they have been granted open phone access, i.e. that, without either monitoring or permission, any of them can pick up the phone at any time and call us. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters have been exercising this privilege, but that's only because we told them they could, and then they told their foster parents. It's still unclear whether their foster parents just trusted them, or whether they explicitly confirmed this fact with the CAS. A week ago, or so, I mentioned that we'd made an offer on a house which already had a conditional offer. On Tuesday morning I was informed that the conditional offer was withdrawn, so the house will now become ours (the closing date being September 16). It has a much better design for a large family, and it's also in a very convenient location for people like ourselves who do not drive. Paying for it is the next challenge, and I'm hoping that I haven't made a financial commitment which is just a little over my head. We barely break even now, so adding a mortgage and a commitment to help from an external cleaning service three times per week will be somewhat tricky to accommodate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 11:34:15 -0400 (EDT) >Is Michael Coren accurate when he writes the following statement? I don't >remember you mentioning this: "The emergency department clocked up a certain >number of apparently play-related injuries in too short a time and was >obliged to call the CAS. The parents say that with a total of 13 children in >their family, it's not surprising that they spend a fair amount of time >dealing with cuts and bruises." That's an accurate enough summary, which actually incorporates two different points which I have made in the past. First: The CAS itself is looking at the total number of known injuries for our entire family, and comparing it with what they'd expect for a normal family (which, of course, would have far fewer children). Without even trying, therefore, we come out way above their safety threshold, and, therefore, are suspect. Second: There was a time when one of our daughters, then about 6 years old, was very accident prone. I can't remember all of the details any more, but I do recall that she had five injuries in under a year. The hospital (Queensway Carleton) doesn't appear to relate family members to one another, but it apparently does do some form of statistical analysis on each patient. One of those injuries which I do remember is that she wanted the baseball bat which her older brother was using, so, without warning, she snuck up behind him to grab it while he was swinging it. This, of course, resulted in her getting a solid clonk on her head which required a number of stitches. Another of those injuries was when she found a very sharp-pointed stick on the ground and began to chew on that end of it. We caught it fairly quickly, but not before she had punctured the roof of her mouth very near a major clump of blood vessels. The CAS court papers say that we didn't have a good explanation for all of those injuries. The fact, however, is that we knew exactly what the cause for each of them was at the time we took her to the hospital. What was probably true, however, is that we couldn't remember all of the details when, way after the fact, they (the CAS) asked us about them. >You told me in a personal message that you are totally blind, though it >wasn't clear whether you said it only jokingly. I wouldn't joke about something like that. I indeed am totally blind, and have been so since about the age of two. >If true, several questions >follow from that: > >Is your wife blind, too? No, she is not. >Did you ever sense that this might have biased CAS to taking your kids, It may be in the back of their minds, but they haven't said anything which would lend support for that possibility. The CAS supervisor, at one point, did observe that I had obviously overcome some major obstacles (which I took as a bit of a compliment, especially being as it came from such a negative person). The CAS court papers mention a time (about 10 years ago) when I had called the police to report one of our small children being missing. The included police report does contain the officer's concern that I, a blind person, was the only adult present with five of our children in our backyard. She wasn't missing after all, by the way. My wife had taken her along when she went shopping. When either my wife or myself takes any of our children along, we are usually very careful to let the other one know exactly who will not be at home. This was one unfortunate instance, however, where something went wrong in the communication. She came home while the police were still here, so the whole incident came, at that point, to a quick and happy ending. >especially considering that they might think your house is dirty because you >really have no way of properly taking care of it? What is true is that I did not have a very good way of assessing it. Were I able to see, I might have (who can really go back in time to be sure) taken more serious steps on my own. >Is that why you need a >cleaning service? No. I need to be able to do my job, which is our only source of income. My wife needs to have enough time to do things with our preschool children. Our school-aged children need a proper amount of time to do their homework. We need enough time together as a family during the evening. The job of cleaning up after this many people, as has been proven, is just too big if each of us is to have a life outside of housekeeping. We'll all try to do better, but I think it's the better part of prudence to hire someone whose job it is to help us catch up whenever we fall behind. >Any problems recognizing which of your children is talking to you? You have, >after all, 13 of them - my parents had a bad time with just three of us! :) No. Their voices are all quite distinct. They also each have quite unique mannerisms, different interests, etc., which all help to separate one from the other. Once in a while I do blow it, and this provides a good opportunity for healthy humour. >What job do you have at NCR? Not NCR. I work for Nortel Networks (and have done so since 1978). I haven't got a clue what my official job title is, but, if I had to make it up, I probably be something like a Senior Software Designer in Configuration Management Systems. I design and write new software, help others design and debug their software, and get given the tricky production problems which others can't figure out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 13:43:08 -0400 (EDT) Monday's visit with our three youngest children (2, 4, 5) did not take place because it was on a statutory holiday. Today's visit was supposed to be with our next four older children (6, 7, 8, 10), except that our 6- and 7-year-old sons weren't there since they've been sent to a 10-day camp. The visit with our 8- and 10-year-old daughters began about 10 minutes late because the visit supervisor didn't know that the two boys wouldn't be there and was waiting for them. The visit was fairly quiet. Our 10-year-old daughter played scrabble with her 16-year-old brother, our 8-year-old daughter played a game of cards with her mother, and there wasn't a lot for me to do (the cards not being braille and I'm no good at memorizing the constantly changing layout of the scrabble letters). At the end of the visit I asked the supervisor if it was considered normal and acceptable for children to be sent off to camps and miss visits with their parents. His answer was that the CAS felt that it was a good thing to give the children as many good experiences as possible. To this I rather daringly replied that it was a bad experience for our children to have been ruthlessly ripped away from their family. He did respond to this statement, but I did not quite hear what he said. I think that this particular visit supervisor thought that I was a bit of a jerk because I didn't (as I never do) engage in a lot of overt hugging and forlorn good-byes as our children left. Ours is a family in which we all know very well how much we love one another based on our attitudes (how we treat one another) and our acts (what we can trust that each would do for the other), and not on a bunch of external touchy-feely sorts of things. I do not think that the CAS understands. On another topic: Two Fridays ago, our 14-year-old daughter told us, during a visit, that one of her teeth was bothering her. I mentioned it to her foster mother when she came to pick her up at the end of the visit, and even gave her the name of our dentist. It would appear that their trip to Lake Ontario was far more important because they left without having our daughter's tooth attended to. Fortunately, her tooth settled down half way through the week. Now that they're back, it would still appear that no arrangements have been made to have her tooth checked out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 23:26:23 -0400 (EDT) We received a phone call from the in-take social worker (Heather Clark) today. She was returning my voice mail request to give us an update regarding the health of our 2-year-old son, and also wanted to let us know that the slow transition of our case to a different set of social workers had begun. Regarding our son's health: She just said a bunch of reassuring type stuff about how well he was doing, although she acknowledged that she had not actually seen him lately (our three youngest children have been assigned to a different in-take social worker). She was unable to tell us anything about his ailment (hand, foot and mouth disease), insisting that she was not a doctor and that we should contact our doctor. In the end, therefore, she was unable to give us any useful information with respect to this issue in spite of the fact that it took her about eight hours to return my call. Regarding the transition: When it is complete (which she said should take about two weeks), a new social worker (Debby Brown) would be responsible for my wife and myself, as well as the two older children (14, 12) and the three younger children (5, 4, 2). Another social worker, who hasn't been assigned yet, would be responsible for the four middle children (10, 8, 7, 6). We will also be monitored by a new visit supervisor, Dominique, who, in fact, we've already met since he supervised this morning's visit. We asked her if reports regarding each of our children's visits to other doctors could be forwarded to our doctor. At first she tried to say that that should not be necessary. I insisted that, especially for children, it is crucial that their own doctor have an unbroken medical history, and she agreed that that was a good idea. She then suggested that I get our doctor to pursue this issue, to which my response was that that would be impossible since neither we nor our doctor were allowed to know either who the various foster parents are or which doctors they are seeing. She then suggested that the foster parents should be asked to pursue the issue, to which I responded that that, too, would be an impossible route to follow since we weren't even allowed to know how to contact them. I then rather forcefully told her that I had no choice in this matter but to ask her to pursue the issue, to which she asked "so you're asking me to do it?". I emphatically answered "yes", but don't really think that it'll happen. She also tried to tell us that it should not be necessary to send a report for each visit, and that a summary report, should the children eventually be allowed to return to us, would be sufficient, to which I responded that such a method would likely cause the loss of some data. Again, I don't think she took my concern very seriously. During our conversation, my wife asked if it would be okay for us, during one of our Sunday visits, to show our children where our new house was and what it looked like. Her answer was that this would be a bad idea, and that we shouldn't even talk to our children about their eventual return, because of the possibility that they'd never be allowed to come back. Her advice was that we should rather talk to them about how great it was for them to be living with their foster parents. I pointed out to her that we have spent the last month doing everything possible to the end that our children would be allowed to return (cleaned up our current house, have an accepted offer on a new house which is better designed for a large family, listed our current house for sale, buying furniture which is in good condition, analyzed the reasons for past failure, developing plan for future success), and asked her what positive things she had been doing during this same time period. She reiterated all of her concerns, but was unable to show that she had pursued even one of them. Her attitude during the entire phone call was one of doing everything possible to maintain, if not widen, our adversarial gap. She kept saying things like that the CAS would be asking for as long a time as possible, that we're asking for as little time as possible, that the decision would be made by the judge, and that we should address any concerns we have to our lawyer. She gave us the very clear message that there was absolutely no point in attempting to discuss or negotiate with her, even though she herself has told others who have called her on our behalf that she's disappointed that we haven't contacted her more often to let her know what we're doing. I noted a few weeks ago that the four older children (14, 12, 10, 8) would be assigned a child's lawyer. With the next hearing now only a week away (August 17), all of them have confirmed to us that they haven't heard from this lawyer yet. I suspect that he'll be assigned at the last possible minute, just like we (as well as our lawyer) received our court papers at the last possible minute before the first hearing, so that he won't have much time to plan what to present. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 23:47:16 -0400 (EDT) We received a surprise visit from the two social workers, Heather Clark and Tina Hatton, this afternoon. They said that the purpose of their visit was to check the state of our house because they had heard that it had been cleaned up. This may well be true, but I also suspect that it was the first of many surprise visits which we can expect in order for them to assess our sincerity with respect to correcting the problem. My wife again asked them to wait outside until I came. Since I was just upstairs, it only took a couple of minutes. This time they didn't call for police protection, so I guess they've finally figured out that I'm not a threat to their physical safety. Their visit provided an opportunity for me to openly and honestly demonstrate to them my willingness to cooperate with them. When they told me that they wished to check out the state of our house, I told them that they were just the right people to have dropped by because we were now at the point where I needed to know, from them, exactly what more they were expecting. They seemed to respond very favourably to this statement, and very politely asked permission to come in and look around. After checking out the entire main floor, they told us that they could clearly see that we had made what they referred to as a "valiant attempt" and "lots of progress". They noticed that all of the walls had been painted, and observed that that wouldn't even have been necessary. When I pointed out to them that the newly painted walls would be much easier to clean again, however, they agreed. We had operated under the assumption that we only needed to clean up what would be the living area should some of our children be allowed to return, so we hadn't yet done the upper floor (which is really only a little under half a floor). I told them this, and asked them if they felt that the upper floor should still be done. They said yes, and I was able to tell them that a plan was already in place to do that, and that it would begin tomorrow afternoon. Our lawyer had told us this morning that he thought it should be done, so the people from work who had already been helping us, upon hearing this, had already decided who would come over when to do what. I'm very thankful to have colleagues like them! They noted that there were still some bugs crawling around on the main floor. I was able to tell them that I had already contacted our exterminator, and that he had told me that there was no point in him doing his thing until all of the cleaning was complete because, if he did, we'd just be washing away his chemicals. They appeared to understand this, and to accept my statement that I'd be calling him next week after the upper floor cleaning was complete. I learned a very important principle, during this discussion, which hadn't occurred to me before. Even though their current position is that no children will be allowed to return for a while, they still want to see our entire house cleaned up. The reason for this is that they know very well that we still have older children, whom they can't take, living here. Even though they have no jurisdiction over them, they're still looking at how we treat them in order to extrapolate how we treat our younger ones. They made some sort of a comment about our dog (not nasty), which I can't remember, at which point I revealed to them that we were going to be giving him away because, among other things, his voluminous shedding was an extra cleaning burden which we didn't need. They seemed to recognize that this was actually a significant sacrifice on our part, and again appeared to look upon this decision rather favourably. We were also able to tell them that a friend of ours had two dogs, one of whom having very recently died, and was now looking for a companion for the other one. This man is a friend of ours who lives way out in the country and has a fair bit of land, so it'll be a better place for our dog, who is quite large, anyway. He is also a person whom our children visit from time to time, so they'll still be able to check up on, and to play with, their former dog. I think they were able to glean from this that we try to do things in as thoughtful a way as possible. They told us that the CAS would be providing a person (I'm not sure what the job title is) who would be helping us to learn to manage our housekeeping duties properly. The one problem with this arrangement is that that person would not be able to show up until our children were back (policies, policies). In a family this size, of course, it is important to have done all of that kind of preparation ahead of time. I'll still need to talk with them regarding this, and it may be that I'll have to engage professional help ahead of time. I mentioned to them that, in my opinion, it was crucial that our 14- and 12-year-old daughters be allowed to return very early because it is essential that they be involved in, and be part of, the solution. Their first response was to give me the party line, i.e. "we're asking for three months for all of them". I gave them a bit of a lecture on how my preference was to deal with them right up close as real people, rather than at arm's length via the legal system, and that I was willing to trust them so long as they were willing to trust me. They seemed to react well to this, but told me that bypassing the legal system was not an option since it was the only thing which guaranteed us real protection. I was able, at this point, however, to reiterate my statement about the two older girls coming home earlier with "hypothetically speaking" and "in anticipation of a very possible court decision and compromise", at which point they acknowledged that what I was wanting made good sense. In addition to this just plain being a good idea, it may well be that the early return of the two older girls will be enough to allow the CAS housekeeping teacher to show up and do his/her thing before our younger children return. I proposed something else to them (not that they were in any mood to negotiate) which, I think, also showed them that I was not out to work against them. My recommendation was that, when our children are finally allowed to return, it be done two by two, one week at a time. This would give us an opportunity to cautiously and slowly increase our workload to its full level, and make it possible to catch a problem, right at the outset, should one begin to develop. It would also avoid the problem that the first day of everyone coming back at the same time would likely be a total confusion of happiness which may well initiate an unwanted housekeeping problem when we least need it. We had a bit of a chat about schooling. They appeared to understand my concern that the two older girls, who are beyond elementary school grades, be allowed to go to their home schools, especially since things like semestered versus non-semestered schools makes a very big difference. They appeared to understand this concern, and assured us that, even if they weren't allowed to return before school starts, their transportation to and from their home schools would be facilitated. They warned us, however, that the same accommodation might not be available for some of our younger children because of how far out of town they are, and I told them that I wasn't too worried about the ones in elementary grades because there's a fair amount of flexibility within that forum. When they left, they told us that they'd probably be back next week some time. This may be their warning that they'll be checking out our upstairs work, or it may just be their policy that they'll now be making weekly random visits until they're satisfied. All in all, I'd say that this afternoon's surprise visit was both friendly and favourable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 14:37:58 -0400 (EDT) All of our mid-week visits have now been moved to the Pinecrest Queensway Community and Health Services Centre, which is just across Richmond Road from the Lincoln Heights Mall. This is good news for us, since we, who do not drive, no longer have to go all the way across the city. It's now only 5 minutes on one bus, or, on a nice day, a half hour walk. Our Monday visit (with the three younger children) and our Friday visit (with the two older children) are still at 10am, but our Wednesday visit (with the four middle children) has been moved to 1pm. All of the visits are still an hour and a half long. Today's visit was, for the most part, uneventful. In addition to a lot of talking, we did a couple of word puzzles in the newspaper, and played one game of checkers and a few games of snakes and ladders. One of the scrambled words in the Citizen's word jumble was very difficult to figure out, and we used that as an opportunity to pick on the visit supervisor a bit because he, too, couldn't get it. For the curious, "zeemac" turned out to be "eczema". The most special part of today's visit was just before its end. Our 12-year-old daughter made two well-constructed paper boats out of pages from small inserts within the paper, and gave one to my wife and one to me. With all of the material pampering they've been given, she still chose a very simple way to give each of us something very special. It's pretty clear evidence that she's still the same girl, and that, despite all of the hurt, they haven't damaged her yet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 21:56:26 -0400 (EDT) >I'm 99% sure this is the first time I've heard you mention bugs. It may be. It's really flies, not bugs. Some years ago, as I know I did mention, for several years it was cockroaches which exterminator after exterminator couldn't get rid of. >for many people it seems that this is illustrative of an increasingly >serious cleanliness and hygienic problem. Perhaps that's part of it, but a very major cause of the problem is that I'd given up fixing window screens since the younger children were so often poking holes in them. Without central air conditioning, it's unbearable here, in the summer, to keep the windows closed. With them open, however, the flies have no problem getting through broken screens. Another source of flies was the fact that we had to buy one whole lot of fruit to keep each of the children's school lunches well supplied each day for two weeks (our grocery shopping interval). It would appear that leaving a lot of fruit out in the open is not that good of a thing to do. Perhaps the stores apply some sort of treatment to keep their problem down. >Nevertheless, I have assumed >that it is rather a self-evident indication of concern and would likely have >been mentioned in the CAS report, It was, although they, using the generic term "bugs", lost the difference between our earlier cockroach problem and our current fly problem. Their report, therefore, makes it appear that the current problem has been on-going for more than a decade. >so the fact that you never made mention of >it, With so much data to retrieve from my memory (being blind, I couldn't easily reread the court papers), I may well have left some things out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 22:50:13 -0400 (EDT) >when most people hear bugs in this context, they automatically hear >cockroach. I know, but, having lived with a zillion of them for several years, I've found them to not be harmful in any (but one major and two minor, see below) way at all. Even the experts agree that they're not really all that harmful, and that their presence is not proof of a dirty environment. They happen to breed rather quickly, and they also happen to be essentially invincible. They're so indestructible that they even hang out in the microwave without getting nuked. Great numbers of them may be a sign that they can get at enough food, but that means neither that they only hang out where food is nor that food is all over the place (although, in our case, this was a developing problem). They do hang out near food, e.g. under refrigerators and in stove panels, but, when their population gets large enough, they spread out wide and far. They're cannibalistic in that if they can't find enough food (and we've seen this) they eat one another; this, however, doesn't decrease their population because enough eggs have already been laid to more than make up for the difference. The first minor way in which they are harmful is that they produce a lot of excrement. This, when we had the cockroach problem, was one of the contributions to the fact that our house had become almost impossible to keep clean. The second minor way in which they are harmful is that they do a good job of corrupting stored food if they get into it. During our cockroach years we stored almost no food in our house. We were fortunate enough to have a very good relationship with the guy who owned the corner store nearest to us back then, so he often gave us good deals on what he did sell, and ordered whole-sale what we needed that he didn't sell. The major way in which they're harmful is that they, through something contained in their excrement, can stimulate attacks in those who have asthma. None of us do, although I, personally, developed a severe dust allergy when one serviceman forgot to put new filters in our furnace one year while performing its annual maintenance. I'm certain that my breathing problems were severely aggravated by the fact that our cockroach population was so high. Once the last exterminator finally got rid of them, it was only a matter of weeks before breathing, for me, became enormously easier. Now, in fact, my sensitivity to dust is almost gone too. >Some sticky flypaper which can be hung >from ceilings out of the children's reach with somebody assigned to replace >it every time it gets full of flies should be satisfactory enough. This sounds like something I haven't heard of. We tried a number of other things, some of which were ineffective, and others of which smelled so bad that none of us could stomach them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 10:48:07 -0400 (EDT) All of our children, except our 7- and 6-year-old sons, were present during this past Sunday's visit. The two absent boys are away at a 10-day camp, which means that they'll also be missing this week's Wednesday visit. Our 2-year-old son was there, which means that he must have recovered from his "hand, foot and mouth disease". When our 2-year-old son arrived, before morning worship, he immediately went to my wife for a couple of minutes, and then came to me for a couple of minutes. While I was holding him, his foster mother began to leave. I quietly suggested to him that he say good-bye to her, and his response was a firm "no". I know that both she and one of the two visit supervisors were close enough to hear both sides of this short interchange, but have no idea regarding what they thought. Both visit supervisors were new, and I must say that both of them were the friendliest ones we've met so far. They told us that they had been given explicit instructions to stay way off in the background, but, with a family as large as ours, eventually someone, parents included, does involve them. One of the visit supervisors was a 26-year-old man whose primary interest in life appears to be log cabin construction. He has a degree in psychology, and, during a lengthy discussion with our 16-year-old son, he revealed his dissatisfaction with the field of psychiatry because, as he put it, they tend to mask problems with drugs rather than work at actually resolving them. He told me that he had never been in a church, or even looked at the Bible, before, spent a bit of time looking around the building, and told me that he found the morning worship service to be quite interesting. I told him that I was very willing to openly discuss any questions he might have about the morning message, as well as any questions he'd ever had about the Bible, but he didn't ask any. The morning message, if I dare presume upon God's will in these things, appeared to be ideal for him as it was about what awaits people, on both sides, after death. Our total infection, from head to toe, by sin was covered, as was the fact that those who think that they're worthy to be Christ's bride would be passed by whereas Christ would graciously stoop down to those who know that they aren't worthy, take all of their sins away, clothe them in a pure white wedding dress, and welcome them into his arms. The other visit supervisor was a 36-year-old woman who grew up Roman Catholic but is currently attending an Anglican congregation. I chatted for a while with her about this, observed that no denomination or congregation was error free and that those who thought they were should be avoided, pointed out the need for each individual person to discover for himself (or, in this case, herself) what the Bible really does say and then to find a congregation whose teaching is as close to that as possible, and also made a rather forceful statement to the effect that one shouldn't trash ones eternal destiny just in order to maintain peace on earth. Our evening message seemed to be ideal for her, given her Roman Catholic upbringing. It dealt with three aspects of how Christ fulfills the office of priest, i.e. His is the ultimate sacrifice which satisfies God's justice, He reconciles us to (brings us into an intimate relationship with) God, and He continually intercedes for us. A part of our evening worship service, right in the middle of the message, involved all of our congregation's children (in terms of a demonstration, as well as a very specific teaching, related to the topic), and I'm sure that she was fairly impressed by it, especially since she had told me earlier that one of the things she didn't like about the Anglican congregation which she's currently attending is that the children are sent off to some sort of Sunday school class during the preaching. Our three youngest children (2, 4, 5) again left at 3pm, and the man visit supervisor left shortly thereafter. He asked us whether we wanted to bring our children out to their corresponding foster parents' cars, or whether we wanted him to do it, and we suggested that it would be better if he were to do so. Some of our older children went out with them, and told us later that, again, our 2-year-old son, as soon as he left the building, began to repeatedly protest "no, no, no". The visit supervisor, after the children left, came back to say good-bye to us before leaving (none of the previous ones had ever done this). He told us that he really didn't know the right way to separate children from their parents, to which I responded that there really wasn't any right way. Being as he seemed to be a very caring person who was capable of independent thinking, I dared to let him know my thoughts regarding how, where and why the CAS, as an organization had gone astray (perhaps I'll write down these thoughts in a subsequent message). He, of course, was not in a position to respond to what I was saying, but he did seem to give my statements some thought, and recognize that there might be some truth to them, and he did suggest that I contact Heather Clark (our in-take social worker) to make them more officially known. I told him that she was too low, from an organizational perspective, and that the changes I felt were necessary needed to be initiated by the senior ranks, and he agreed. He did caution me that I shouldn't let my concern for CAS improvement cause me to miss out on spending time with my children. Given his apparent sincerity, I did take it as a very caring word of guidance, and not in any way as organizational rhetoric. I assured him that I only pursued this aspect of my concerns during my spare time, and that this concern of mine was really far more substantive than mere judgmentalism in that I really didn't want anyone else to have to undergo what had been done to us. I told him that our family will probably come out of this okay because we have a solid foundation (our God, although I didn't say it), whereas I could easily see how those families which have a lesser foundation could easily be torn apart. Before I'm faulted on an apparent contradiction, i.e. that a spare time pursuit was being undertaken during a visit, I must note something which he himself probably did not realize. The children sitting next to me at the time, the older ones, have a similar concern. They, therefore, were very interested in this discussion, so it really wasn't wasting my visiting time with them. In addition to it being a topic which was interesting and relevant to them, it was also one of those rare teaching opportunities wherein they could observe, right up close, how a very sensitive topic, which could well have immediate personal ramifications of a negative nature, could be handled gently and constructively. One of the hazards of being blind ... I didn't realize that the other visit supervisor had rather quietly walked up right behind him during this discussion. I have absolutely no idea what her response to it was. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters told us that they had already been told by CAS staff that they would be registered, right from the beginning of the school year, in their home schools, and that transportation to and from those schools would be provided. I know enough now to be certain that the CAS only tells the children anything if it's 100% certain that it'll happen. This must mean, therefore, that at least some of last Thursday's discussion was taken seriously. They also told us that they'd been told that they'd be finally seeing their lawyer some time during this week (I now know, as the result of a phone call yesterday, that that meeting will be taking place today). My advice to them, which I know was overheard by the one remaining visit supervisor and which I hope didn't overstep any bounds, covered the following three points. First, their lawyer is there to represent them, and is not a mouthpiece either for us or for the CAS. Second, they should think very carefully between now and then, writing things down if necessary so that nothing is forgotten, regarding exactly what they want their lawyer to know, and to say on their behalf to the judge. Third, they must, above all else, make absolutely sure that every single thing they say is the absolute truth because, if they do any less, they can't count on God's blessing. At one point our 4-year-old daughter took our 2-year-old son's bag of stuff (snack, cup, toys, etc., given along with him by his foster mother) away from him. This, of course, caused him to become very upset, and is consistent with the selfishness which she has been developing during this ordeal. I've learned to appreciate such incidents because it gives the visit supervisors an idea regarding how we handle problems, discipline, etc. In this particular case: I held her in such a way that she couldn't get away, forceably took the bag away from her and asked one of our other children to return it to its rightful owner, told her how bad she'd made him feel, that what she'd done was no less than stealing, how much I disapproved of it, and that she should apologize, and wouldn't let her go until she calmed down. True to form, within a few minutes she was back on my lap and we were happily discussing some other topic. After the older children left, at 7pm, the second visit supervisor also came back to say good-bye. Since she did this while I was already involved in a lengthy discussion with one of our elders, this did not develop into any kind of extended discussion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 11:38:32 -0400 (EDT) We visited our three youngest children yesterday. Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters must have arrived very early because, even though we arrived ten minutes early, they were already there. As soon as they saw us, they immediately began to happily and loudly call out to us. As soon as we were out of dangerous territory, i.e. the parking lot, the visit supervisor let them run to us. We spent the next few minutes outside, holding them, letting them vigorously run around, and listening to them eagerly tell us all kinds of things, while we waited for our 2-year-old son to arrive. When he did, he immediately left his foster mother and came to us (as he had done the day before). This was the first time we visited our younger children at the Pinecrest Queensway offices of the CAS. Rather than going to a toy room, selecting what you want, and then going to a visit room, as we had been doing at the CAS main offices in Gloucester, there was a large, mostly carpeted room, well-equipped with toys of all sorts, with a table in one corner, a number of chairs elsewhere, and a bathroom, complete with changing table, at one end. It was, in many ways, a much nicer, and far more informal, setup. It's one main disadvantage was that, because such a multitude of toys were so close at hand, our children spent a lot of time checking them all out before beginning to spend time with us. Eventually, though, they did begin to give up on the toys. Our 2-year-old son wanted us to hold him by the window so that he could watch the traffic on the busy road below and tell us what types of vehicles he saw. Our 4-year-old daughter spent the last half hour playing with my talking clock, and our 5-year-old daughter had a lot of fun playing with my pager. My guess is that these objects gave them the opportunity to play while giving them a strong reminder of home. The "innocent" games which little children play ... As we know, the CAS is big on watching how children play, and on reading what children write, in order to determine who are the bad guys in their lives. Given that this is the case, I sure hope that the visit supervisor was paying very close attention while our 4-year-old daughter was playing with a toy police car. Her game, you see, was "I'm going to take all of your children to jail!". When our daughters (4, 5) began to put away the toys, our son (2) immediately sensed that he'd be taken away again. He headed for the nearest corner, got down on his hands and knees, put his face to the floor, and began to cry. I tried to comfort him, but could not. The visit supervisor picked him up gently, wiped off his face, and began to slowly take him out of the room. As they left, our son rather plaintively, and very clearly, said "bye Mommy ... bye Daddy". We waited in that room until we could see, from the window, that our children had left. Our 4-year-old daughter used to have some problems at departure time. She seems to be over that now, and cheerfully heads off. Her conduct when she's with us, though, is one which clearly shows that she'd rather stay. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 13:51:47 -0400 (EDT) My thoughts regarding the CAS, now that my family has been very directly impacted by it and I've been able, as a consequence, to get some glimpses from the inside with respect to how it operates, are as follows: I'm becoming more and more convinced that the problems with the CAS are related to how it functions as an organization, and that they're not, certainly for the most part, related to the personal conduct or motives of any specific individual within its employ. I work for a large telecommunications corporation, and I've seen so many parallels with respect to how it and the CAS operate that I now believe that the root cause of the CAS's problems is that it functions like a corporation rather than as a steward of those precious little human beings over whom it has jurisdiction. The CAS surely had a good and absolutely necessary initial mission, i.e. the protecting of children from serious cases of abuse. Especially in recent years, at least two things have happened which have given it the need to significantly increase its staff, i.e. the increased number of serious abuse cases, and the fact that they have been given jurisdiction over more types of problems. This latter extending of their authority has come about for an innocent enough reason, i.e. those other problems really often are the more evident signs of abuse which is often well-concealed by its perpetrators. In its zeal to not miss a single case of abuse, therefore, the CAS has sought for, and been granted, this extended authority. This forced increase in staff, as well as whatever cutbacks the CAS has surely been subjected to in recent times, has caused it to do what all other corporations have been forced to do when in a similar situation, i.e. become intensely preoccupied with keeping itself functioning as smoothly as possible given all of this additional internal stress. Its management's attention, therefore, has been shifted away from concentrating on the proper treatment of those children who are under its care, and redirected toward things like employee satisfaction, employee retention, inter-departmental cooperation, etc. I know for certain that there are serious problems within the CAS management. I have been told, on at least two occasions which I shall not describe in detail because I don't wish to be the instigator of internal revenge against well-meaning employees at the bottom of the hierarchy, that certain things were being done, and that certain attitudes might be prevailing, due to poor and uncaring management. Those little conversations which can get squeezed in on the side can be very revealing. Another sure sign of poor management within the CAS is revealed by the expressions on the faces of the employees in its main offices. Whenever we've had to go to the Children's Hospital, we've never failed to notice that, although it, too, is dealing with children with all sorts of serious problems, all of its staff are invariably incredibly genuinely cheerful. The mere (or, perhaps, not so mere) fact that they're dealing with children seems to be enough of a motivator for all of them. Whenever we've gone to the CAS main offices, however, we've been struck by the fact that most of its staff portray an essentially glum ambience. The CAS has spent years perfecting a process which works very well when dealing with serious child abuse. This process has trade-offs, e.g. it being incredibly hard on a child to be removed from his family, but, in such serious cases, no one would question the fact that the trade-offs, in the end, really are in the best interests of the child. The CAS has worked very hard at ingraining this process so deeply into the minds of its employees so that, even in the most stressful situations, and even by new hires, it can be executed flawlessly. Now, with the increased work load, and with its management being far less able to devote a proper amount of attention to external matters, the CAS has chosen, perhaps subconsciously, to take a serious shortcut. It has been given jurisdiction over all kinds of additional types of problems, but it has failed to recognize that different types of problems require different types of approaches, and, therefore, to make accommodations within its single process. Slowly, over time, the whole idea of insuring that only reasonable trade-offs be made has been forgotten. Now, each employee only works within his/her individual area of expertise, but has no grasp whatsoever of the total picture. He/she really does try very hard to do a good job, and simply trusts that, if every other employee does likewise, the goal of the organization will be properly met, and the greater good will always invariably be achieved. The employees are trusting that their management is taking care of the global picture and, therefore, edicting the right process, yet the management doesn't have either the time or the staff to do so. Everyone is trusting the process, yet no one is overseeing it. In so doing, they've forgotten that the children in their care are people and, as such, are unique individuals, each of whom is in need of individual care. Corporations deal with resources, and it's entirely reasonable for a corporation to let a resource sit on a shelf for a while if that better fits its processes or while it needs time to deal with internal matters. Children, on the other hand, are real living beings, and it's entirely unreasonable to treat them like inannimate resources. To so ruthlessly (at least from the children's perspectives) destroy everything they've ever known and trusted, and then to leave them sitting around, with their future in an unknown state of flux, from one distant court hearing to the next is, plain and simple, not acceptable. It may well be that, in the case of serious child abuse, this is the only reasonable alternative. In less severe situations, however, this approach inflicts more damage on a child than whatever situation he's been rescued from likely ever did. I'm sure that there are those within the CAS who know that something is seriously wrong, but I can also readily understand why they don't dare say too much. If any newcomer were to walk into the large telecommunications corporation for which I work and dare to suggest that he knew a better way to run it, his words would likely be politely dismissed. If he were to persist, he'd likely get a stern warning to mind his own business and let the all-knowing and highly-experienced executive management team which is already in place handle things. If he continued to persist, he'd likely be thrown out for trying to stir up too much discord within the organization. Even bold, outspoken, old-timers like myself (I've been there 22 years and rarely keep my mouth shut) have an almost impossible time righting the smallest of wrongs. One might wonder why the provincial government, who oversees the CAS, doesn't do anything to intervene. Again, I think that the answer to this one can be seen when one looks at the situation with a corporation perspective. The CAS, like any other corporation, expends a lot of time and effort to generate its own advertising which, of course, always portrays itself in a very favourable light. Since it has no competitors, no one is generating anywhere near as much advertising to the contrary. Even if the occasional CAS mismanagement story gets out, the CAS can always immediately counter it with a horror story in which it really is the heroes. The government, therefore, is only hearing an extremely one-sided message. I've written the fore-going in the hope that at least some healthy thinking will be stimulated. I now know, beyond the shadow of a doubt and from very personal experience, that something is seriously wrong within the CAS. I don't know how to correct it, do know that I don't want anyone else to ever have to go through the same thing that we're being put through, and hope that these observations can be used, at least in some small way, to correct a most sad state of affairs which over-shadows every single one of our province's, if not nation's, precious children. If our grieving can, at least in part, achieve this goal, then, perhaps, in a twisted sort of way, it'll all have been worth it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 15:44:49 -0400 (EDT) >I suspect the big problem is going to be -- >How does a house-hunt happen when child protectors become involved in the >hunt? How's it going, by the way? We just used our best judgment, along with the advice of several good friends of ours, taking into account number of bedrooms as well as other elements of the design which will make it easier to manage, e.g.: one more full bathroom (it's actually more than that, having two sinks and a separate bathtub and shower), a place to leave shoes before entering the house, an office area for myself which is much closer to the children's play area, a backyard which is much easier to watch, etc. We're hoping that they won't now decide that they don't like it because, if that happens, we'll really be stuck. We have found our new house, our offer has been accepted, and, assuming that we get enough for our old place, we'll almost be able to afford it. I'm very grateful that I have a reasonable income, and feel very sorry for those to whom this sort of thing happens and no money is available. This is especially true given the thousands of dollars we'll also have to spend on lawyer fees, as well as the surprise I just got today, i.e. we'll have to spend $10,000 so that an expert psychologist can do a full family assessment. Our lawyer argued that the CAS should fund at least a good chunk of this last one, and there seem to be signs that it might. Our lawyer's main concern was the number of bedrooms, and he seemed to be satisfied when we told him that there are four. We plan to give the master bedroom, which is huge, to our four oldest daughters, and take the smallest bedroom for ourselves. The other two are about equally sized, and one will be for our 8-, 5-, and 4-year-old daughtters, and the other will be for our 16-, 7-, 6-, and 2-year-old sons. Our 20-year-old son, who is still living with us, will use the basement, which is fully carpeted and insulated, but is still wide open. We'll be adding an extra bathroom, as well as other rooms, down there as time and money permit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 19:45:56 -0400 (EDT) Yesterday's visit was with our 10- and 8-year-old daughters. Our 7- and 6-year-old sons weren't there, as they were still away at the camp to which they'd been sent. They must have returned some time early this afternoon because, while we were out (in court), we received voice mail from their foster father saying that they had returned and that they wanted to talk to us. He said that he'd try later again. Both girls water-painted several pictures while telling us about what they had been doing recently. Highlights included their having learned to swim at some lake (they weren't sure which one), and a trip to a circus. They brought a bunch of clam shells from the lake for us to look at, and the high point of their circus outing was when they got to ride on an elephant. Our 10-year-old daughter has a very good sense of what is right and what is wrong, and of what we approve of and of what we don't approve of. Our 8-year-old daughter, on the other hand, still has a tendency to be carried along with what others would like her to do. The older girl spent some time telling us about things which she didn't think were quite right in their foster home, and about things that her younger sister was doing which were in need of correction. We listened, but didn't say too much because there really isn't all that much that we can do about it. The most serious problem she reported to us was that her younger sister (8) was permitted to go for unattended walks around the neighbourhood, and was also permitted to go, unattended, to the park (which, while not too far away, can't be seen from the house). These are things which my wife and I would never permit an 8-year-old to do because they are not yet all that well-equipped to deal with problems they might encounter, e.g. bad people perpetrating evil deeds upon young children. We, needless to say, were not impressed, as we strongly feel that this situation is an accident waiting to happen. We were also told that, in this particular foster home, there is a computer and a television on one floor for the adults, and a computer and a television on another floor for the children. The impression we got from what she was saying is that their foster parents let the children do as they pleased while they themselves were off doing their own thing. This, too, seems to indicate that these foster parents don't think that they need to closely supervise those who are in their care. She was very concerned that her younger sister had begun to watch a lot of cartoons, and that she was now eating breakfast cereals which had little real food value topped with way too much sugar. She was also concerned that their foster parents were encouraging them to watch gambling shows, to which I responded, right in front of the visit supervisor, that they should feel free to tell their foster parents that they didn't want to do that and that they'd rather do something else. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 16:02:33 -0400 (EDT) Early Wednesday morning, our lawyer came over to get a whole bunch of signatures which the CAS demanded so that they can talk to school staff and check schoolboard records, talk to doctors and check medical records, etc. He also told us the name of the children's lawyer (Adriana Doyal), and confirmed that she had seen all of the four older children (the only ones assigned to her at that point) the previous day. Other things he told us included the name of the CAS lawyer (Tracy Ingleking), and the fact that the CAS now wants to do a full family assessment in order to make a formal determination regarding whether or not we can function as a group. Our lawyer's name, by the way, is David Hughes. Yesterday, August 17, we had our second hearing. Present were: my wife and myself, our 16-year-old son, all three lawyers (ours, CAS's, children's), a very helpful lady from our church, one of my colleagues from work, Heather Clark (the in-take social worker), Nancy Keddy (the social worker to whom we're being now transferred), and Debbie Brown (the social worker who is now responsible for our 14- 12- 5- and 4-year-old daughters and our 2-year-old son). The other two significant CAS people who are now in our lives, Emma Dimock (the social worker now assigned to our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons) and Dominique Leeman (the child and youth counsellor who now supervises our mid-week visits), were not there. We've already met Dominique at visits, so Emma is the only one we haven't met yet. The children's lawyer talked with us briefly before the hearing began. Although she didn't comment on it during the hearing itself (it'll surely come up next time though), she made a point of telling us that all of the four older children had told her that they wanted to return home. During the hearing she revealed that she had been doing "this work" for fifteen years. A lot of the discussion in the courtroom revolved around the full family assessment which the CAS wants. It wanted to use its own family assessment clinic, which, as it turns out, has a three month waiting list and, given the fact that there are two adults and nine children to deal with, would then take another six months to complete. Our lawyer was prepared for this, and has already lined up a psychologist (Dr. Groves) whom he trusts to be impecably honest, who is willing to start immediately upon receit of a retainer, and who should only take about one month. The CAS objected, claiming that it had stopped using this particular psychologist several years ago due to some problem (which they refused to outline) which it felt he had. The judge remarked that since, in this case, there appeared to be a reasonably high probability that the children would be allowed to return home fairly soon, the decision should take this timeline into account. She then gave her approval to our lawyer's choice of psychologist. Since the CAS will only automatically pay for such an assessment if its own clinic is used, this will cost us a fair bit of money. Our lawyer believes that it'll be $5,000 for us, and an additional $5,000 (for a total of $10,000) for the children. He tried, therefore, a few approaches to reduce this cost. First he asked if the assessment needed to include the children, and the judge agreed with the CAS that it did. He then asked if it would be okay if the children's lawyer's office could assign a social worker to do the children's assessments, to which the judge responded (and asked for confirmation), and the children's lawyer confirmed, that a social worker is only ever provided by her office in lieu of a lawyer. He then proposed that, since the CAS would have been paying for the assessment if its people were doing it, then couldn't it also agree to pay for it even though its being done by someone else. The judge agreed to this, and even included her recommendation that this be done in her final writeup, but all the CAS would do is say that the person who needed to make that decision was not present. I intend to pay this money right up front so that the process can begin without delay. I asked, therefore, whether or not I'd be personally reimbursed should I choose this route and should the CAS eventually agree to pay for it, and was told that I would. During a discussion with the CAS people after the hearing I told them that I could of course pay for it by taking money away from my house downpayment and, therefore, incurring higher mortgage payments, and I also reminded them regarding just how much money it does take, on an on-going basis, to support a family as large as ours. This seemed to strike a favourable chord within them, and their response sounded fairly hopeful. Just in case, though, we're also looking into how much of such an expense the company medical plan will cover. The children's lawyer asked if she could also be given jurisdiction over the remaining five children. The judge commented that it was important that all of the children be kept together (which immediately made me involuntarily smile and nod my head), and then granted her request. I'm not sure, but it just might be that the judge intended this remark to be a bit of a rebuke to the CAS since she had already been informed that our family was spread over three social workers, and that our children were spread over five foster homes from one end of the region to the other. Our lawyer asked the CAS for formal documentation outlining, in detail, exactly what conditions it expects us to meet before it'll be willing to let our children return home. It insisted that this documentation had already been completed, but both our and the children's lawyer insisted that they hadn't received it yet. The CAS then promised to ensure that both of them would get copies within the next couple of days. As part of this promise, the CAS lawyer told the judge, in somewhat snobby tones, that she didn't feel that her office would have any problems communicating with our lawyer's office. A meeting to discuss these conditions, and to begin plans regarding how they will be met, was, during a post-hearing discussion, scheduled to take place on September 7 at 9:30am at the CAS Pinecrest Queensway offices. It could occur earlier, except that Nancy, the social worker in charge of my wife and myself, will be on vacation until then. At least she scheduled us early on her very first day back. Our next hearing has been scheduled for 3pm on October 2. It's called a "care and custody" hearing, which means that that'll finally be the time when a decision will be made regarding whether or not the CAS will begin to return our children to us. That's a whole month and a half away, so the children continue to suffer, but it does allow time for the family assessment to be done. It'll be two and a half weeks after we move into our new house, which will give us time to get it ready. We told our lawyer about our 8-year-old daughter being allowed to wander around the neighbourhood of her foster home, and to play in the park, without adult supervision. He said that there was nothing he could do to enforce a change, but did promise to write the CAS a letter highlighting our concern. A little later we had an opportunity to raise our concern directly with the social workers, and they indicated that they would follow up on it. We also let them know about an incident, during our 14- and 12-year-old daughters' trip to Lake Ontario, when they, along with another foster daughter, spent a night in a tent during a serious thunder storm getting soaking wet, and no adult came out to check on them. I had a discussion with Heather Clark (the in-take worker) regarding the state of our current house (since she had seen it both before and after my colleagues helped us clean it up). I did this because, although it's not yet perfect, I don't really feel like putting a lot more effort and money into it since we're moving in less than a month. I still, however, do want to show the CAS what we refer to at work as "due diligence", especially since we, as well as our older children, are still living here. It took several minutes of pushing, and of getting evasive answers, before she finally clearly said that she didn't feel that more work was necessary. We asked her another question with respect to this issue, i.e. would she have removed our children had our house been in its current state. Even though it really is in fairly good shape now, the most she said was "probably not". The new social workers seem to be genuinely cheerful and concerned people, which is a refreshing change from Heather Clark (the in-take worker), whose every word is so carefully controlled, and whose track record is one of shamelessly telling lies whenever it helps her achieve her goals. They assured us that they were interested in constructively working with us to resolve the problem. They also told us that they do look at the children in order to help themselves form an opinion of the parents, and that all of our children were very well behaved and cheerful. They also commented that they had never before heard of co-workers helping out in such a situation. Some sort of remark (although I can't remember what it was) must have been made about the contents of past reports, because I felt the need to observe that they contained a lot of incorrect statements. They recommended that I concentrate on the future, to which I responded that that was a good idea except for the fact that they are still formulating opinions against the backdrop of those inaccurate reports. They offered to set up a meeting at which I could go over the reports with them in detail, and then forcefully stated that, after that meeting, the topic should never come up again. I sure hope that they also meant that the contents of those reports will also never again affect their own thinking, but I have my doubts. In any event, no such meeting has yet been scheduled, and I don't think I'll push the issue. If they ever do offer to schedule it, my current plan is to offer to fore-go it if they will commit to ignoring them and just getting on with what needs to be done with respect to the problem at hand. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 09:06:42 -0400 (EDT) Way back when our nine younger children were apprehended, i.e. July 13, both the social workers and the police approached our 20-year-old son in an attempt to get him to leave. At the time, I didn't realize just how seriously they tried to do this. I now know that they each gave him their respective business cards, as well as the number of a place which would be willing to find shelter for a person his age. They were, in other words, effectively telling him that, even though he might be embarrassed to declare his desire to leave right in front of us, there were ways in which he could do so secretly. Our attitude of intense distrust toward our children's school is shared by at least one of our children. In anticipation of last week's hearing, our 12-year-old daughter had reread her copy of the court papers. I had forgotten to mention this earlier, but, of her own accord, she told us last Sunday (the one just before the hearing) that she felt deeply betrayed by her teachers who should have known better and who had always been so nice to her. She further expressed this sentiment by telling us that she was glad that she'd now be going to a different school. I told her that the staff in the new school probably wouldn't be any different, and she told us that she understood this but that there was a difference between what one should expect from people you've known for a long time verses people who don't really know you at all. I mentioned that the children's lawyer didn't tell the judge, during last week's hearing, that her clients all wanted to come home. This wasn't quite true, although, due to my lack of understanding of courtroom protocol, I didn't catch it at the time. The CAS lawyer (the accuser) had a very specific place to sit within the courtroom, as did ours (the defender). The children's lawyer, however, was allowed to sit anywhere she felt like. Her choice was to sit right beside our lawyer throughout the entire hearing. In so doing, she, without a word being spoken, clearly let the judge know exactly what her clients' position was. Some foster parents can be very heartless. Our 7- and 6-year-old sons had been away at a 10-day-long camp, which meant that we hadn't seen them for two whole weeks (one Sunday and two mid-week visits). They did try to phone us a few times after they got back (some time on Thursday), but couldn't reach us because we were out at the hearing, visits with other children, etc. They finally got ahold of us late on Saturday evening. About five minutes into this long awaited phone call, right in the middle of while they were excitedly telling us about what had happened at the camp, their foster father took the phone and tersely declared that it was now time for them to go to bed. On Friday I wrote a rather large cheque, i.e. $8,000. Most of this money will be used to encourage the psychologist to start our family assessment as soon as possible. I have now found out that the CAS wishes to have my wife and myself assessed in order to determine if our marriage is functional, and to have our children assessed because they believe that we have inflicted some as yet undescribed types of emotional abuse upon them. Our lawyer said that he'd be writing them a letter asking them to formally document exactly what types of emotional abuse they think we're guilty of. Our 6-year-old son, the one with cerebral palsy, has a weak eye. His ophthalmologist thinks that he shouldn't use glasses so that he can strengthen that eye through use. We, however, got him glasses anyway because we felt that certain parts of his education were suffering due to his imperfect vision. Our practice has been to not use his glasses at home, and to have his teacher only use them during class when she felt that good vision was critical to the lesson or skill being taught. His foster parents, noticing that his vision was defficient, had scheduled an eye examination for him about a month ago. We found out about it, and told them that it wasn't necessary, that we already had glasses for him, and that we'd be dropping them off at his school in September because we didn't want him using them outside of class time. This, apparently, wasn't good enough for them, as, this past Friday afternoon, we got voice mail from Heather Clark (the in-take worker), instructing us that we were to bring his glasses to yesterday's visit. My response, also via voice mail, which I now, in retrospect, realize was wrong, was to forcefully reiterate that they should only be used during class time, and, therefore, that we'd be dropping them off at the school. I mentioned this incident to our lawyer later that day, and he gave me a rather stern warning about not needlessly stirring up an issue that, relative to the whole thing, was reasonably minor. He told me that I now would be well-advised to, as soon as possible, get some expert to confirm, in writing, that our position really was the best one. I have trouble with this "the experts always know what's right" approach, but think that we actually came up with an equally good, and far less formal, resolution to the problem. We did bring his glasses to the visit. As our children were leaving, I gave them to the visit supervisor, explained to her our desire regarding their limited use and our concerns about their over-use, and asked her to pass this message along to the foster parents. She assured us that she would. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 18:58:44 -0400 (EDT) We had a visit with our 14- and 12-year-old daughters this past Friday. Dominique wasn't able to be our visit supervisor that day, so the lady who had been our visit supervisor at the CAS main offices was there. The visit took place in the child care room, i.e. the one which is normally used when we visit our younger children, so we four bigger people had to sit in small chairs at a small table. I guess that no rooms with larger furniture were not available at that time. We arrived a bit early, and were met, on the way into the room, by the lady who runs all of the preschool play groups in at least our end of the city. She knew my wife quite well, as my wife has often taken our younger children to the various community play groups. She knew, from lots of direct experience, how well my wife treats our children, and was very surprised to see us there. I wonder if the visit supervisor, who was there at that moment, took note of this. We had been given a cake the night before which was too big for us to eat. We, therefore, brought it along to share with our two daughters. On the way, we picked up some cake decorations, as well as something for all of us to drink. This, for them, was a totally unexpected treat. We offered a piece of cake to the visit supervisor, but she refused to accept it. There was some cake left, which our daughters took back to share with their foster parents. They told us later (Sunday) that their foster parents said that we must be nice parents to have let them do that. As usual, we brought along that day's news paper, and we did the word jumble. We tried to get the visit supervisor to try to figure out some of the words, but she pleaded incompetence and wouldn't even give it a try. We also did a good chunk of that day's crossword puzzle. They told us that they had met with their lawyer on Tuesday, and that she had asked them lots of questions. With the visit supervisor listening closely to everything which we said, however, none of us dared pursue the topic. They told us that they were being sent to a camp. The camp would begin the next day, i.e. Saturday, and run through until the next Saturday. They told us that they had told their foster parents that they didn't want to miss a Sunday visit, so their foster parents agreed to take them to the camp late, i.e. on Sunday evening after evening worship. We'll only miss visiting them, therefore, this Friday. The two new social workers whom we had met in court the day before, Nancy and Debbie, dropped in during the visit. They again both seemed to be rather good-natured ... Debbie being rather quiet, and Nancy being rather out-going. They mentioned the camp, and couldn't understand why both girls didn't seem all that excited about going. My wife and I both believe that this lack of enthusiasm is a symptom of their being fed up with being told where to go and when to do so, and that they just want to come back home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 20:31:33 -0400 (EDT) All of our children were at church yesterday. Our 7-, 6- and 2-year-old sons arrived late, i.e. after the start of the worship service. When our 5- and 4-year-old daughters spotted them entering the sanctuary, they immediately jumped up and, as loudly as they could, called out to them with very joyful voices. This went on for at least a minute, and I didn't have the heart to ask them to stop. Our pastor just stopped, and patiently waited for a reasonable opportunity to resume. I was told later that he was smiling, so he really didn't mind. After the service I asked one of our elders, as well as a few other people, if anyone in the congregation appeared to be annoyed, and was unanymously told that the sanctuary was full of smiling faces, and, therefore, that I needn't worry. The elder whom I'd asked even asked why anyone would want to stop such a genuine out-pouriing of joy. Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters had a dispute, right in the middle of morning worship, regarding who should take care of our baby's bag of stuff (snack, diapers, etc.). I may have made the wrong judgment call in trying to deal with this situation right then and there. I took it away from them, and this resulted in our 4-year-old daughter getting very angry. She began to cry so loudly and persistently that my wife ended up having to leave the sanctuary with our two youngest children. This selfishness in our 4-year-old daughter is an unfortunate consequence of what's been done to her this summer, and I sometimes just don't know whether to deal with it or whether to just let it be. I can't help but wonder how the visit supervisors report such events. The visit supervisors were the same two who were there during our first Sunday visit. They told us that, barring extenuating circumstances, it would always be them from now on, and that they would be taking turns staying after 3pm (the time when our three youngest children, along with one of the visit supervisors, leave). It is apparently felt that the same people supervise our visits as much as possible so that our children can have a chance to get to know, and to get used to, them. One is Yvonne (an English 33-year-old), and the other is Nathalie (a French 30-year-old). Yvonne was the one who stayed after 3pm this time. We had a special lunch for a family within our congregation who is moving to California this week. About the first two hours after morning worship, therefore, were somewhat different for the visit supervisors since about a hundred adults, as well as about that many children, provided a constant and confusing flow of activity. The visit supervisors spent a lot of time outside, talking with some members of our congregation. Their distance provided an excellent opportunity for us to freely discuss a lot of things with our children. The foster mother of our 14- and 12-year-old daughters knew about this special lunch, and asked our girls if they'd like her to bake a plate of peanutbutter cookies for the event. Our daughters said "yes", and she did. I even ate a couple of them myself, and they were very good. I think that this was a very nice thing for her to have done, and asked our daughters to thank her for us. I hope that they remembered to do so. Our 7-year-old son told us how the tooth fairy had come during a recent night and replaced his fallen out tooth with some money. I can't stand it when children, especially my own, are told such lies, and immediately, within the hearing of the visit supervisors, proceeded to tell him the truth. I told him how some adults think that it's fun to get children to believe such stories, how it really was his foster parents who snuck into his room while he was sleeping, and that characters such as fairies do not, and never have, existed. I wonder how this one will be reported. I learned a little bit more about how the children's lawyer does her job. She met with each child separately (a good technique, in my opinion, as it's a sure way to detect inconsistency), and also apparently gets a private audience with the judge so that neither we nor the CAS knows what she has to say (I'll try to confirm this latter point). She asked each child what she (she only had girls at that point) wanted the judge to know. At first she couldn't understand the desire to return home because she had been sure that the children were removed due to abuse. Our children told her that this was absolutely not true, and that the only reason for their removal was the fact that the house had become far too messy. One of our children even told her about our 2-year-old son's cries of "no" and "home" when leaving, and about our 4-year-old daughter's "I'm going to take all your children to jail" toy police car game. These last facts may well have been the reason that she had asked to be given the younger five children as well. At one point I was discussing our ordeal with an adult friend. I must have been really getting into it, and talking louder than I should have been, because one of the visit supervisors came over and rebuked me for saying things which might upset the children. I don't think that any of the children overheard me, because they were all fully involved in playing, albeit nearby, with other children who were there for the special lunch. Even if they did, however, the fact is that they're used to us never hiding anything from them. When the authorities speak, however, one has no choice but to comply. That conversation, therefore, ended rather abruptly forth with. Normally, on the third Sunday of each month, a group of us sing psalms for elderly people at nearby nursing homes. This is an activity which all of our children enjoy, but, CAS rules being what they are, we weren't able to go. Even if I were to try to negotiate a special allowance for this event, it wouldn't work out because of the fact that our three youngest children are picked up at 3pm (while we'd still be gone). Perhaps, next month, I shall try to negotiate such an allowance, along with the accompanying accommodation that our young children, on that day, be picked up at 4pm. Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters told us that they would be spending the next three days with another family, and that they would be picked up by these people, who were still strangers to them, from our church that afternoon. My wife and I were both very disturbed to hear this because such practices, in addition to the fact that they're now being handled by foster parents and social workers, slowly remove the healthy fear of strangers which every child should rightfully have being as the world is a rather evil place. This was the first time that our 2-year-old son didn't kick up a fuss when leaving. I guess he's finally learned that it just isn't worth the effort. I can only but wonder just what long term damage this newly developed complacency of his is a sign of. Throughout this entire ordeal, my wife has noticed, and I can confirm, that our 2-year-old son seems to be fearful of diaper changes. He kicks and screams whenever this needs to be done. Again, I can only but wonder why. Some time just before 5pm, our 7-year-old son's eye got hurt. Everyone agrees that he had grabbed his 16-year-old brother's arm, and that the older boy's elbow collided with his eye, but no one is sure of the precise and total chain of events. Neither my wife nor I did much because our assessment was that no wrong had been perpetrated and that no significant harm had been done. I hope that the visit supervisor didn't interpret this as a lack of concern. Our children really do like playing with objects which remind them of home. This time, even though the church nursery is full of toys, they spent a lot of time playing with my talking clock and our measuring tape. They measured everything in sight, and were only forbidden to take a measurement when the goal was to determine how fat the visit supervisor was. At the end of the visit, I gave the visit supervisor our 6-year-old son's glasses and told her that they were only to be used during special activities wherein good vision was critical so that his poor eye could get adequate exercise at all other times. I hope his foster parents will listen, and not think that they know best. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 21:12:53 -0400 (EDT) Our 2-year-old son arrived right on time. He walked to a point right between my wife and myself, and then looked back and forth, from one to the other, as if he couldn't decide whom to go to first. What a decision for such a young child to have to make. Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters arrived about ten minutes late. We were told that this was due to a mix-up in who would do the driving, and suspect that the root cause was that they are staying with someone other than their foster parents for a few days. Our 4-year-old daughter sure has a way with games. Last Monday it was "I'm going to take all your children to jail". Today it was "let's push Dominique all the way out of the room". Dominique, of course, is our mid-week visit supervisor, whom she undoubtedly associates very closely with her apprehention. I told her that he really was a nice guy (and he is), so it would be quite mean to do a thing like that to him. I then went on to tell her that, even if he were a mean guy, such an action would still be very wrong. I wonder how he interpreted her statement. Our 4-year-old daughter apparently locked herself in the bathroom. The visit supervisor had to leave the room to get a special ring of keys, and clearly showed, at least in my opinion, that he (more likely, all of them) was ill-prepared to handle such an emergency. He tried a few keys, jiggled the handle a bit, and eventually did push the door open. I then went inside to figure out just how the mechanism worked (he showed no evidence of having such an idea). I discovered that there was no way that one could lock the door from the inside because, when locked, the inner handle still functioned as usual. The real problem, in my opinion, is the fact that the door jams quite a bit, and that our daughter paniced when she turned the handle but couldn't apply enough strength to get the door to budge. I mentioned my analyssis to the visit supervisor, but he didn't appear to note it. Going into the bathroom with her, and showing her that the door could be easily opened from the inside when locked, went part of the way to calming her down. I then sat down on a chair, placed her on my lap, and gave her my talking clock to play with. Within a few minutes she was all cheered up again. Major renovations are being done to the Pinecrest Queensway building. During this visit, the work being done involved some very loud drilling which seemed to be right within the walls and floor of the room which we were in. This frightened our children, and, therefore, we spent a fair bit of time comforting them and trying to explain to them what was going on. Our 2-year-old son again didn't put up a fight when it was time for him to leave. This time he said good-bye to both my wife and myself when he saw the visit supervisor coming to get him, and then peacefully allowed himself to be taken from my arm. Our 4-year-old daughter showed her desire to stay by refusing to help put away the toys. This is an activity which she usually used to enjoy whenever my wife took her to a play group. Our 2-year-old son somehow hit his mouth with a toy while helping to put it away. Our children have now started referring to where they're staying as "home". Rightly or wrongly, this hurts quite deeply. The knife is driven even deeper when they use terms like "foster dad" and "foster mom". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 21:39:50 -0400 (EDT) Undetectably, ever so slowly over time, this process of removing children from their home inflicts at least the following harms (in no particular order) upon them: First: The child eventually becomes estranged from his parents and from his siblings. Second: The child becomes used to accepting demands made by apparently kind strangers. Third: The implicit trust which a young child must have in his parents, fallable as they are, is smashed. Fourth: The parents' authority is negated, and insubordination is taught. Fifth: The child is taught conflicting sets of values. Sixth: Raw materialism is strongly promoted. Seventh: Discipline is drastically reduced, if not entirely eliminated. Eighth: The parents' knowledge of what's best for the child's development is ignored. Ninth: The safety and comfort which a child needs for proper emotional development is removed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 09:13:09 -0400 (EDT) Yesterday an incident occurred which is still really eating at me. May God grant me the ability to calm down since, as He puts it in James 1:20, "For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.". Heather Clark (the in-take worker) left me voice mail at home yesterday while we were out visiting our three youngest children. She was responding to the voice mail I'd left her on Friday regarding my insistance that our 6-year-old son was only to wear his glasses during class, and that, therefore, I'd be dropping them off at his school in September. She was obviously unaware, at least at that point, of the fact that I'd already delivered his glasses to the visit supervisor on Sunday evening. This lack of information flow within the CAS no longer surprises me since, due to the same phenomenon, we've almost missed visits with our children because of changes which were made without notification. Her first point was that they still needed his glasses since it would be they, and not we, who'd be registering him for school. Her clear implication was that they, i.e. the CAS, wanted us, his parents and the ones who are ultimately responsible for his long term well-being and care, to have nothing to do with his school at this point. This, among other things, undoubtedly means that we will be forced to miss his parental concerns and educational planning meeting which occurs early in the school year. It also probably means that they'll begin to feed the school their one-sided story of how incapable they feel we are as his parents. Her second point, true to our lawyer's warning on Friday, is that she asked us to deliver to her written confirmation from an expert verifying that our position regarding the restricted use of his glasses is correct. For the record: Dr. Clark (no relation, I hope) is an ophthalmologist who works at the Children's Hospital, and who has been seeing our son about every half a year since he was about 1. He has insisted all along, right up to and including our most recent appointment with him this past March, that our son should not use glasses at all because his eye needed constant exercise. We, along with his teacher, noticed, however, that he was missing out on a few things in class due to his less than perfect vision. WE, therefore, independently had him assessed for glasses, and decided to use them during those short times in class when his teacher felt they would be beneficial. This, therefore, is a case wherein we, the parents, along with a teacher, felt the need to selectively over-rule the opinion of one expert, to deliberately seek out another expert whom we knew would have a different opinion, to synthesize both sets of expert concerns and advice, and to come up with what we, the ones actually responsible for our son on a continual basis, really felt was the best possible course of action. Regardless of what the CAS may think, I still think it was the right thing to do. Both experts, after all, were right from their own individual perspectives, and it's just that there's rarely, if ever, any one single ideal way to put it all together. Now ... just what is it that's eating at me so badly over all of this? As part of making her latter point, i.e. the need for us to now seek out expert confirmation, she stated that she was making this request in order to ensure that no stone was left unturned, and to ensure that our son was receiving the best possible care. How can she say that, given the way the CAS itself is now treating our children? All they're doing is separately managing a bunch of individual aspects of our children's physical care, while totally neglecting their souls, spirits, emotions, etc. Our children's bodies may be well looked after, but their personalities, feelings, concerns, and innermost needs are being ignored. They remind me so much of the pharisees in Jesus's day, whom he rebuked, in Matthew 23:24, by saying "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.". No child can ever be adequately cared for by merely meeting his physical needs. No child can possibly be receiving the best possible care simply by arbitrarily combining the opinions of a bunch of disjoint experts while not considering his whole being. We live in a world of many specialists, but very few general practitioners, wherein the people suffer. Yes, indeed, I'm very angry over this! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 11:03:23 -0400 (EDT) >Are your >children pleading to come home? They aren't, but that's because of an under-lying life principle which we've taught all of them, i.e. that God, while He may well allow difficult situations to come to pass, is always in control of all things and, if it is His will, will bring such things to an end. We've also, against CAS advice, kept them well-informed regarding what's going on, so they know that we're doing all that we can to bring an end to this mess. We've also advised them to remain patient, while never missing an opportunity, e.g. telling all to their children's lawyer, to help. >How's the house-hunting going? We've already found the house we want, and are now fully committed to having to pay for it. >Will CAS insist on approving a purchase? They haven't said anything about that yet, and I, not wishing to stir the pot unnecessarily, haven't dared to ask. I'm sure hoping that they won't, as a last resort, tell us that our children won't be returned because our latest investment, which will nearly break us financially, is, in their expert opinion, unacceptable. >Most important in all of this: How are the children doing??? They still love to see us, and love to see one another. Their love for their family doesn't seem to have been shaken by any of this yet. Our 5-, 4- and 2-year-old are showing signs of stress (the younger the age the greater the stress), but, so far, nothing which appears to be beyond undoing. With another month and a half to go until the next hearing (plus who knows how much time beyond that), however, and with them now about to start school under the supervision of others, who knows what'll happen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 21:10:57 -0400 (EDT) Today we had a visit with our 10- and 8-year-old daughters, and 7- and 6-year-old sons. They were all there. Our 6-year-old son was wearing his glasses when he arrived, which means that his foster parents have indeed been ignoring our wishes in this area. It is, of course, possible that my instructions, given to the visit supervisor on Sunday evening, had not yet reached them, but they still have no excuse since I told them personally about a month ago. We took his glasses off near the beginning of the visit, tried to remind him that he should only be wearing them in school, and tried to encourage him to tell this to his foster parents. Our 8-year-old daughter is still going, on her own, to a park near to her foster parents' home but which can't be seen from there. This is a matter of great concern to both my wife and myself, as we firmly believe that no child that young should be left unattended, especially in as unsafe an environment as a city park. Again, either the foster parents are ignoring instructions or the CAS is not passing them along. May God grant that our daughter will be kept from harm in spite of this irresponsible behaviour on the part of the authorities. Again, there was lots of noisy, floor shaking, construction. A new stairway, complete with skylight, is being installed, and most of the noise was from powerful steel-cutting tools. A lot of welding was also being done, and this provided a lot of impressive flashes. Our children were fascinated by all of the work, and we spent a fair bit of time talking about it. Our 8-year-old daughter gave us a real live demonstration of the wandering lifestyle she's now being permitted to live by, without notice, quietly walking out of the visiting room to watch the construction work right up close. Our 7-year-old son likes doing odd jobs with me. This, of course, has essentially become an impossible activity to share these days. I had an idea earlier this week, though, which turned out to work. My pager battery had gotten too low, but I just left it that way so that he could replace it for me during our visit. He really enjoyed doing that. It's surprising how significant even the little things have become. An incident of a negative nature must have occurred between our 7-year-old son and our 8-year-old daughter. I'm not sure what it was, because it was on the other side of the room and I wasn't paying close enough attention, but my attention was immediately drawn to it when I heard him telling her "I don't care because I don't have to say I'm sorry". None of our children have ever said anything like that before. Even if they were at times tempted to do so, they would never have dared. I guess it's just yet another example of the lack of discipline which exists in foster homes. When our children were leaving, our 8-year-old daughter said that she would be taking something (I forget exactly what) "home". I told her, as quietly as I could, that she wasn't going "home", and she answered that she knew that. I think that the children are rather innocently using the term as a convenient means of referring to the place where they are staying, and, therefore, perhaps it oughtn't hurt us so. It was then, however, that something rather surprising happened. Our 7-year-old son wanted to know what I had just told his sister. I, not wanting to attract the attention of the visit supervisor too much, and figuring that it wasn't a point I should be making a big deal out of in front of CAS staff, just kept silent. Not being used to what he must have interpreted as secret-telling, and not being used to me refusing to answer a question of his, he persisted. The visit supervvisor, who had obviously overheard (or guessed) what I had told her, answered for me. He told the truth, i.e. that I had told her that she was going to her foster home and not to her home. In addition, I then realized that he, all along, had consistently been very careful, on his own, to use terms like "return", "go back", etc., but never "home". He is clearly very sensitive to the issue. Emma, the social worker who is now responsible for the four of our children who were present at today's visit, dropped in a few minutes before leaving time. She was the one who wasn't present at last week's hearing, and wanted to meet us and to introduce herself. She, too, seems to be a nice lady. I, never being one to sit on a fence for too long, and usually having something to say, dove right in. I'm not sure what her official take on what I did is, but it's got to be one of me either being a great trouble maker or having an intense and relentless desire to care for my children. After reasonably cordial mutual introductions, I launched right into it by saying: "Well, then, your first assignment from me is" ... I then told her exactly how we felt regarding our 6-year-old son's foster parents' blatant disregard for our instructions regarding the use of his glasses, including how his ophthalmologist of five years didn't want him to wear them at all, as well as how we, together with his teacher, had made our own slight, but highly restrictive, modification to those instructions so that he wouldn't lose out on certain class activities. She seemed to take this concern of ours very seriously, and instructed the visit supervisor, who was, just then, leaving to take our children down to their waiting cars, to personally tell the foster parents that they were to do, at least for the time being, as we wished. He must have done so, and they must have listened, because our 16-year-old son told us that he could see, from the window, that our 6-year-old son wasn't wearing his glasses as they drove off. After our children left, we continued to discuss this issue for a bit. She revealed something about her past which may help explain why she appeared to be so understanding regarding these concerns of ours, i.e. that she had worked for a time at the Thunderbay Children's Treatment Centre (which means that she would have worked with children just like our son). My wife signed a waiver so that she could talk to Dr. Clark (the ophthalmologist), and I told her that I would be happy to change my position on this issue if Dr. Clark were to change his. I also told her that, as far as I am concerned, the real problem is that which is under-lying this issue, i.e. that the CAS appeared to be far more willing to listen to the uninformed opinions of those who really don't know what's best, i.e. the foster parents, rather than to the informed directions of those who really did know what's best, i.e. the parents. We mentioned to her our disappointment at not having been able to take part in this past Sunday's psalm singing at an elderly people's home near our church. We gave her the date of the next such outing, and raised the complication of the conflicting pick-up time for our three youngest children. I got the impression that she would look into this issue. We told her about the fact that our children, during the school year, all attend an Awana (Scripture memory) club each Thursday evening. She indicated a favourable attitude toward recreational activities, and I think that she just might undertake to arrange for our children to continue to take part in this one. We told her how disappointed our children were that we couldn't all go to Silver Lake this year. She listened, but I don't personally think this one will go anywhere because of the complications surrounding the supervision of such an extended visit (Friday afternoon through Monday afternoon) so far out of town on a long weekend. We raised our concern at being left out of school-related meetings and relationships with teachers. She said that she would look into arranging for us to be involved in all such events. We told her about our concerns regarding the apparent lack of discipline within the foster homes. We mentioned our 8-year-old daughter's unattended trips to the neighbourhood park, as well as our 7-year-old son's rude unwillingness to apologize earlier today during the visit. She didn't say a lot in response, so I'm not sure what her position is or what, if anything, she'll do. I told her that it felt like we were being treated like criminals in all areas just because we had been faulted in one area. She then told us that she, at least, had no intention of treating us like criminals. I told her that I would start off assuming the best of her, that she shouldn't take my expressions of frustration personally because they're really caused by the process, and observed that it may be just the in-take people who seemed to be such a mean crew. She assured us that she had written down all of our concerns, and that she would be following up on them. She also told us that she listens to what people like doctors say as interesting extras, and that she really does listen to what parents say. May this be true. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:02:02 -0400 (EDT) >You don't know me, but I've known you for many years, and have respected >both your technical skills and your Christian witness here at Nortel. >Recently it was brought to my attention that you (or someone with the >same name as you) ran into trouble with Children's Aid Yes, it's us. We have thirteen children, and the nine who were under sixteen were all taken away on July 13. >(every parent's >nightmare). Yes, indeed, it is. Even more so for my wife, as she, when she was little, was taken away from her parents. She has been plagued by this fear ever since the birth of our first child. Now, it's finally happened. She's having an incredibly hard time with this. >If this is true, I'm wondering if there is anything I can do >to help or support you? Prayer, of course, is essential. Beyond that, it's really hard to say since we've never been through a process like this, or even one remotely like it, before. Only a month and a half ago I was humourously boasting that I belonged to the "I don't know a lawyer" club. All kinds of allegations, based on anonymous reports and school-invented inuendos, are being made, e.g. physical child abuse, emotional child abuse, non-functional marriage, etc. None of these will go anywhere, but, in order to bypass the CAS's three month waiting list and subsequent six month completion time (to get through all of us), and to avoid the highly biased people whom they prefer to use, it's going to cost me $10,000 to retain the services of a good private psychologist. I'm hoping to get at least a bit of it back through our medical plan. They do have one legitimate thing against us. Due to a long list of trials which we, as a family, have been through, we let the physical state of our house fall into disaster. In order to deal with this, we: have cleaned up this place, are purchasing a new house which is much better designed for a family our size and which is in a much better location for us, have listed our old property for sale, are searching for reasonably cheap but good replacement furniture which is both rugged and easy to keep clean, are developing rules to deal with areas in which we now know we were too lax, are giving up our dog since his voluminous shedding is a significant cleaning burden which we just don't need, and are working together with a lady from our congregation to develop a household maintenance plan which we hope will be bullet-proof from a CAS perspective. I'm sure there's more to be done, as I'm sure that the CAS won't give up too easily, but, due to my ignorance in these matters, I don't know what it might be. If you have any ideas, or if you can think of something wherein we could benefit from whatever your areas of expertise are, we would indeed greatly appreciate your time and efforts. The real sufferers in all of this, of course, are the children. The nine children who were taken have been split up across five different foster homes from one end of the region to the other. The general CAS approach seems to be one of micro-managing each individual miniscule detail of each child's physical well-being, but one of total neglect with respect to their emotional, spiritual, disciplinary, etc. needs. Our children are being involuntarily sent away to lengthy camps in spite of the fact that this means the missing of many court-ordered visits. During visits it's really difficult to have true quality time because a CAS worker is right there, ever listening and observing, relentlessly assessing every single thing which is said or done. Our next hearing is on October 2, and the CAS has emphatically stated that there's absolutely no chance that they'd even consider returning our children to us before ten. Their attitude seems to be one of insisting that decisions are only ever made by judges. I guess this is their way of doing what most people in our generation do, i.e. find ways to avoid taking any personal responsibility. While the slow legal process rolls on, therefore, our children's lives hang in what must be to them a seemingly endless state of unwanted and indeterminable flux. We, as parents, also now wonder just how much damage control we'll have to do when they eventually are returned. Thank you so much for your concern. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 12:50:08 -0400 (EDT) >How are things going on the home front? We are, given the current situation, doing quite well. Our children want to come home, and my wife still cries several times a day. One good thing is that there is plenty of evidence that our children's love for us, as well as for each other (they've been split across five different foster homes from one end of the region to the other), doesn't seem to have weakened. >Rest assured that my prayers continue to be with you and >Ruby for a speedy resolution to this whole situation. Thank you very much. Our next hearing is on October 2. This may well be speedy from a legal perspective. As you may know, the CAS wants our entire family to undergo a full assessment (they're now claiming that we perpetrate emotional abuse upon our children and that we have a dysfunctional marriage). The people they prefer to use have a three month waiting list and would then take another six months to process all of us. Our lawyer got the judge to agree to his recommendation for a psychologist, who is apparently ready to start almost immediately and to work much faster. >Proverbs tells >us, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; lean not on your own >understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct all >your paths." A good reminder. It also provides an opportunity for me to let you know about one of the complications, i.e. my wife is not a believer. Neither of us were when we married, way back in the late 70s, and, for whatever reason, God only chose to save me so far. Perhaps He's using this situation to bring her to a point where she has no choice but to trust in Him. >What is your level of bandwidth / connectivity these days? The biggest problem is that my available time is rather sparse, which makes it hard to dedicate myself for significant lengths of time to any given task. We have three child visits during the week, each of which consumes about a half a day. Especially after them, but at many other times too, my wife needs a lot of emotional support. Then there's the time I'm spending documenting the process and its effects on our children. As well, we're working to develop a fully documented household maintenance plan (rather large and detailed for a family our size) which we hope will be bullet-proof, and which we hope will quell yet another CAS concern. Then, of course, there are the random times (at which we drop everything) when any of the nine children whom they took calls. There are also the occasional trips to pickup new furniture, all the things one must do associated with moving, keeping concerned people up-to-date, etc. Add to all of these the psychological assessment process (whenever it'll start and, during which, my wife will need a great deal more emotional support), as well as whatever else I've forgotten. You probably get the picture. Talk about ones entire life being uprooted and torn apart at a moment's notice! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 15:04:55 -0400 (EDT) Dominique (mid-week visit supervisor) and I talked by phone yesterday in order to mutually confirm that today's visit with our 14- and 12-year-old daughters wouldn't be taking place because they're at a camp. I continue to get the impression that he's quite a nice guy. During our conversation, he remembered to inform me that next Friday's visit has been rescheduled to 2pm. We then both observed that all of the mid-week visits would likely be rescheduled when school starts. I asked him if he'd have to work in the evenings, to which he responded that he didn't know. I somewhat jokingly, but also somewhat seriously, mentioned that it'd all be so much easier if they'd only allow our children to return home, to which he responded that he knew, but that it wasn't his job to make that kind of decision. My wife has been very concerned that he might have misunderstood our 4-year-old daughter's comment about pushing him all the way out of the room on Monday. This conversation led right into an opportunity to deal with that. I told him that I knew it wasn't his job to make such decisions, but that our daughter probably didn't understand. I then repeated her statement so that he'd know exactly what I was referring to, and observed that, even though I knew what she had meant, I still used it as an opportunity to teach her a better attitude. He again showed insight by saying that it was always important to make the best of every situation, and I agreed. Tomorrow, our 18-year-old daughter will be returning from her two-month stay at Galilee Bible Camp where she's been doing kitchen work, counselling, etc. throughout the summer. We've already had a chance to talk with her at length about what's happened here (both on the phone and, thanks to a friend of ours giving up his afternoon to drive me out there, in person). The very Godly director of the camp has also taken her aside and had a long talk with her to ensure that she's okay. My guess, though, is that she'll have a few sad hours when she finally gets home and, upon seeing the emptiness here, will finally be directly faced with the stark and cold reality of the situation. I can't wait to see the joy of the reunion between her and her younger brothers and sisters when they meet on Sunday. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 14:52:15 -0400 (EDT) I now realize that God, through a number of events earlier this year, has, all along, slowly but surely, been gently preparing me for our current ordeal. Early this year I was irresistably drawn to a book which was being read, a half hour at a time, each weekday afternoon, on my favourite radio station. It was about a girl (Amy George), still living, who was born in 1936, and whose family was almost completely torn apart by soviet communism and then by Hitler's Germany. The appeal of this story to me, at the time, was that it gave me additional insight into the ruthlessness of my own ancestry. The real intent of the book, however, which ultimately impressed itself upon me much more than the other, was how God oversaw the whole situation, and slowly, over a number of decades, eventually brought each of them to faith and all of them back together again. A couple of months later, I was again irresistably drawn to another book which was then being read. It was a woman's description of how she felt during the time which followed an accident which claimed the life of her husband. She clearly described what her sense of loss felt like, the kinds of things that others would say which brought more hurt than healing, and the kinds of emotional support she really found helpful. What ideal preparation this was with respect to knowing what my wife, having just lost most of our children, now feels. A couple of weeks before our children were apprehended, I had been humourously boasting to a couple of people at work that I was one of the very few who belonged to the "I don't know a lawyer" club. How little did I realize that that preferred status was about to expire. The Sunday evening before our children were apprehended, my children and I were, as often happened, vigorously engaged in a Biblically-oriented discussion. One of them (I can't remember which) said something (I no longer can recall the details) about those who claim to have faith but, when it comes time to apply it to significant problems in their day-to-day lives, there's little, if any, of it to be found. I responded with a very strong statement to the effect that such people may have no faith at all, and, therefore, are probably not saved. My statement was so strong, in fact, that I can remember feeling extremely convicted, immediately pausing, and then saying that, given that I had just made such a forceful assessment regarding others, it just might be my turn next. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 23:58:08 -0400 (EDT) Our 18-year-old daughter returned home last night, after having been away for two months, and was back at church with all of us today. Our 4-year-old daughter wanted to spend as much time with her as she could. She used to whine, scream, and behave very selfishly in order to monopolize my wife and my time, but, today, she did so in order to monopolize her big sister. She wanted to be the personal care-taker of her camp pictures, and kicked up an extreme fuss whenever we'd take them away from her for fear that she'd damage them. She did some major crying whenever her big sister had to leave the kitchen for a moment. After lunch, the two of them finally found a couple of hours to sit down and read some books together. That seemed to solve the problem. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters were back from a week at a camp. It turned out to be the same one which our 7- and 6-year-old sons had been to a couple of weeks ago, so both sets of children spent a lot of time happily exchanging stories, and talking about the people (and dogs) who ran the camp. It apparently is some sort of Christian camp, as Christian songs were sung and testimonies were given. One of the head people also apparently said something to the effect that if anyone didn't want to hear anything about the Bible then he shouldn't have come. Our 2-year-old son did a lot of rather strained crying today, both during morning worship and lunch. He also started to hit a few of us on our heads rather forcefully with a toy hammer. I told one of the visit supervisors that it was because this whole ordeal has been rather hard on him, and, although I can't remember her exact response, it seemed to be somewhat empathetic. I then added that this whole ordeal has been rather hard on all of us. When he realized that it was time for him to leave, he very clearly said "no, foster mommy, not", clung to my wife with all his strength, and began to do some serious crying. My wife took him to change his diaper, at which point his crying increased. When the visit supervisor asked her if she was changing his diaper because it was time for him to leave, he, understanding what was being said, began to cry even more. As he was being taken away, he gave up the fight and just started to say good-bye to each of us individually by name. Our 6-year-old son also frequently expressed his desire to return home. After morning worship, he told me that his foster sister had told him that he now lived there, and then asked me if he could come home with us. Just before evening worship, he asked me if he'd be going home. I asked him where home was, and he said that it was with us. I told him that he wouldn't be going with us, and asked him where he thought he'd be going. His answer was "back", and, in context, I knew he meant "back with them". During evening worship, he again asked me if he would be going home with us. Our 7-year-old son had a very interesting way of expressing his thoughts regarding what has happened. We were joking with each other about making announcements to the congregation. He told me that I should announce that I couldn't go to the Silver Lake camp next weekend because I was in prison. This was undoubtedly a reference to his knowledge that my wife and I wouldn't be going there because we didn't want to miss a Sunday visit with our children. Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters, who have shared the same room for years, told us that they, even though they're both in the same foster home, have been placed into two separate rooms and are not allowed to go into each other's rooms. Our 8-year-old daughter, knowing that my wife's birthday is next weekend, but also knowing that she can't do much about it, drew her a very nice picture of a birthday cake with lots of candles on it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 15:03:38 -0400 (EDT) Today we had a visit with our 5- and 4-year-old daughters and our 2-year-old son. We were already in the room, with the door closed, when they arrived. It was really neat to hear their voices suddenly get very excited as soon as they saw the room and knew that we were in there. Our 18-year-old daughter was with us, which meant that there were enough bigger people to go around. As soon as they entered the room, our 2-year-old went to my wife, our 4-year-old went to her big sister, and our 5-year-old came to me. Having this even match between big and little people seemed to make things go a lot smoother as very little competition for attention took place. Our 2- and 4-year-olds still did fight for the possession of each other's toys, with the older child usually winning. Both my wife and I wanted to intervene, but didn't because we both sensed that, were we to do so, our children would misinterpret our actions as favouritism and resume their attention coveting whining. At one point the visit supervisor did take a toy away from the older child, and gave it to the younger one. They responded peacefully to this because, as I see it, they see him, and not us,as the authority. This is a role substitution that ought never be, but, we too, know all too well that that's just the way it is. I wonder how the visit supervisor interpreted, and reported, all of this. Our 2-year-old son again made a noticeable fuss when my wife took him to change his diaper. We went together this time, leaving our other children with our oldest daughter and the visit supervisor. I continually played with him while she changed him, and this calmed him down quite a bit. I think that he still interprets diaper changing as a sign that his departure is imminent, but this time, because he was also being played with, he understood that we still wanted him there. We also then carried him back out into the visiting room, and made a special attempt to continue to play specifically with him for the next few minutes. This time, when it actually was time to leave, he did so peacefully. Something very interesting, which illustrates one of the serious problems within the system, happened later. Our 5-year-old's kindergarten teacher-to-be called to arrange an entrance interview. I told her that our daughter wouldn't be in her class, and about what had happened to our family this summer, to which she responded that she didn't know what to say. I then told her that this whole episode began because of the way in which school staff now report suspicions to the CAS, and mentioned that, if she had access to the web, I could tell her where she could read all of my notes regarding these events. Her response to this invitation was very revealing. She said that she wasn't sure what the legalities were, and, even after a bit more prompting, never did ask for the address of the web page. I even went as far as to tell her that the system of which she is a part is doing tremendous damage because no one within it has the courage to stand up and proclaim that something is in great need of correction. She was effectively telling me, therefore, that professionalism demanded that she not get involved, and that she simply trust that her colleagues and superiors were doing the right thing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 16:52:42 -0400 (EDT) >How are you handling the school-start thing? Other than the phone call with the lady who was to be our 5-year-old daughter's kindergarten teacher this year (described earlier), we haven't contacted any schools regarding those of our children who were taken. I'm not sure if this is something which we should, or shouldn't, be doing. My inclination at the moment is to let the CAS be the first to contact the schools so that, so long as well-trained professionalism doesn't get in the way, the social workers will be faced with a genuine element of surprise when they explain what they've done to us. I have managed to convince the social workers that our older children, i.e. our 14- and 12-year-old daughters, should be registered in their home schools since it's foolish to mess around with post-elementary education schedules. Our 6-year-old son, the one with cerebral palsy, will also be back in his school at the Ottawa Children's Treatment Centre because that's really the only choice. I suspect that our 10-, 8- and 7-year-olds, however, will be registered in different schools, and subsequently need to be transferred upon their return, since their foster homes are rather far away. We have told the CAS that we don't want our 4-year-old daughter registered in junior kindergarten since we don't believe that it's a good thing. It remains to be seen whether or not they'll honour our wishes. If they don't, then, when she's finally returned to us, I guess I'll have to figure out how to deregister her without incurring official wrath from some other source. Our 2-year-old son, of course, is too young for school. If he and/or his 4-year-old sister are foisted off into some sort of daycare centre, we'll really be most displeased. It's hard to be sure regarding how much school contacting the CAS will be doing. We've had to sign a waiver so that they can talk to the principal of the OCTC school in order to arrange transportation for our 6-year-old son. If they need a waiver for that, then I would think that they'd also need waivers for all other contacts with school staff. Since, however, we haven't been asked to sign any other such waivers, something somewhat strange appears to be going on. Perhaps the real reason that they wanted that waiver was that they know they'll have some explaining to do since he's returning to the same school which he was in last year. it'll feel really strange, next week, when all of the school buses go by here (ours is a very busy school bus corner) and neither of us is out there waiting with our children. A concern we have is whether or not the staff of our children's schools will now be viewing us with an extra degree of on-going suspicion since we now have become official victims of the system. My guess, and I sure hope I'm wrong, is that they'll be ever-so-ready to phone in even the slightest of suspicions, and that they'll always treat us with some amount of distrust. With all of the secret reporting which is being done, we may never know until the next build-up of innuendos strikes without warning. As can be clearly seen from my discussion with the kindergarten teacher earlier today, the school's inclination is to believe the authorities rather than the parents. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 14:03:26 -0400 (EDT) There are some more things about this past Sunday's visit which I think are worth mentioning: While we were discussing the fact that our 10- and 8-year-old daughters have been given separate rooms in the same house, our 8-year-old began to quietly cry for about a half an hour. We made several attempts to ask her to tell us what was wrong, but she just remained silent and continued to cry. A little later, away from the ever-watchful visit supervisor, my wife asked her privately why she had been crying, to which she responded that she really wanted to come home. The three oldest children who were taken (14, 12, 10) told us about how the in-take social workers (Heather Clark and Tina Hatton) had tried to force them to like them via tactics like invitations to icecream places, hamburger places, etc. They told us that they weren't fooled by such things, and had responded with questions like "why should we want to go there". They told us quite blatantly, entirely on their own, that they didn't like Heather and Tina at all, that they thought their new social workers were much nicer, and that they were glad that they no longer had to talk to the former two. During dinner, our 18-year-old daughter told us that she had received a small amount of money ($100 I think) for having served at the camp for the whole two months, but that, since she didn't know what to do with it, she had just given it back to the camp. Our 12-year-old daughter then told her that she should have kept it and used it to help pay for our lawyer. She said that, although it wasn't much, it would help. We certainly appreciated her innocent and heart-felt concern, and hope that she never loses her perspective that even the little things count. Also, during dinner, forgetting for a moment that my every action was being assessed, I told our children about our 2-year-old son's "no foster mommy not" protest when it was time for him to leave. It'll be interesting to see if I'm faulted for having done this. We're a family which is used to sharing everything, so, due to force of habit, and also due to a sense that doing otherwise would be wrong, it's very hard for us to refrain from saying things to one another which the CAS has told us not to say or which we think they might not approve of. During morning worship, an almost newborn baby was baptized. Whenever we have a baptism, our pastor always takes some time to explain a theological aspect of the sacrament. This time, he taught about how baptism does not, and cannot, save anyone, and of the importance for the parents of the child to teach her of the need for her to seek salvation and to personally know Jesus. One of the visit supervisors is Roman Catholic, so I'm sure that she found this teaching to be, at the very least, rather interesting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 15:27:34 -0400 (EDT) >If I read this right . . . a CAS supervisor is monitoring your family at >church. . . Is that the case? Yes. Two visit supervisors show up at 10am, which is also when our children arrive, and when morning worship begins. One of them leaves just after the three youngest children are picked up at 3pm, and the other leaves at 7pm, when evening worship ends, and when the other six children are picked up. The visit supervisors always try to stay rather close to my wife and myself, so there isn't a lot we can do outside of their notice. We are, therefore, under the CAS's ever-watchful eyes and ears for the whole nine hours. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 22:11:07 -0400 (EDT) Right beside the CAS's Pinecrest Queensway offices, where we went to visit our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons today, there is a used car lot which has the practice of attaching helium-filled balloons of various colours to its cars. They were filling and attaching balloons as we were passing by, so my wife, on a whim, went over and asked if they had any extra ones. They gave her four, which is exactly the number of children we were on our way to visit. In that CAS room chalked full of toys, our children hardly touched any. One of the things they did have a lot of fun with, however, was tossing those balloons around. The four balloons were initially tied together with a single string. Our 10-year-old daughter spent a fair bit of time carefully untying that string from each balloon, cutting it into four equal lengths, and retying each piece to its own balloon. Each child picked the colour that he/she wanted without even a tiny bit of contention. They also then helped to tie our 6-year-old son's balloon string around his arm so that, given his more limited motor skills, he wouldn't lose it. Those helium-filled balloons also gave our 7-year-old son an opportunity to play a little more vigorously. While they were unattached from their string, they would often float up to the ceiling. He had all kinds of fun jumping on and off chairs in order to retrieve them. Our 16-year-old son helped our 6-year-old son also get in on the action by lifting him up really high up so that he could grab them. At one point, our 7-year-old son, in his rambunctiousness, managed to commandeer Dominique's (the visit supervisor) chair. Dominique was fairly insistant about getting it back. I wonder if that was because it was the only big chair in the room, or because he had to get back to his note taking. My wife also brought along one of those disposable cameras, and each of our children had lots of fun trying to take pictures of various combinations of the other people who were present. This activity only came to an abrupt end when the film ran out. My wife and a couple of the older children spent some time trying to teach our 6-year-old son how to use the camera. This was a bit of a challenge, as he was having trouble doing things like keeping his fingers away from in front of the lens, but, eventually, with some assistance, he did manage to take a couple of pictures which we think might turn out. When our children came in, they showed us all of the toys which they had brought with them. Our 6- and 7-year-old sons had a bag containing ten different types of cars and trucks. Our 10-year-old daughter had a rather well-equipped art set. They also told us about the most exciting things they had most recently done. The boys had each been given a turn to ride on a real motorcycle this morning, and each noted that the ride was rather bumpy. The girls had been taken on a trip to the Thousand Islands yesterday, and gave my wife a wrapped up package, containing a souvenir from there, for her upcoming birthday. The boys told us that they will be joining a bowling league in a couple of weeks. We found out that our 10- and 8-year-old daughters are receiving $5 per week without having to do any household chores. Their only obligation appears to be putting their dishes into the dishwasher after each meal. They told us that their foster father leaves messes, especially in his car, for his wife to clean up, and openly acknowledges that he's too lazy to clean up after himself. I wasn't surprised, therefore, when they also told us that the boys in that home have rather messy rooms. They are, after all, just following the example which is being presented to them. Our 8-year-old daughter sat on my lap for twenty minutes or so, and insisted that I hold her with both arms rather tightly. Whenever someone would want to take either her or my picture, she would rest her head on my shoulder with her cheek right up against mine. She eventually went over to our 18-year-old daughter, and the two of them painted pictures, with our 10-year-old daughter's pastels, for most of the rest of the visit. Among other things, they each painted a very nice rose. In addition, since our 8-year-old daughter knows that my wife's birthday is coming up, she drew her a horse (an animal which my wife very much enjoys). Our 10-year-old daughter also sat on my lap, and wanted to be held, for about the whole last hour of our visit. That's where she was while she did the balloon distribution. She also told me many things, including giving me a very detailed description of the boats which she and her sister were on during their Thousand Islands trip. Her thoughts also turned to more serious issues. At one point, our 18-year-old daughter asked her if she wanted to draw anything (it was, after all, her art set). She gave an answer which may be the saddest statement I've heard yet, i.e. that she no longer drew anything because all of her ideas were left at home. She also told me that she had hoped that this would have been all over before school started. I told her how pleased I was that she had remained so patient this long, and asked her to continue to be patient because the legal process is just so slow. My explanation of why it was taking so long led to a brief discussion about the false charges which the CAS is claiming us to be guilty of, e.g. abuse, which may or may not have been overheard by the visit supervisor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 02:28:54 -0400 (EDT) Our 18-year-old daughter just showed me what a Muslim friend of hers wrote in her high school yearbook a couple of years ago (just before she moved away), and I hope I'm not being self-serving by including these paragraphs. It's just so up-lifting, amidst all of the nasty accusations being made against us, to now become aware of the thoughts of someone who looked beyond the physical circumstances and took the time to get to know us as people. May we all be as kind to others. >My glimpses into your personality last year have turned into respectful pages >of insight. Your friendship is appreciated by me. As soon as I saw your >family, all of them, as I said to you, I saw faces of innocence flourishing in >a simpleton's bliss. They seem to not yet know the harshness and reality or >abnegate with a laugh. Yet I wish that they may go through their whole lives >with that. My best regards to each member of your family, now all living >right under the same roof. I pray that your mother's pregnancy ends >successfully. >Another glimpse gave me a view of your house. I have walked by it often and >the backyard is green and homey. As for as long as I have known your oldest >brother, you have always lived in that house and I know it has aged with love. >Although it is small, it has more personality than many a resplendent home. >Have you ever seen the Walt Disney Cartoon (it's old) "The Little House" (or >something)? A penetrating gaze, guided by you, showed me a bit about your >religious practices. It was very insightful & immediately I was touched by >the kindness & frank compassion of everyone @ your congregation. You have a >good family. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 22:10:19 -0400 (EDT) Today we visited our 14- and 12-year-old daughters. On the way, because it was hot, we picked up several (one for each person) small bottles of juice. My wife over-counted by one, and we realized that she had inadvertently included Dominique (the visit supervisor). When we got there, therefore, we offered it to him. He refused it, as expected, but then I humourously added that I guess he was finally starting to belong. We also had bought some chocolate, from a couple of children who were selling it for a charitable organization, just before leaving for the visit. In the heat, as we walked (for about a half an hour), it melted. Dominique was kind enough to let us cool it down in the CAS fridge before cutting and serving it. As usual, when we visit these two of our daughters, we did the word jumble in the newspaper, and did a fair bit of the crossword puzzle as well. My wife also brought another disposable camera, and each of our children had fun trying to take interesting pictures of us and of one another. Our 16-year-old son had fun trying to hide from it, although our 18- and 12-year-old daughters each got a couple of surprise pictures of him anyway. Then, when he finally got the camera, he tried to take pictures of Dominique who also did his level best to hide from it. Each of those of our daughters whom we visited today is being given $10 per week. They take turns, along with another foster daughter in that home, setting the table, clearing the table, and doing some house cleaning. A maid also comes by once each week to do a more thorough job. Our 12-year-old daughter asked me about the costs of both a good bicycle and helmet, and then told me that she was saving up her weekly allowance in order to buy them. I told her, and she then added up how much she'd have by the time she thought she'd be coming home and realized that it wouldn't be enough. She asked me if I would be willing to make up the difference, I told her that I would if I had her commitment to doing her share with respect to our housekeeping duties, and she agreed. The girls will be taking regular city buses to get to (and from) school. This will be a rather long trip, and take at least two buses each way, since they currently live in Bells Corners and their schools are near Carling and Woodroffe. It'll be nice for them once they're home, though, since, at not too fast a pace, it's only a five minute walk to the elementary school and a fifteen minute walk to the high school. Our mid-week visits with our children have been rescheduled due to the fact that school is starting. Our visit with our 14- and 12-year-old daughters has been moved to Tuesday at 6pm, and is still at the CAS's Pinecrest Queensway offices. Our visit with our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons has been moved to Thursday at 4:30pm, but is back out at the CAS's main offices in Gloucester. Our visit with our 5- and 4-year-old daughters and our 2-year-old son will probably be moved to Monday afternoon, since our 5-year-old daughter's kindergarten class is in the morning, although the exact time has not yet been assigned, and will still be at the CAS's Pinecrest Queensway offices. Our visit with them this Monday will not be taking place because it's a statutory holiday. The moving of our visit with the four middle children back out to Gloucester, i.e. the other end of the city from where we live, is very inconvenient for us. There actually is, however, a good reason for the change. The two foster homes in which they live are near there. They need time, after school, to get to and from the visit, to be at the visit for an hour and a half, to eat supper, to get cleaned up before bed, and maybe to do some homework. It was felt that they'd be getting to bed much too late if the trips to and from the visit were long, and especially if one of those trips involved getting all the way across town during rush hour. After the girls left, Dominique stayed outside to smoke a cigarette, and we stopped to chat with him. We figured, and hopefully he, too, figured, that it was an opportunity for us to get to know one another more informally. He must not have minded this too much because we ended up talking for almost a half an hour, and, during that whole time, he never actually lit his cigarette. We started off with fairly benign topics, but ones which would have been of interest to him anyway, including what I do for work, what my wife used to do with our children, and our children's very varied interests. He also talked with our 18-year-old daughter about what she did at the camp where she worked all summer, and we recounted a rather humourous story about one time when she and a friend of hers got locked out of her friend's running car, way out in the middle of nowhere, on the way home from a town about three hours drive away from here one Sunday evening. We eventually got onto much more serious topics, e.g. our thoughts on sex education in schools. We told him how we felt that the schools taught the subject as though sex were merely a mechanical act, how they were teaching it entirely apart from any value system whatsoever, how we felt that it is impossible to adequately teach the subject without deeply entrenching it within a proper value system, that our value system was that which is taught within the Bible, and that we felt that parents, and not schools, should be teaching it. He answered with fairly standard (in our day) responses, e.g. that all parents can't be trusted to teach it, that it might be wrong to assume that a particular value system is the right one, etc. A controversial topic such as this gave us the opportunity to let him know that we were being very up-front with him since we weren't ashamed to openly hold a politically incorrect position. When parting, he asked us if we'd be going to Silver Lake this weekend. We told him that, even though we wanted very much to go, we wouldn't be because we didn't want to miss our Sunday visit with all of our children. We then took the opportunity to tell him how much our children also wanted to, but couldn't, go, how much they missed our psalm singing at the elderly people's homes, and how much they will miss Awana. My final remark was that we were victims of a process which was in serious need of repair. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 23:05:11 -0400 (EDT) Here's a note which I just received from a former teacher of our children. While many may be scared to risk their jobs by saying anything publicly, at least some know what the truth is. I've slightly edited what this teacher wrote (references to names, exact number of children taught, etc.) in order to ensure untraceability. >First, I would like to express my sorrow and anger in reaction to both the >original episode in July and much of what you have reported on since then. > >In my position as teacher of a number of your children, and with the >additional pleasure of keeping in contact with your oldest daughter and >sometimes visiting AWANA meetings, it has been interesting, inspiring and >humbling to observe and sense the strong bond of love within your family. >Interviews with you and Ruby always showed that you make very conscious >decisions about how your children should live, treat others and be treated >by others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2000 23:45:01 -0400 (EDT) God, as it's often so easy to forget, even takes care of the smallest of details. Today is my wife's birthday, and it's also Sunday, which means that we had a visit with all of our children at church. If her birthday had been on any other day of the week, then we wouldn't have been able to spend it together as a complete family. May we all take the time to count, and to be thankful for, each and every blessing which our Heavenly Father so graciously bestows upon us. A family with whom we are good friends, who belong to a rural congregation, came to morning worship, to spend the first half of the afternoon with us, and, last but not least, to be part of my wife's birthday celebration. Another child from their congregation, as well as a teen-aged girl who used to attend ours (until her family moved across town), were also there. In the midst of such sadness, we all had a great deal of fun today, and my wife was surrounded by lots of people who all love her very much. There was no shortage of cake! With so many people present, however, this was a good thing. A lady with whom I work, and who has now befriended my wife, provided one (as well as balloons and streamers for the children to play with). The family who spent the afternoon with us brought one. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters brought one (topped with icing of my wife's favourite flavour). On top of that, our 10-year-old daughter made a large batch of rice krispie balls decorated with candies, and our 6-year-old son (presumably with some help) made a large batch of cup cakes topped with jelly beans. Each of the older children also gave my wife a simple present which, I suspect, each bought with her weekly allowance. Our 14-year-old daughter gave her a statue of a boy reading a Bible standing beside a card containing a cross and some flowers. Our 12-year-old daughter gave her a picture frame. Our 10-year-old daughter gave her a small, cubical, wooden box, with a hinged lid bearing the declaration "it always tastes best when mom makes it", in which to store recipe cards. She had even already put some cards into it, some being blank, and some containing hand copied recipes from cereal boxes. Our 8-year-old daughter gave her a battery-powered alarm clock with hands, which looks like a dog house, and to which, at one end, is attached the statue of a small dog. Our 4-year-old daughter continued to betray her disposition through violence, greed, and whining. She hit one of the children of the family who came to spend the afternoon with us, and screamed at me when I tried to talk to her to tell her that that was wrong and that she should apologize. I didn't dare use any more strenuous form of discipline for fear of what the visit supervisors would do and/or report. She took our 18-year-old daughter's glasses, and got very angry when I took them away from her so that they wouldn't inadvertently get damaged. She took the clock which our 8-year-old daughter had given to my wife, and ended up damaging it by dropping it on a cement surface. She also told our 18-year-old daughter that she was going to tell her foster mother that she wanted to go home. Our 2-year-old son was cheerful for most of the day. He began to cry during morning worship when my wife left the sanctuary to go with our 4-year-old daughter to the washroom. He also cried a bit just before lunch when she was unable to hold him due to other duties, as well as when she changed his diaper just before it was time for him to leave. During supper, I got into a conversation with our 10-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son which, occasionally, within the hearing of the visit supervisor, involved potentially risky statements, questions, and answers. Our children are used to open and frank discussions, so, in terms of our family's normal conduct, nothing unusual was said. The visit supervisors, however, don't appear to be used to this, seem to think that children can't handle the harder truths of life, and, in fact, have intervened in the past in order to terminate such discussions. This time, however, we were not interrupted. Some examples follow. They asked me lots of questions about the content and layout of our new house. After asking me when we'd be moving into it, our 7-year-old son told me that he wanted to move out of the house he was in as fast as possible. I asked him, for clarification purposes, which house he was referring to, and he answered that he was referring to his foster house. They asked me if they'd be coming home after we were in our new house. I told them that they wouldn't be, and that it would still take more time. They asked me why. Not wanting to get into the details regarding allegations of a dysfunctional marriage and of emotionally abused children, my simple, yet still dangerous, answer was that it was because they (the CAS) had gotten it into their heads that we were bad people, and that they just wouldn't give up. A discussion on boats led to a discussion on ferryboats in BC, which, in turn, led to a discussion about our relatives (most of them) who live in that province. They asked me if we'd ever be going out there to visit them. I told them that we couldn't because it would cost way too much money. They were sure that we had some money saved up, and asked me if we could use it for the trip. I then told them that they (the CAS) were forcing me to spend all of our saved money, and that, when this is all over, we'd probably have nothing left. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 23:29:47 -0400 (EDT) Today we visited our 14- and 12-year-old daughters. As usual, we did some word puzzles from the paper. They also told us about their schools, e.g. who their teachers are, what their teachers are like, who their classmates are, how the layouts of their new schools differ from those of their old schools, etc. We also shared some banana bread which my wife had brought along. Our 12-year-old daughter spent a lot of time being unusually silly, e.g. making up ridiculous answers to questions, forcing herself into long fits of laughter, crawling under the table, reading the writing on the bottom of her chair, wanting to leave the room, etc. She essentially spent the whole hour and a half being incredibly restless. I'm not sure what the cause for this was. Was she tired of having had to sit still all day in school, only to then have to sit still for our visit? Is she growing weary of this whole artificial family visit process? Did something happen to her earlier today which she wanted some privacy to discuss? I just don't know. I wanted to take her aside to ask, but that, of course, is no longer an option. When it was time to leave, and the visit supervisor was collecting a few items which had to be put away, he asked if he could "steal" one of them from one of our children. My wife immediately told him that we don't "steal". Rather than acknowledging his having made a poor choice of terminology, he answered by saying that it was he, and not we, who had stolen it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 08:51:29 -0400 (EDT) >Whatever was the outcome of your wife's experience with children's aid when >she was a child? My first guess is that she went from foster home to foster >home, as this is the usual pattern, but did she ever get reunited with her >parents? She was in at least three foster homes. In a couple of them she was subjected to repeated sexual abuse at the hands of foster brothers and other relatives. In one of them, she was made solely responsible for household chores while everyone else went out and enjoyed themselves, and was subjected to serious punishments whenever her efforts would fall short of perfection. All her pleas for help, both to foster parents and officials, fell on deaf ears. Every time she would ask about her real family, she was told heartless things like that she was better off not knowing them. One of her real brothers, who was equally unhappy about his treatment and had an equally strong desire to know more about his real family, happened to come into the acquaintance of someone who knew how to get at the data. Slowly, over time, he was able to find most of them. My wife kept in contact with them, money permitting, by phone for several years. Finally, last September, we were able to afford a trip for her and our baby to go out to Vancouver to meet them. She was there for about three weeks, and that one single experience did more than words can tell to help set her mind and heart at peace. One of the particular joys she felt was being able to meet her 93-year-old maternal grandmother. One of the particular sadnesses was that, although she had talked to her real mother a couple of times by phone in the past, she never did get to meet her because she died about 5 years ago. >Have you any idea what you would be told if your wife were currently >pregnant? Would they remove the child immediately after birth, justifying >themselves by saying they already had a mandate to remove your youngest >children? When you think of it, that is a terrible situation to be in for a >mother who knows she is fully capable of taking care of the baby. You are very perceptive. This, of course, is a very real possibility, and it is also a very real additional fear which we both have. I have no idea what they would do since they have neither said anytyhing specifically about it nor laid down any general principles. The easy way out is to listen to all those who suggest that we finally succumb to the temptation to use contraception. This, however, is not likely to happen since we believe that such an action is rebellion against God since He claims to be the one who is ultimately responsible for creating a baby within the womb. I don't know too many Christians who agree with this position, so, even among the people of God, perhaps because it convicts them too much, we sometimes feel like outcasts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 14:05:34 -0400 (EDT) >Your wife's story is a template of many foster nightmares I have heard of. >Is your wife convinced she would have been better off had she been kept with >her family? Yes, she is, and has been all along. >Of course, that question is moot if her mother had wanted to >give her up. No, her mother did not want to give up any of her children. She told my wife (during a phone call several years ago) how she used to go to bed each night crying as she looked at pictures of her children. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2000 02:21:36 -0400 (EDT) We attended a "plan of service" meeting at 9:30am yesterday (Thursday, September 7), which lasted about two hours, at the CAS Pinecrest Queensway offices. Present were Heather Clark (in-take worker), Nancy Keddy (social worker to whom we've recently been transferred)), a lady from work, my wife, and myself. The purpose of this meeting was for Heather to present to us all of the requirements which the CAS insists that we meet before it'll agree to return our children to us, and for us to unconditionally agree to them. Heather, the one who not only took our children away from us, but also authored the list of CAS requirements which we must satisfy, has no children. She told us that this was the last time we'd be dealing with her. When she mentioned that her birthday was the same as that of my wife, we, for fun, asked her how old she is. She refused to answer, so I teased her by saying that those who hide information must have something to hide. Nancy defended her with the ironic observation that some people need more privacy than others. How can she say that to us when they're busy exposing everything they possibly can about our entire family? Nancy has two children, one sixteen and one thirteen. One of her children is deaf, which I think would predispose her to being sensitive to children with special needs. She told us that she was too new to the case (having been on vacation between the last hearing and now) to speak in any other than general terms. She insisted that she wanted to work with us in order to ultimately see our children returned to us. Perhaps she's sincere, and is simply trying to do her best within a rigid process over which she has little, if any, control. I'd sure like to think so, but, at times, it just doesn't feel that way. One of the ways in which they tried to prove that they really want to eventually return our children was by telling us that there is a financial incentive to do so since this whole process, especially for a family as large as ours, is very expensive. I'm sure that it is very expensive, but it's unclear to me, without further data, whether they're gaining or losing. I'm told that the Ontario provincial government now gives the CAS some specific amount of money per child in custody, and, if that amount of money is high enough (and there's no reason to assume that they didn't overstate their request), it just might mean that their financial state is improved each time they apprehend. I'm also told that the cost per child in foster care is $26 per day. This, if true, means that our children's foster parents are getting a total of $85,410 per year ($26 * 365 days * 9 children). If they had all thirteen of our children, then the total would be $123,370. This exceeds my gross income, so it sure looks like the foster parents are raking in quite a profit. Since a person's expenses usually rise to near the same level as his income, could it be that foster parenting has become an industry in desperate need of a constant supply of resources? Their first question was how far into the family assessment process we were. It, unfortunately, has not begun (as far as we can tell at this point). No appointments have even been scheduled yet. There may have been a loss of communication somewhere, as we thought that our lawyer, who collected our money and I'm sure told us to wait for a call from the psychologist's office, would be getting all that going, whereas the CAS people think that it is we who should be initiating it. I shall now be calling both our lawyer and the psychologist's office to attempt to get this straightened out. They told us that, given this late date, it was unlikely that my wife's and my assessments would be completed by the next hearing (on October 2). We asked what effect this would have, and were told that, since our assessments would be providing critical data, they would be asking for a further adjournment. Further discussion revealed that they're still insisting that all of our children be assessed as well, that the results of all of those assessments were also required before they'd be willing to proceed, and readily acknowledged that this would unquestionably add a very significant additional delay. They reiterated their desire that the "family assessment clinic" (which they, without prompting, launched into a lecture regarding its being an extension of the court rather than part of their organization) be used to do the children's assessments. They confirmed that this route would incur about a three month waiting list, as well as a several month processing time, and kept trying to encourage this approach by referring to the astronomical cost (which may well be true) of having to pay for them ourselves. They were very adamant about the fact that the CAS would only pay for them if the family assessment clinic were used. If the cost will really be as high as they're trying to portray it, we, due to the fact that we're buying a new house, may unwillingly find ourselves in a position where we have no choice but to endure this approximately nine more month delay approach. In response to our discussions regarding the introduction of all of these long delays, I said "and the children continue to suffer". To this, they immediately said that children, while they do under-go an initial period of sadness after being removed from their real homes, eventually begin to build strong ties to their foster parents and to friends in their new environments. They went on to warn us, the parents, against giving open and/or subliminal messages to our children, which might delay this process, about things like how much we wished they were at home. My wife tried to dispel their warnings, which were really presented as accusations, by pointing out to them how we, on many occasions, have instructed our children to obey their foster parents even when they were being told to do things which we might not agree with (I dare say a very risky request). She also tried to express to them how really hard it is to do this, but that we do it because we want to maintain a good working relationship with them. They listened, and even sounded a note of approval, but my guess is that they'll still cling to their original principle. They spoke at length about how it's a good thing for children to become firmly rooted within their foster environments, and how it is only the parents who really suffer the severing of family bonds. They also seemed to have absolutely no sense of the double tragedy which their process inflicts, i.e. that, should the children eventually be returned, the roots which the CAS has helped them to plant within their foster environments also must be severed. They insinuated that one of the ways in which they had come to the conclusion that we were abusive parents was that the foster parents had observed certain signs (which they wouldn't elaborate on) in our children. I asked them if it just might not rather be that those signs, whatever they are, are really indicators that the children are unhappy at having been removed from their home and that they want to return. They answered that this couldn't be because, although there's always an initial honeymoon period, the children's real behaviour, i.e. that which is normal at home, always eventually begins to surface. They refused to accept the idea that the children might be initially good because of a good home environment, and that deteriorating behaviour might be a sign of increasing stress. They showed an inability to separate one issue from another, and to be able to consider a child's whole person, by insisting that, if a child has been removed from his home by them, that he's always better off in a foster home. I tried to explain to them that the parents may be doing one thing wrong but many things right, and that a child may in fact be worse off if he's transferred to a foster home in which that one wrong is right but in which many of the right things are inferior. They insisted that even the one wrong makes the real home entirely unacceptable, and implied that their approval of foster parents, which really only involves physical things, makes them altogether more capable. Although they never did tell us what those certain signs were, my guess is that, if there really are any, it's probably the same whining, hitting, and general restlessness which we ourselves have noticed in our younger children during our visits. We know that they've never done this before, and are certain that it's just their way of expressing the incredible frustration they must be feeling at having been removed from where they know they belong. Whatever the case, it can't be all that bad because, not only at this meeting, but also in many other conversations with CAS staff, we've been told by them that we have "excellent children". Today, in fact, they openly admitted something which we've known all along, and which we were sure must be confusing them to no end, i.e. that they're seeing a rather strange discrepancy in that, in spite of the disastrous state of our house, we really do have such wonderful children. During our hearing last month, the CAS lawyer tried to discredit our lawyer's choice of a psychologist, and to encourage the judge to order that the family assessment clinic be used, by saying that they (the CAS) no longer used Dr. Groves because of some unstated problem they'd had with him several years ago. During our discussion about the family assessments, however, they (Heather and Nancy) told us that Dr. Groves was highly respected and very competent. If even the CAS agrees that he's that good, I wonder just what problem they were having with him and just why it is that they try to discourage the use of his services and to push so hard for the use of the family assessment clinic. I guess I shouldn't try to read between the lines. It turns out, by the way, that our family doctor knows Dr. Groves, and also speaks very highly of him. They clearly demonstrated that the CAS has adopted a set of euphemisms which help to deaden their senses to what they're actually doing. They speak of taking children into "care", rather than taking them into "custody" or "apprehending" them. Every time I'd use a term like "harm" with respect to what their process is doing to children, they'd tell me that I was wrong and that words like "impact" or "affect" were more accurate. Several times during our discussion they would refer to our lawyer simply by his first name. My personal belief is that this is a tactic designed to encourage us to lose faith in him by implying that they get along with him really well and, therefore, insinuating that he's really on their side. They acknowledged that the visits at the CAS offices were very artificial, and raised the possibility of home visits. This, I believe, is a good thing and hope that they can begin fairly soon. We made an appointment to meet with Nancy in our new home at 4:30pm (she promised that she'd never try to make us keep our children home from school) on September 25. The purpose of this meeting is for her to meet our older children (the ones whom they couldn't take away), to make sure that they understand the severity of the problem, and to inform them that she expects them to help out. I'll write up a copy of the CAS's actual service plan, along with my comments regarding its contents, shortly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2000 04:00:08 -0400 (EDT) Here, along with my comments, is the text of the CAS's actual service plan document for our family. We've been told that it's entirely separate from any court decision, although I rather suspect that, without challenge, a judge would order that the CAS's recommendations be binding. You will see that they have worded this thing in very general ways, making it look like we're far more guilty than we actually are. I insisted, therefore, and they finally agreed, that the following statement be added before we would sign it: These lists are all inclusive and not necessarily indicative of past behaviours. At about this point, Nancy was beginning to get a little frustrated with my insistance for accuracy. She suddenly exclaimed, "Just what do you do for Nortel anyway!" I didn't give up, and chastized them for wording a paralegal document so poorly. >Service Plan Page 1 > >Outcome Desired: Ruby and David Mielke will fulfil their parental >responsibilities as demonstrated by: > >1. No reports that the children are neglected This is pretty hard to do when people, sometimes for less than admirable reasons, phone in anonymous lies. Since this has already happened to us more than once, I must assume that it'll probably happen again some time. >2. Maintaining a stable home environment >3. Adequate supervision of children >4. Being accepting of the Society's assistance to deal with the issues >5. Being compliant with the mental health treatment This translates to following the recommendations of the psychologist who does our family assessment. >Steps/Method/Services Person Responsible Progress > >Ruby and David to receive Ruby, David and Psychologist 6 months >psychological assessment and >follow through with recommendations > >Ruby and David to accept the Ruby, David and the Society 6 months >Intervention of a Family Support >Worker A "family support worker", formerly known as a "par" (parent aid worker) works for the CAS and is responsible for teaching parents how to raise their own children. >Service Plan Page 2 > >Outcome Desired: Ruby and David Mielke will keep the family home safe from >conditions that are hazardous to the physical well-being of the children as >demonstrated by: > >1. No spoiled food >2. No creeping or flying vermin >3. Appropriate baby gates on stairwell (top and bottom) >4. No exposed electrical wiring >5. Safe and adequate source of heat and water >6. Windows and screens are to be secure >7. No external locks on bedroom doors >8. Appropriate storage of dangerous substances and locks We have never been guilty of several of these items. They finally acknowledged that this is just a standard list (augmented with our faults) which they always use. The original specification of baby gates on stairwells did not include the "top and bottom" qualification. I asked, and they, off the top of their heads, just wrote that in. >Steps/Method/Services Person Responsible Progress > >Ruby and David to seek support Ruby, David and Cleaning 6 months >in housecleaning tasks Service/Home Management > >Ruby and David to accept the Ruby, David and the Society 6 months >intervention of a Family Support >Worker >Service Plan Page 3 > >Outcome Desired: Ruby and David Mielke will not abuse/neglect their >children as demonstrated by: > >1. The parents develop and demonstrate an understanding and acknowledgement >of their past abusive/neglectful behaviour and the risks that they pose to >the children. I objected very strongly to their very general use of terms like "abuse" and "neglect" since this implies that we've been really rotten parents who are guilty of very heinous conduct. They argued that there should be no problem since it's merely a commitment that we'll neither abuse nor neglect our children in the future. I told them that this may technically be true, but that anyone who reads this, people being what they are, will read into it all kinds of wrong connotations. They insisted that they, their supervisor, and we, would be the only ones reading it, and that we all knew what was meant. I don't believe them, don't trust them, and suspect otherwise, but what difference does that make? For the record, though, I did insist that they very clearly state what they meant by these terms. Their answers, which I shall present without commentary, were: ABUSE: We have allowed a situation to develop which would have caused our children tremendous embarrassment when inviting their friends over. NEGLECT: We have allowed a situation to develop in which our children's health was at serious risk. We have made it impossible for our children to know what a clean house is. We have failed to teach our children the skills that they will need throughout their lives in order to keep their own houses clean. >2. The parents demonstrate behaviours that reduce the risk to their children >such as: >- no use of physical punishment This one, of course, especially for any Biblically oriented person, is absolutely impossible to adhere to. The CAS doesn't even have a legal leg to stand on because the supreme court of our nation, just a month or two ago, has declared reasonable use of force, including spanking, to be acceptable. The CAS seems to be incapable of distinguishing between spanking and other, entirely unacceptable, forms of physical punishment like slapping and hitting. I'll have to seek pastoral, legal, and psychological advice on this one. For the record: I have spanked our children in the past, and may have to do so in the future. I only ever do so for two things, i.e. lying (because I refuse to hold a discussion with someone who isn't contributing constructively to the it), and out right rebellion (because something has to bring the perpetrator back to reality). With thirteen children, I have hardly ever had to use this form of punishment, but shall always reluctantly be prepared to use it should nothing else appear to work. I believe that spanking should only ever be applied to the well-padded rear end of the person in need of that form of discipline. I believe that spanking should only ever be done with a bare hand, as that ensures that the discipliner feels more pain than the disciplinee, and, therefore, it acts as a built-in control mechanism. I believe that the use of other objects is wrong for a number of reasons. A narrow object, tends to apply all of the force at a single point. A hard object does not absorb enough of its own momentum. A long object, when swung in an arc, moves a lot faster as its far end than its user may realize. Whenever any of our children has required this form of discipline, I have always discussed with him, ahead of time, exactly how many spanks he'll get and why he's going to get them. I usually add one spank for each infraction and subtract two spanks for each good deed. If the sum adds up to less than 1, then, even though I discuss the whole issue with the child, the spanking itself never actually takes place. >- provide basic necessities of life consistently Again, this is far too general a statement. We have done so, except insofar as a clean house is a necessity. >Steps/Method/Services Person Responsible Progress > >Ruby and David to accept the Ruby, David and the Society 6 months >Intervention of the Society >Service Plan Page 4 > >Outcome Desired: Ruby and David will recognize and demonstrate an ability >to effectively manage their stress as demonstrated by: > >1. Demonstrating healthy coping strategies I wonder if reliance on the promises of God counts for anything? >2. Have an appropriate support system >3. Demonstrate an ability to reach out for help when necessary >4. Can provide a generally stable home environment that does not result in >frequent disruptions to child's day to day life. >5. The parents can identify the specific stressors facing them >6. Caregiver can identify when they are not coping well > >Steps/Method/Services Person Responsible Progress > >Ruby and David to accept the Ruby, David and the Society 6 months >intervention of the Society > >Ruby and David to accept the Ruby, David and the Society 6 months >intervention of a Family Support >Worker > >Ruby and David to seek out the Ruby, David and PQ 6 months >Services at Pinecrest Queensway >Community Health Centre >Service Plan Page 5 > >Outcome Desired: Ruby manages feelings of past childhood neglect in a >manner that does not negatively impact on their present parenting role as >demonstrated by: > >1. The ability to identify and accept their own past abuse. >2. Can show insight into differentiation between abusive and healthy >parenting practices. >3. Can identify a child's feelings and the impact of harm caused by abusive >behaviours. I guess they're allowed to use the term "harm" when discussing what we might do, but we're not allowed to use that same term when discussing what the CAS repeatedly, on an on-going basis, actually does do. >Steps/Method/Services Person Responsible Progress > >Ruby to accept the support of a Ruby and psychiatrist 6 months >psychiatrist on a regular basis >(pending psychologist recommendations) I asked if the pastor of our church would be an acceptable candidate for this role. At first, they accused me of speaking for my wife, to which I responded that all I was doing was putting ideas onto the table. They finally answered, and they better not recant and deny it, that he would be. >Ruby to participate in a group for Ruby and PQ 6 months >women who have suffered abuse >(pending psychologist recommendations) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2000 04:40:37 -0400 (EDT) Yesterday we visited our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons. They were all very excited as they told us about their new schools. As did our older children a couple of days before, they told us what their teachers' names were and what their teachers were like. They also told us what the day's homework assignments were. They also all took turns playing with a couple of toys which were in the room, and the boys spent the last part of the visit playing with my old faithful talking clock and measuring tape. One of the toys which was in the room was a 4-foot-tall, dirty, smelly, teddy bear. My wife was so bothered by it that she told the visit supervisor that the bear needed a bath. He agreed, but didn't do anything to put it away to prevent other children from playing with it. Our 6-year-old son spent the first part of the visit wanting to sit on my shoulders and then on my lap. He also wanted to hug, and to be hugged, a lot. He told me that the principal of his school had visited him at his foster home. He's the one with cerebral palsy, and was very proud that he spent the whole day at school, dry, and not at any time wearing a diaper. This, of course, warranted an extra huge hug. Our 7-year-old son, as usual, played rather roughly. Again, as my pager battery had gotten low a day or so ago, I waited and let him change it for me. At one point he went out for a drink of water. A few minutes later, when one of our other children went out for the same reason, he, wanting an excuse to run around the building, declared that he was thirsty again. Wanting to deal with this immediately, I quickly but gently placed each of my hands on each of his cheeks, pulled his head close to me (he was already sitting on my lap), and quietly told him that that was a lie, and that lying is bad. My wife told me later that the visit supervisor was watching really closely, as though he was interpreting my physical handling of my son's head as some form of abuse. Our 10-year-old daughter spent a good chunk of the visit playing scrabble with her 18-year-old sister. She also did her homework, which, much to her pleasure, was a couple of word puzzles. I used the opportunity to let her know that she was welcome to call home should she ever need help with her homework. My wife had brought along the pictures, now developed, which she and our children had taken with all of those disposable cameras during past visits. Everyone, including the visit supervisor, had lots of fun looking through them. It was particularly special when our 8-year-old daughter was showing them to our 6-year-old son, and getting him to name the people and the colours in them. When it was time to leave, our 6-year-old son asked my wife if he could go home. Her answer was "no, I'm sorry". Our 7-year-old son had a bit more of a rambunctious approach. First, he sat down on the couch and told me to sit on his lap. I complied, of course taking most of my weight on my arms, and then realized that his game was that he was now unable to get up and follow the visit supervisor out of the room. I got up, then he did, then I sat down, and then he jumped onto my lap, put my arms around him, and said "I'm going to go home". I told him that I didn't think he had a choice, to which he responded that he did have a choice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2000 09:37:17 -0400 (EDT) The mid-week visit with our 5- and 4-year-old daughters and our 2-year-old son has been rescheduled to 1:30pm on Wednesdays at the CAS Pinecrest Queensway offices. I like this change because I think that Wednesday is a better day than Monday for such young children. Since Wednesday is about as close to right between two Sundays as one can get, they should now have more of a feeling of regularity with respect to our visits with them. I checked with both our lawyer and Dr. Groves (the psychologist) regarding why our family assessments have not yet begun. It turns out that our lawyer was sure that the money had been sent but that the psychologist's office has not yet received it. I had written a normal cheque to our lawyer's trust account. Since it was not certified, he had to wait for it to clear before he could pass the money on. The current theory is that the notification that the cheque had cleared failed to trigger the next step in the process. The latest on our 6-year-old son's glasses is as follows: His social worker wrote a letter to his ophthalmologist requesting directions. She began this letter by stating that there is some confusion regarding whether he should, or should not, be wearing them. There had, of course, been absolutely no confusion ... just a disagreement between what his foster parents thought and what we knew. The ophthalmologist wrote back that our son should be wearing his glasses as much as possible, which is in direct contradiction to what he had told us at our most recent appointment. Either he really has changed his opinion between then and now, or even the experts are worried about being second-guessed by the CAS, and being charged with making poor diagnoses. There's something that happened way back on July 13, i.e. the day our children were apprehended, which I haven't mentioned before, and which I still don't understand. When our 14-year-old daughter realized what was happening, she began to do some serious crying, saying "she can't do it all by herself" (by which she meant that her mother couldn't clean the house all by herself and that she wanted to be allowed to stay in order to help). One of the CAS people overheard her, took her over to another of the CAS people, and asked her to repeat what she had just said. She did, and they somehow, by reasoning I shall probably never understand, interpreted this as further evidence that she should be taken away. Another hithertofore unmentioned incident from that day was how the police man tried to force our younger children to cheer up and accept what was happening. He said things like "have you ever met a real police man before", and "isn't it exciting to meet a real police man". Our bank was sure nice to us. I waited until the very last minute, i.e. late Wednesday afternoon, to initiate the arrangement of the mortgage for our new house because my employee savings plan, for whatever reason, was increasing in value rather quickly during August. I got voice mail not more than one day later, i.e. during yesterday's visit, telling me that our mortgage has been approved. There's just a bit of paperwork left to do, and the cheque from my employee savings plan, needed for our downpayment, has yet to arrive. Our original plans for our dog, due to a number of complications, failed to come to fruition. After spending $71 to advertize him in two papers for a week, though, he's finally found what we believe to be a good new home. We gave him to a family (father, mother, and four children) who live on a 37 acre farm and were looking for one more pet. Another rather interesting blessing of God must not go unmentioned. I have long wondered just why it is that all of our children's birthdays (all thirteen of them) begin in mid-February and end at the end of July. If you exclude our 20-year-old son (whom the CAS couldn't touch), the twelve remaining birthdays end at the beginning of July. This is too strange to be purposeless, and I now think I know why it is. God has made room for our current ordeal so that our family, and especially my wife, probably won't have to endure the pain of celebrating any of our children's birthdays while apart. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 00:24:58 -0400 (EDT) Yesterday, most of our children were at church. Our 2-year-old son wasn't there because he has a flu. This time, a nice lady (Charlene Jackson, I think) phoned us at home early on Saturday afternoon to inform us that he'd just caught it that morning. He was the last of the foster children in that home to get it, and it took each of the others three days to recover. He should be okay for Wednesday's visit. Our Sabbath School classes began today, and our 5-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son wanted to stay with us throughout the entire adult class. Our son sat still and listened, but our daughter wanted to constantly play. We had lots of fun as she reasonably quietly performed all sorts of crazy acrobatic stunts on the chairs, and on my lap and arms. Our 5-year-old daughter, on a number of occasions, indicated her desire to be back with us. In the morning, she told me that she didn't like being picked up at 3, and that she wanted to stay until 7 like her older brothers and sisters did. Then, when it was time for her to leave, she jumped up onto my back (I was on my hands and knees on the floor at that time), became very relaxed as she lay there, and firmly said "no". She also, on a number of occasions, in a carefully controlled whiny voice, declared that she was tired, when she was obviously full of energy, in an attempt to force me to put down whomever else I was holding at the time and hold her. Our 7-year-old son also indicated several times that he wanted to be back with us. During the afternoon, while discussing our new house, he asked why he's not moving with us. At the beginning of evening worship he asked me when he'd get to see the person whom he could tell what to say (presumably he meant the children's lawyer). After evening worship he asked if he could go home with us now. He noticed that evening worship ended about 20 minutes earlier than usual, and told me that he was glad to have the extra time with us. This was short lived, however, since his return drive also arrived several minutes early. Our 4-year-old daughter still cried a fair bit whenever her 18-year-old sister was somewhere else. Our 10-year-old daughter told us that she and her 8-year-old sister no longer were bringing snacks (which usually were some form of junk food) because she had told her foster parents that we provided better food for them. A special moment during the day for her was when she helped me sort out six cassettes of our pastor's messages which I would be taking home that evening to put onto the internet. We had a couple of opportunities to talk at length with the visit supervisors about various issues. I enjoy these occasions, as it enables us to get to know one another just a little bit better at a more informal level. During the first opportunity, we discussed our dissatisfaction with a few of the recent changes in the public education system in this province, e.g. the fact that interviews with parents are now student-led, rather than teacher-led, the removal of effort marks from report cards, and the imposition of unpaid extra-caricular activities on teachers. I must have indicated my growing dissatisfaction with the newer policies of the currently governing party of this province, as one of the visit supervisors invited me to come and see her if I was in search of more reasons to dislike it. I told her that there was another very big reason why I disliked it, and that I'd probably be dealing with it in a couple of months. I wonder if she realized that I was referring to the changes in our laws which permitted the CAS to apprehend our children. During the second opportunity, we told the one remaining visit supervisor (it was after 3pm) some of the more interesting stories surrounding the births of our children. We told her that our third through seventh children (now 18, 16, 14, 12, 10) were born at home, how the birth of our third child (now 18) resulted in a visit from the police and of how my blindness and their assumption that I could see their uniforms and badges created a rather interesting stand-off as they burst into our apartment, how the pregnancy of our eighth child (now 8) almost killed my wife and of our refusal to allow her to be aborted, how our tenth child (now 6) was born almost dead and of our subsequent efforts to help him learn to do things which come so normally to others, and of how our twelfth child (now 4) was born at the admitting desk of the hospital because the staff didn't believe that we knew how much of a hurry we were in. We also told her about some of the vacations we've taken. The visit supervisor who stayed after 3pm had another opportunity to see how we handled a situation which required discipline. Our 7- and 6-year-old sons were playing with a ball. Our 7-year-old spent a lot of time claiming the ball for himself, playing rather roughly with it as far away from his younger brother as he could. The right thing for him to have done, being as our 6-year-old has cerebral palsy, was to do what his 8-year-old sister had just been doing a bit earlier, i.e. rather generously rolling the ball to where his brother could more easily get it. I finally called him over to tell him these things, explaining to him that his actions had been very selfish and mean. After letting him quietly cry for a while, I lifted him onto my lap and held him. After a few more minutes, we were happily engaged in a discussion on a completely different topic. Our 5- and 4-year-old daughters are both being given two vitamin pills each morning as part of breakfast. We aren't happy with this, as we believe that, unless there's a really good reason, people should train their bodies to extract vitamins from the food they eat. We also don't believe that children should be taught that pill popping is a normal way of life. I sure hope that, when they're eventually returned, they won't experience health problems since we have no intention of continuing this force-fed vitamin diet. Our 12-year-old daughter said that she doesn't like her foster home because she wakes up to the sound of her foster parents fighting (verbally (I think), frequency unknown) with one another, and that this involves a lot of swearing on both sides. She also said that she wants to tell some people within that home (she didn't specify whom) "don't you stupid people know that babies cry" (the foster parents have a set of their own half-year-old twins). A number of our children, on a number of occasions now, have started calling me by the first names of their foster fathers. I can understand why a habit like this might be developing, and perhaps it's more of a problem with my own pride, but it sure does bother me. Our 5- and 4-year-old daughters usually give us a phone call each Thursday evening. Due to the rescheduling of one of our visits to Thursday at 4:30pm at the other end of the city, we can no longer get back home on time for their call. I asked our 5-year-old daughter to try really hard to remember to tell her foster mother that Friday would now be a better day, and I sure hope she doesn't forget to pass on the message. We can't do it ourselves, of course, since we aren't trusted to know the various foster parents' phone numbers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 22:22:27 -0400 (EDT) >Dave, I sure would like to know what could have >prompted the police to show up at your door after the >birth of one of your children. I guess that statement would raise a bit of curiosity. It's really very simple. Childbirth, as I'm sure you know, involves a bit of blood loss. Since we were living in an apartment at the time, I had to take all of our bed sheets to the public laundry room (at the other end of the hall and two floors down) to get them cleaned up properly. As was, and still is, my custom when going most places, I brought our then 3-year-old son (now 21) along with me. We did, after all, have something very exciting to talk about, i.e. the birth of our first daughter. Some fellow apartment dweller must have been rather confused and/or alarmed by the sight of a man carrying blood-soaked sheets walking along the hallway with a small child. I can well guess the conclusion he jumped to, and believe that immediately calling the police indeed was the right thing for him to have done. Being blissfully ignorant of what was taking place, it caught us by complete surprise when two police officers burst, without warning, into our apartment. Being blind, I could see neither their uniforms nor their badges. I, therefore, having a wife and three children (including the newborn) to protect, immediately leapt right in front of them and boldly declared "hold it right there". They, not knowing that I had no way of knowing who they were, concluded that my actions were further evidence that they were responding to a legitimate report. In retrospect, I suspect I was probably moments away from being terminated by well-intentioned, and sincerely frightened, officers. I'm not sure what brought an end to this approximately 5-minute-long stand-off. Whatever it was, however, it all ended rather cheerfully. Once I realized who they were, and once they realized why I didn't readily know who they were, we both began to have a good long laugh. They asked us for an explanation, we gave it to them, they went to have a look at our newborn baby, asked us who our doctor was, called him to confirm that he had been present, and then radioed in that they had no business being there. They then sat down with us on our couch and we chatted for a while. >I am so glad that your consistent loving behaviour >with your children is being observed by the visit >supervisors. > >My church family keeps you in our prayers. Thank you very much for your concern. Please also pass on our thanks to your congregation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 00:50:37 -0400 (EDT) We visited our 14- and 12-year-old daughters early last evening. They brought along, to share with us, some treats which they had purchased, with their allowances, from the vending machines at their schools. They told us a lot more about their teachers, and about the kinds of homework which they were getting. Our 12-year-old daughter boldly proclaimed that she was now doing all of her homework on time, rather than, as she used to do, building up large backlogs and periodically doing a lot of catching up. We hope this is the initial sign of a permanent practice. Our daughters have a rather long bus ride between their foster home and their schools. They take three buses to go to school, and two buses to return. This is okay since it's because the CAS has honoured our request for these two girls to attend their proper schools (near our new house) even though their foster home is in Bells Corners. Their foster parents have, therefore, asked them to travel together for as much of the distance as possible (all the way except for the 5-10 minute walk between the two schools). They can't fully adhere to this, though, because our 12-year-old goes early on Mondays to take part in soccer try-outs, and on Thursdays for cross-country run try-outs. The visit supervisor, at one point, went to get each of us something to drink which, being as it was a warm and humid day, we all appreciated. As he was returning with the drinks, he made an "innocent" remark about having "stolen" them. Almost immediately afterwards, though, he hastily added that he hadn't actually stolen them. He had clearly remembered, and was still convicted by, my wife's rebuke regarding the use of such careless terminology almost exactly one week earlier. As usual, we did the word jumble and part of the crossword puzzle in the paper. One of the crossword clues was a 4-letter-word for "white lies" (the answer was "fibs"). Rarely being one to pass up a teaching opportunity, I asked the visit supervisor if he thought that there really was any such thing as a "white lie". He answered that it was up to ones own interpretation. I then told him that there is no such thing, and that any lie, no matter how apparently insignificant, is still a lie. I went on to tell him about a time when this very value difference caused a great deal of contention between a former teacher and ourselves, and of how she used to insist that the school principal always be in attendance whenever we had to talk with one another. All three girls (our 18-year-old daughter was also with us) somehow got onto the topic of how each of them had broken an arm. Our 18-year-old, when 6, ran up a slide, lost her balance at the top, rolled down backward, and, instead of continuing to roll along the ground, stretched out an arm to bring herself to a stop. Our 14-year-old had her arm go quickly out of, and back into, joint a few years ago, and, to this day, still has a bone scar within her elbow which prevents her from fully extending that arm. Our 12-year-old was hit by a solidly kicked, poorly aimed, soccer ball at school a couple of years ago which snapped a bone within one of her lower arms. Our 18-year-old also recounted a time, when she was 4, when she had swallowed a set of necklace beads. She also recounted how she had been stung four times in one evening by bees while working at the camp this summer. Our 12-year-old joked about the fact that she had accidentally scratched herself very noticeably during phys-ed in school that very day. I wonder if this'll all be used as further "evidence" that we really do have a trend of serious physical child abuse. To potentially add to the controversy (though not intentionally), our 14-year-old daughter told us about an article entitled "how to raise losers" which one of her teachers had posted just outside her classroom. We openly discussed the foolishness of some of the points made within this article, e.g. always letting a child have his own way, failing to discipline him, always making excuses for his bad behaviour, etc. Our 12-year-old daughter had some fun showing us how well she could read upside down newspaper articles. I also told them about our humourous introduction to one of the vice principals at the high school (who is new this year, and whom we had just met while transferring our 16-year-old son into that school at the end of August). Four of us (our 16-year-old son, our 18-year-old daughter, my wife, and myself), as well as the vice principal himself, all walked into his office and quickly realized that there were only four chairs. He observed that it didn't look like there were enough chairs. We offered that one of us could easily sit on the floor. He said, "No, I couldn't possibly have that." I then responded, "Well, then, you sit on the floor." He then said, "I just knew we weren't going to get along." In actual fact, we and he get along just fine, and it was a mutually fun way to initiate our acquaintance. As we left, we met a couple of women, sitting on a bench right in front of the building which houses the CAS Pinecrest Queensway offices, who knew my wife from her involvement with neighbourhood play groups. We openly, and not so quietly, discussed the manners in which the social workers had been dealing with us, as well as the effects that the CAS process of arbitrary child removal has had on our children. We have no idea whether the people who were standing and sitting near by were CAS employees, and, if they were, what impact our statements may have had. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 20:57:55 -0400 (EDT) We had a visit with our three youngest children today. Our 2-year-old son was already there, waiting outside the building with the visit supervisor, when we arrived. While we waited for our 4- and 5-year-old daughters to arrive, my wife held him and spoke (and he repeated) the words for the colours and types of the vehicles which passed by. As soon as our daughters arrived, they both ran over to us, cheerfully calling as they came, and wanted to be held too. I picked up one in each arm, and all three children enjoyed being carried up to the visiting room. Our 5-year-old daughter began by riding around the room on a car and in a boat. Our 4-year-old daughter began by asking me to sit down with her at the small table while she drew some pictures. Our 2-year-old son began by playing, together with my wife, with some jungle animals and a zoo- or barn-like structure. One of the cutest of his games was to jam one of the tiger's legs into the fence so that he could then rescue it. While they were thus playing, the visit supervisor went to get a couple more adult-sized chairs for those of us bigger people who desired more comfort. Both girls asked where their 16-year-old brother and 18-year-old sister were. We explained that their older brother no longer could make it to a mid-day visit since he was now back in school, and that their older sister, who was able to rearrange her time table so that her spare period is at the end of the day, would be arriving about a half an hour late. When she finally did arrive, they happily greeted her, and invited her to join them in their play. Both younger girls asked us if, as we've usually done in the past, we'd brought them a snack. I explained that we hadn't because there wasn't enough time to pick one up since we'd left home much later than usual since, while trying to solve a problem for work, I hadn't been watching the clock closely enough. Our 18-year-old daughter came to the rescue, as she hadn't eaten an apple which she'd brought to school for lunch. She found a knife, cut the apple into smaller pieces, and shared it with them. Our 5-year-old daughter, who has now begun her first year of kindergarten, told us about her teacher. She kept referring to her as Madame Cobb, which prompted me to ask her if her teacher spoke French. She said yes, I asked if her teacher spoke French or English most of the time, and she, figuring out exactly what I was trying to get at (not bad for 5), said, "I'm in mersion". What she really meant, of course, was that she's in a French immersion class. While we wouldn't have done this ourselves (because we think it's important for our children to be in the same school as one another), we believe this to be a very good arrangement for the time being. Good exposure to a foreign language at a young age, and especially to French being as this is Canada, is, in our opinion, a very good thing. While talking with her about school, both she and her sister made statements which indicated that our 4-year-old daughter has also been registered for school (presumably junior kindergarten). Our 4-year-old said that she'd be going to school, and our 5-year-old said that her sister would be starting tomorrow, and seemed to know who her teacher would be. This is in direct contradiction to our request, made multiple times, to the social workers, as we don't believe that junior kindergarten is a good thing. I probably should have kept my mouth shut while talking with our daughters, but, rather, said that "they" (the social workers) must not have listened to us. My wife asked the visit supervisor if it is true that our 4-year-old daughter would be starting school, and he, while acknowledging that he, too, had heard her say the same things that we had heard, suggested that perhaps she was not being accurate. Time will tell, of course, as, if she's really starting school, she'll eventually have plenty of school-related history to recount. Perhaps, at this point, it's best to leave well enough alone as we don't really need to take on yet another battle with the self righteous social workers. It's also not right to mess around with children's lives in order to rectify a relatively small problem. The exposure to French (assuming that it's the same kind of class) is good for her anyway, so, at least for now, we'll just share in her excitement and enjoy her stories. Our 2-year-old son must be completely over the flu he caught on Saturday, as he showed neither physical signs of illness nor abnormal behaviour. He found a large atlas somewhere in the room, brought it to my wife, and asked her to read "the Bible". She explained to him that it was not a Bible, and began to show him, and to explain to him, various pictures within it. There were some animal pictures, and, whenever one came up, our children had fun making whatever sound that particular animal made. We were stumped with the deer picture, though, since none of us had ever heard a deer "talk". Our children again wanted to play with my (by now famous) measuring tape. At one point, the visit supervisor said that it was too dangerous for our 2-year-old (I'm not sure why) and took it away from him. Our 4-year-old, using this as a justification, selfishly took it away from him later (after I'd specifically given it back to him). I immediately took it away from her and returned it, once again, to him, which caused her to begin another whining session. After only about a minute, he, to his credit, gave it back to her. She, however, kept right on whining. My wife held her for a while, and then I did, but neither of us gave in until she stopped. While our 2-year-old son showed no resistance to leaving this time, our daughters both did. When the visit supervisor announced that it was time to start putting the toys away, our 4-year-old daughter jumped up onto my lap and told us that she didn't want to help. We, knowing, but quietly ignoring, what she was really saying, patiently explained that it is right to help put toys away after having played with them. She, eventually, declared that she'd put just one thing away, and jumped down to do so. Our 18-year-old daughter, at about this point, accidentally dropped a bunch of sequins, and our 4-year-old daughter, forgetting the point she was trying to make, excitedly joined her big sister in picking them up. Our 5-year-old daughter, after all of the toys were put away, and just as the others started to leave the room, jumped up onto my shoulders and asked me to hold her legs as she dropped herself into an upside down posture. While this is a normal thing for our lighter children to do, this time she did it quite deliberately in an attempt to claim an excuse for being unable to accompany the visit supervisor to the waiting car. Our 2-year-old son came back for a hug, which gave me a convenient opportunity to tell her that I had to put her down. At that point, she left as she was supposed to. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 22:42:27 -0400 (EDT) Before recounting today's visit, there's another issue which I must comment on. Our 14-year-old daughter, when asked earlier today by her teacher to read something out loud and to answer some questions about it, began to cry uncontrollably. Her teacher asked her what was wrong, but couldn't get her to answer. Finally, her teacher called our 18-year-old daughter, who attends the same school, and asked her to help. The two girls talked for a while, during which time our 14-year-old daughter explained that her crying was caused by her feelings with respect to what the CAS has done. She further explained that she was very upset that this whole process is taking so long. Her older sister reminded her of Romans 8:28, a passage within the Bible wherein God promises His people that those things which He allows them to endure ultimately all work together for good. We were fifteen minutes late for the visit with our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons because we had been delayed at our real estate lawyer's office (we're moving tomorrow evening). When we arrived, we found our children, with the visit supervisor, in the toy room. As soon as they realized that we were there, they came out, with very few toys, to cheerfully greet us. This time the visit took place in a huge conference room, and we helped ourselves to some coffee which was on a table near the door. One of the items which our children brought with them from the toy room, the only one which they spent a lot of time playing with, was a very bouncy ball. While our 6-year-old son sat at a table to draw some pictures, the other three children had plenty of fun with the ball. The large room was ideal for this, although it had some rather lowly hung lights. Our 8-year-old daughter, at one point, threw the ball too close to the visit supervisor's face. My wife told her to apologize, and she did. They also used the ball to perform an impromptu soccer game. One team consisted of our 7-year-old son and our 10-year-old daughter, and the other one consisted of our 8- and 18-year-old daughters. They assigned the job of score keeper to the visit supervisor. He accepted this appointment, and also, acting as league president, told them that his only rule was that, in order to avoid anyone getting hurt, they weren't allowed to run when near any furniture (tables, chairs, etc.). I don't know what the final score was, but, whatever it was, they sure had lots of fun. This morning, my wife, without any children of course, visited one of the play groups which she used to take them to. The people there were very saddened to hear about what has happened to us, and gave her some playdough and colouring sheets to take along to today's visit. She did, and our children enjoyed them. Our children noticed our 18-year-old daughter's school bag, and asked her where she had gotten it. She told them that her mother had bought it for her, and then they went to my wife to ask her if she'd buy each of them a school bag too. They did this in spite of the fact that CAS money had already been used to get a good one for each one of them. Children are clearly eager to trade higher quality (an adult idol) for even a remote touch from their mothers. Our 18-year-old daughter tried to get the visit supervisor to play her flute. He made a meager effort, and then gave up. Our 7-year-old son also tried to play it. He lasted for about 10 minutes, and, on occasion, at least got some sounds out of it. All of this led to a discussion on failure. I commented that we could all learn from our failures, to which the visit supervisor responded "learn to give up". I persisted, and his next response was "learn that we should never have tried". I concluded by saying that, for bad things, this is true, but, for good things, we can always learn what we did wrong and then try to do better the next time. Our 6-year-old son (the one with cerebral palsy) spent a lot of time with me wanting to be lifted up really high, wanting to be held upside down while he looked at his mother and at the visit supervisor, and holding my hands so that he could practice jumping. He also spent a fair bit of time playing with my measuring tape, practicing grabbing its end and extending it, and learning to operate the lock which keeps it from retracting. At one point, he asked for, and was granted permission to, wear the visit supervisor's name tag. We had lots of fun with this one. We started referring to each of them by the name of the other. We told the visit supervisor that he'd have to start using our son's walker, and that he'd have to start taking the school bus. We told our son that he'd have to learn to drive the visit supervisor's car, and asked him to write the reports so that they'd be good. Near the beginning of the visit, while he was sitting at the table drawing pictures, someone (I forget who) commented on the fact that he was wearing a pokémon shirt. He, remembering that we don't approve of things like that (because they represent unGodly objects of worship within our society), told us that he knew we didn't like it and said that he should get a different one. We told him that, for the time being, he didn't need to be too picky about what he's being given. Our 10-year-old daughter spent most of the last half of the visit sitting on my lap and insisting that I hold her with both arms. She told me many things about her school, including some Terry Fox (that's the name of the school too) activities which are currently under way. This led to a lengthy discussion on who Terry Fox was, and why he's worthy of honour. She also had fun looking at the others, both children and adults, through a spy glass (one of those things which fits over one eye and presents multiple images of what's being looked at). Our 7-year-old son, when it was time to leave, engaged in a few interesting antics in an attempt to delay his departure. He climbed onto my back, hid under tables, and, when asked to put his coat on, first ignored the request and then hung it from his head by its hat and proudly proclaimed that he had put it on perfectly. The visit supervisor had to coax him several times in order to get him to put it on properly. While I was helping our 6-year-old son to put his coat on (the inner lining of each sleeve was far too loose, and the elastic at the end of each sleeve was far too tight, for a child with poor hand and arm coordination to put it on by himself), he shook his arms violently. Perhaps he thought he was being helpful, but, at least to me, it seemed as though he was actively trying to prevent me from getting his coat on. Maybe, although I can't be certain, this was his way of indicating a desire to stay. The visit supervisor, after our children were gone, asked us if we were willing to participate in a survey regarding our thoughts on how to improve the CAS's "access" (visit) process. I told him that, as I'm sure he knew by now, I'm very willing to speak to any issue, and to be very open about what I have to say, to which he responded that that's why he was asking us to do it. I went on to tell him, however, that I am also not stupid, that I am somewhat politically aware, and that I knew full well how less than honourable people within the CAS might work to make our current situation more difficult should they find out about those things which we have to say that are of a negative nature. He tried to assure me that this would not happen because the people conducting the survey, and analyzing its results, wouldn't be in a position to know the specifics of our case. He then gave us a sheet of paper which describes the survey, and I told him that I'd let him know what our decision is by Tuesday (during our next mid-week visit). I suspect that we'll do it, but I'll remain very alert for possible danger. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 03:43:59 -0400 (EDT) We arrived quite tired for Sunday's visit because moving is a rather exhausting experience. We also weren't able to bring child changing supplies since we weren't quite sure where that sort of stuff had ended up. We managed, though, although I suspect that our children returned to their foster homes a bit less clean than usual. Our 5-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son were very restless during morning worship. Our 4-year-old daughter clung to her 18-year-old sister most of the time. At one point she went down onto the floor. She began to whine as soon as my wife picked her up from there, and the two of them, along with our 2-year-old son (whom my wife was holding at the time), left for the nursery. While in the nursery, a child (not ours) put a cookie onto the floor. Someone mentioned that that was a mess which needed to be cleaned up. Our 2-year-old son, as soon as he heard the reference to cleaning up, climbed up onto my wife's lap and held on tightly. He must have thought that this phrase was the queue for him to prepare to be taken away. Our 5-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son wanted to stay with us in the sanctuary, rather than go to their own classes, during Sabbath School. Our 6-year-old son, although he initially did go to his class, left it and came up to join us as well. One of the visit supervisors (the one who left at 3pm) was new since Nathalie was unable to come. Her name was Anik. She is 23, and has no children. She seemed to be very nice, and, after lunch, even sang psalms with our children as our 18-year-old daughter played her flute. We also found out that Yvonne, the other visit supervisor, is 33, and that she has two dogs but no children. My wife and I both noticed that we had to remind a number of our children to be polite at lunch time. One always has to do this to some degree or other, but we both felt the need for it to be rather excessive this time. My wife brought playdough along, and our younger children had fun playing with it after lunch. Our 5-year-old daughter complained that her left shoe was too tight. She insisted that it was hurting her in the middle of the top of her left foot, and, to me, it indeed did feel like a rather close fit at that point. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot we could do for her. We are, of course, unable to take her out to a store in order to find her a properly fitting pair. We have found, by experience, that the foster parents don't seem to take our concerns too seriously. All we could do was tell her that we understood the problem, encourage her to tell her foster parents, and tell her that we hoped that they would do something about it. This business of being unable to help our children with real problems, especially when they explicitly seek out our help, simply because the experts have declared us unfit to do so is really frustrating to us and unfair to the children. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons told us that they (all four of them) go to a foster children's choir each Wednesday afternoon. My current understanding is that it's run by the people from the camp that they went to during the summer. It's a chance for them to get back together, and to sing simple Christian children's choruses. Our children told us more about their schools, and also asked lots of questions about our new house. They wanted to know the room layout, who'd be sharing a bedroom with whom, what furniture we had so far, and when exactly we'd moved in. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters had concerns about retrieving some of their things from our old house, and we had to sadly inform them that they probably wouldn't be given an opportunity to go back and look for them. We've done our best to find things, but, not being able to know for sure where something might have been hidden away, we can't guarantee that we've found everything which might be dear to them. When it was time for our younger children to leave (3pm), our 4-year-old daughter ran off with my measuring tape. I'm sure that she did this as a way to get permission to come back. We found her with it, trying to hide in the girls' washroom, and took it away from her. She then began to whine, and (as the visit supervisor told us shortly thereafter) didn't stop until the car door was closed. The visit supervisor told us that she wasn't sure whether our daughter was crying because we had taken the tape away from her or because it was time for her to leave. She suggested (ordered) a couple of changes in procedure, therefore, to better manage the departure. She said that she would inform our children regarding their upcoming departure a little earlier in order to give them more time to prepare. She also said that our other children would no longer be allowed to accompany them out of the building. I told the visit supervisor that this whole business of leaving could be made a lot simpler if the children were just returned. She said that we'd just have to do the best we can. I said that this was a situation wherein the social workers had too much pride to lose. She said we'll do the best we can with Sundays. We are, of course, never outside whenever our 2-year-old son arrives or leaves. Our other children have told us, though, that he's started referring to his foster mother as "mom". While I surely don't fault him for this, I think that his foster mother ought to have the decency to refuse the title. All she'd have to do is very consistently ask him to address her by her real name. Surely she must know that that title solely belongs to his real mother, i.e. my wife. Our 7-year-old son started to vacuum the nursery and hallway carpets. Our 6-year-old son wanted a turn, and began to whine in an attempt to force his way. I told him that I would personally ensure that he wouldn't get a turn if he continued his whining, and that, although others may let him get away with that kind of behaviour, I wouldn't. He eventually calmed down, and I asked his older brother to give him a turn. We then had fun showing him how to do it, although he basically just stood in one place and gave that single spot a really good cleaning. It was too hard for him to walk while holding something as unsupportive as a vacuum cleaner handle. Our 12-year-old daughter had told us, a week earlier, that she was often tempted to tell her foster parents "don't you stupid people know that babies cry sometimes". I asked her for clarification with respect to this statement, and it is as follows. Our children have been around a lot of babies, and, therefore, have a very good sense regarding when to, and when not to, pick up a baby based on the type of cry. They know the kind of cry which is used purely for manipulation, whereas their foster parents, being as their twins are their first babies, haven't figured out this sort of stuff yet. They expect their foster children to pick up their babies whenever they cry, but our children won't do it when they know it's really best not to. Their foster parents would then typically say something somewhat rude like "pick them up ... thank you for the help". Our 10-year-old daughter asked me if she'd be back soon. I told her that she wouldn't be back before October 2 because that's the next time we'd be in court before a judge, and that the CAS is insisting that only a judge can order their return. I also told her that this would be the hearing during which the social workers would likely be getting rather mean, since this would be the hearing at which they would be trying to convince the judge that our children should not be returned, and that we'd have to present all of our arguments in an attempt to refute them. The visit supervisor was getting visibly upset with me at this point, but I felt I had no choice but to warn our children since, in all probability, they'll be present at the hearing and, therefore, will be directly confronted with all of this nastiness. Surely I have the right to prepare my children for the ugliness that awaits them. I knew that the visit supervisor was getting visibly upset with me because our daughter commented that she had a strange looking smile, to which she responded that it was actually a scowl. Our daughter asked her why she was making such a funny face, and I, answering for her, said that it was because I was being very bold with my words, walking right up to the borderline without actually crossing it, and that this was causing her to get very worried. The visit supervisor then said that she knew it was a touchy subject. I went on to tell our daughter that she'd be seeing her lawyer some time between now and then, and that she should make sure to tell her lawyer everything she wanted her to know. The visit supervisor started getting seriously concerned that I was saying too much, and told her to remember that it was her lawyer. I then told the visit supervisor that I knew exactly where the borderline is, i.e. that I shouldn't tell my children what to say, that I had no intention of crossing that borderline, and that she knew full well that I hadn't crossed it yet. I also told her that the most I would ever tell my children regarding what to say is that they tell the truth since God doesn't bless lying. We also had a discussion about which of our children would be in court. I told them that, as far as I knew, it would likely be the older four (8, 10, 12, 14) since I think that children eight and older are allowed to testify for themselves. The visit supervisor then said that no child should ever have to be subjected to such a thing, to which I almost responded (but managed to hold my tongue) that no system should ever make it necessary for a child to have to defend his right to go home. I find it to be rather imbalanced when the CAS, which is always in a position to carefully monitor whatever I tell my children, orders me to keep silent when it borders on making them look bad, whereas they, in total privacy, do their best to make us look bad to our children. I am, apparently, also totally unqualified to give my children legal counsel, whereas they, who are equally minus a law degree, seem to think of themselves as being beyond reproach in this field. They sure are experts at abusing their power to "stack the deck". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 03:48:13 -0400 (EDT) We visited our 14- and 12-year-old daughters yesterday evening. The scheduling of this particular visit forced us to miss the "meet the teacher" night at the high school. We arrived about five minutes late for the visit because we mis-estimated the time that it would take us to walk there from our new home. Upon arrival, we couldn't help but notice the rather expensive, brand new, top quality, leather chairs in the visit room. The visit supervisor told us that those chairs were added as part of the renovation of the CAS's Pinecrest Queensway offices. We asked him about the chair in his own office, and he told us that it was still the same old one he had had before. We didn't do any puzzles in the paper because the paper box had a rather insatiable appetite for our coins this time. The visit supervisor asked us if he should get checkers, or some other game, but our children declined his offer. We just sat around an approximate circle and talked with one another. Our 14-year-old daughter had brought a three-paragraph French article along with her which she had had to translate into English. She first read it to us in its original French, and then, without the help of any notes, reread it to us, translating it in her head as she went, in English. If I dare say so, and as my wife also observed, she did very well. Our 12-year-old daughter told us that she had seen a person whom we knew several years ago driving the school bus for both her previous and current schools. She also told us how she had seen the children on another school bus for her previous school standing up with their arms hanging out of the windows, and that the bus driver wasn't doing anything about it. This led to the recounting of a couple of old school bus stories, i.e. a bus driver who had the same first name as our 14-year-old daughter and who used to hit her brakes rather hard at a particular intersection which routinely caused her passengers to hit their heads on the seats in front of them, and a bus driver whom I was instrumental in getting fired because he used to do stupid and dangerous things like bump his bus over curbs in order to show off. Our 12-year-old daughter often gets onto interesting topics. Today she wanted to discuss cemeteries, and, eventually, wanted to discuss tomb stones. We talked about the kinds of things which people write on them, at which point she asked the visit supervisor what he wanted to have written on his. His first answer was that he wouldn't be around then so he didn't much care, and his second was that he planned to be cremated so there wouldn't be much room to write anything. We also discussed people who buy their tomb stones ahead of time, and how theirs can be recognized by the fact that they bear no death year. When the visit supervisor announced that it was time to get ready to leave, neither girl got up, and neither stopped talking. They lingered as long as they could, i.e. until they realized they had no choice but to go. As they were leaving, the visit supervisor took out a cigarette. I couldn't resist, returned to the tomb stone topic, and suggested that perhaps a fitting phrase to inscribe on his would be that he might have lasted longer if he hadn't been a smoker. We told the visit supervisor that we were willing to take part in the survey which he asked us about last Thursday. I asked him if the lady who signed her name to the survey participation request was his boss, and he indicated that she is a few levels up in his management chain. This led to a discussion regarding who the top person (executive director) is, which led my wife to ask if that person was ultimately the one to whom one should direct complaints. He hinted at wanting to know whether or not she had a complaint, to which she, being weary of, and deeply hurt by, this whole thing, told him that she didn't feel that our children should have been taken away. He responded that, regardless of what we thought, there were issues which required that our children be removed from their home. I'm not quite sure how to interpret his answer. Why did he use the plural (issues) when, in fact, there is exactly one issue, i.e. our failure to keep our house clean? If, as we've been previously told, the visit supervisors don't know any of the details, how can he be in a position to even offer a response like that? Does he really not know, and, therefore, is simply trusting his colleagues to have not erred? Does he really know, in which case we've been lied to yet again? In any event, I pursued the issue by pointing out that one must be careful to separate an issue from the process used to resolve that issue, and that, although there may be an issue, that does not necessarily, in and of itself, justify the process which has been used to resolve it. I pointed out how the removal of a child from his home is harmful to him, and that that harm, inflicted by those who claim to be his protector, should always be very carefully weighed against the perceived harm which the child is deemed to need protection from. To this, the visit supervisor gave a fairly standard answer, i.e. that the CAS was there to protect children. I told him that, on occasion, the children need protection from the protector. He said that they (the CAS) do a lot of good work. I said that indeed they do, but that they occasionally also do bad work, and that, whenever they realize that they've erred, they don't have the integrity to back off. I then launched into a lecture on abuse of power, pointing out that the CAS is implicitly trusted by its over-seer, the provincial government, to do the right thing, that it has been given tremendous powers which, therefore, run unchecked, and that it's inevitable that any person or organization which has unconstrained power will eventually become corrupt. As part of this discussion, I informed him that one of our social workers had told us very directly and clearly that she believed that children were always better off in foster homes. To convince him that this was not merely a misinterpretation on my part, I went on to describe how I had pursued her on this point, and how she had, in the face of my demands for clarification, steadfastly held to her position. He got out of this one by saying that he was not willing to comment on a conversation involving one of his colleagues which he was not privy to. I, perhaps foolishly, and certainly out of my own frustration, then mentioned that I was in a position to make the CAS look bad after this is all over. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 20:14:39 -0400 (EDT) Today, we visited our 5- and 4-year-old daughters and our 2-year-old son. They were all there, waiting outside, when we arrived. As soon as they saw us coming, they began to call loudly out to us from across the parking lot. We called back to them as we came. This mutual exchange continued until we reached them. My wife then picked up our son, and our 4-year-old daughter took my hand as we went up to the visit room. My wife had brought along a snack consisting of raisins, fruit, and the like. Our children spotted it immediately, and, as their first order of business, gathered around a table to share it. Although they didn't eat all of it, they sure enjoyed it. Our 5-year-old daughter insisted on handing me one raisin at a time from a small box, and, as I took and ate each one, I counted it. She repeated each number as I said it, and we determined that the box had contained 28 raisins in all. Our 4-year-old daughter handed me her empty raisin box and insisted that I take it with me and put it in the garbage at our new house. Our 18-year-old daughter arrived late, as this particular visit starts a little before she gets out of school. As soon as she came in, our little children all greeted her and began to share their snack with her. Our 4-year-old daughter, as usual, attached herself to her older sister for most of the remainder of the visit. My wife had also brought some playdough, and our 4-year-old daughter had fun making things with it. Her masterpiece was a snowman. Our children spent quite a bit of time looking out the window as they watched a municipal maintenance crew redo the sidewalk in front of the building. My wife and I took turns holding our 2-year-old son, and our 18-year-old daughter held our 4-year-old daughter, so that they could more easily see. At one point, my wife pointed at one of the workmen and told our son "you don't want to smoke like he is". Our son then began to yell through the closed third floor window "no 'poking man" (he can't pronounce the letter s yet). At one point (I'm not quite sure what the lead-in was), our 5-year-old daughter asked the visit supervisor for his best friend's phone number. He answered that it was not a good idea for her to be phoning people whom she didn't know. Very strange advice, in my opinion, for someone who is part of a system which, in the name of child protection, is constantly introducing our children to strange people and demanding that they implicitly trust them. When the visit supervisor announced that it was time to prepare to leave, our 4-year-old daughter responded by saying "no, I want to keep colouring". A few seconds later he tried again by asking our children if they'd help to put the toys away. All three of them answered "I'm not". He tried again by telling them that they wouldn't be allowed to play with the toys again if they didn't help to put them away this time. They still refused, and he, my wife, and our 18-year-old daughter eventually did the job. Our 4-year-old daughter wanted to take her 18-year-old sister's pen with her, promising to bring it back next time. Her sister switched it for another pen which she had, with happy faces on it, and let her take it. All three children, after having left the room, came back several times to say yet another good-bye. Our 5-year-old daughter, from just outside the door, stopped one last time and tried to teach our 2-year-old son how to say good-bye more fluently. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 23:53:29 -0400 (EDT) Our 6-year-old son, the one with cerebral palsy, had an appointment this morning with a doctor who has been following his progress ever since he was born. He is not our family doctor, but, rather, a pediatrician who is affiliated with the Ottawa Children's Treatment Centre due to his interest in children with developmental problems. He carefully monitors their progress, and, as an added extra, helps to make sure that the families' needs are met. These appointments usually are fun events. We would normally arrive a bit early and go to our son's class (his school is part of the OCTC) to pick him up. He typically would drop whatever he was doing, as soon as he would become aware that we were there, and excitedly announce to his class that his mother and father were there. We would then spend a few minutes in the classroom, chatting with all of the children, before walking with him to the doctor's office. After the appointment, we would walk back with him, and spend a few more minutes with his class before leaving. Both he and we always looked forward to these occasions. This time it was entirely different. A couple of weeks ago, our son's foster father phoned us up to let us know that he had arranged the appointment (probably as the result of a reminder note sent home by the school). His intention, for which I must commend him, was that, as far as he was concerned, we were allowed to attend. He had, however, neglected to inform the CAS social worker. When we arrived, we asked if we could go to our son's class, like usual, to pick him up. The school principal, who is a very nice lady but who doesn't want to violate any rules, knew that the social worker was supposed to be present, noticed that she wasn't there, and immediately gave her a call. She, of course, was surprised by the call, and unable to show up on such immediate notice. She finally gave permission for the appointment to take place once the principal, we, and the foster father all gave her individual verbal consent that the principal could take her place. The principal also promised to report back to her after the appointment. The general rule, to my understanding, is that all communication is to go through the social worker. I suspect that they know that relations between real and foster parents are somewhat tension-filled, and, therefore, want to be there to keep the situation under control. It's also probably a way to ensure that there are no disputes and/or misunderstandings between both parties. The principal went to get our son, and brought him to the doctor's office before any of the rest of us were invited in. When we entered, our son was very, very quiet. There was no excited greeting, no cheerful stories about what he had done that morning at school, no laughter, etc. He just sat there about as silent as can be. Eventually, he got up and walked over to where we were sitting. He was clearly having difficulty deciding whether he should go to his foster father or to us. He went back and forth, spending a bit of time with each, but saying very little (very unusual for him). Even his answers to the doctor's questions were made in whispers. The foster father, probably ignorantly, was doing things right in front of us which gave us the impression that he was trying to steal our son's affections. A child does need on-going affection in order to function, so I can understand that a foster parent must do some of that sort of stuff, but, when in the presence of the real parents, surely the right thing to do is to redirect the child to his parents rather than to actively claim the child to himself. In addition to the hugging sorts of affectionate things, he asked our son, for example, if he (our son) had told his class that he (the foster father) was going to be there today. He was, therefore, in effect trying to make his presence, rather than ours, the highlight of our son's day. Also, after the doctor had left, the principal needed help putting our son's braces back on so he quickly took over without even giving us the opportunity to do one last thing for our son before he, without our accompaniment, was returned, by the principal, to his class. The doctor was incredibly sensitive to the situation, and to our needs and feelings as parents. At one point, for example, he needed our son to sit up in order to do some physical checks, eye testing, cognitive skill analysis, etc. He very specifically asked our son to sit on our laps, but not on the foster father's lap. When, for another example, discussing our son's schooling, he commented that our son was in the best possible situation. Then, after momentarily pausing (as though he suddenly realized how we might interpret such a general statement even though it was made within a very specific context), he added "insofar as his schooling is concerned". After everyone but my wife and myself had left the room, I just sat very still, became very quiet, refused to get up to leave, and began to cry. I don't cry very easily, even when alone, so, whenever I do, it's a clear indicator that something has reached way, way down into my soul. It was at that point, therefore, after having been directly confronted with the reality, that I finally realized just how very, very deeply it has hurt me to have lost our children to someone else. I'm fairly tough, so I can only but wonder what each of our children (who is, after all, only a child) is feeling like. I am now convinced, more than ever before, that the visit process, which is a constant series of reuniting followed by tearing away, can ultimately do no less than harden the hearts of the children since, in order to keep on living, they must eventually do something to protect themselves from the pain. Perhaps the visit process is good when a family is in need of carefully supervised reconstruction, but, when there is no relational problem in need of reconstruction, it is, in my opinion, the wilful infliction of potentially irretrievable harm. There is at least one other thing which really bothers me in all of this, i.e. the forced ambivalence of those who are in a position (teachers, principals, doctors, nurses, etc.) to step in and take corrective action. Many, when in private, do offer very kind words of consolation. Without exception so far, though, every single one of them has refused to take a public stand. When pushed in that direction, they invariably respond with pat phrases like "I don't know all the facts", "it's not my place", silence, etc. Even those who really do care about children are afraid, when the rubber meets the road, of personal reprisals. And the children continue to suffer, and suffer, and suffer, ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 01:24:24 -0400 (EDT) We visited our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons yesterday afternoon. As we entered the main CAS office building (where our Thursday visits take place), our attention was again drawn to a sign which is prominently posted above the waiting area. It declares, "children should grow up in an atmosphere of happiness, love, and understanding". Our children did. The only legitimate reason the CAS has to cling to (the disastrous state of our house) has absolutely nothing to do with even one word on that sign. The CAS itself has violated the wording of its own sign by removing our children from just such an environment, by making them unhappy for a prolonged and ever-lengthening period of time, by giving them very limited access to true love, and by showing a great lack of understanding with respect to their needs and desires. This time, the visit took place in a rather small room. After the four younger children, our 18-year-old daughter, my wife, and myself sat down, there was only one small (child-sized) chair left for the visit supervisor. At first he said that he'd have to improvise, and sat down at a small table to take his notes. Fairly soon thereafter, though, he enticed some of our children to play a game at another table, did some clever chair shifting, and claimed a regularly sized chair for himself. The room had an awful, sickly-sweet smell. We asked about it, and were told that it was because of an air freshening machine which comes on, every so often, to blast the air with some sort of smelly stuff in order to mask the fact that, small as it is, the room hosts many groups of people throughout the day. The visit supervisor seemed rather surprised when we told him that we didn't like the smell. Fortunately, as time progressed, either we got used to it or it dissipated. Our 7-year-old son had yet another way of expressing his feelings. He told the visit supervisor that he didn't want to ever go in his car, and that he shouldn't even ever put it in the parking lot, because it was messy, dirty, stinky, smelly, etc. I can't remember all of the adjectives, but it seemed as though it were a reasonably complete list of the ones which were probably used by the social workers in order to convince our children that they should have been removed from their home. Our 18-year-old daughter tried to tell him that it wasn't nice to say things like that, but he continued, she gave up, and, silently of course, we all thought it was rather funny. He, as well as his 8-year-old sister, also employed another very simple means to show us that they miss our care. He asked me to hold his bag (which appeared to contain a juice box and a toy), and she asked my wife to hold her bracelet. He also, at one point, lay down on the floor, held onto one of my wife's fingers, and wouldn't let it go. Our 7-year-old son told me that his shirt had baseball pictures on it. I, without thinking, asked him if that meant that I could now either bat or pitch him. I wonder what the visit supervisor thought of that? Our 18- and 10-year-old daughters and our 7-year-old son spent most of the time playing a game of monopoly. The visit supervisor explained the rules and counted the money, although he appointed one of the younger children to be the official banker. Whenever our 7-year-old son asked the visit supervisor to read something, he instructed him to ask his 10-year-old sister to read it instead. Our 8-year-old daughter, near the end of the visit, wanted to join in so our 18-year-old daughter let her take her place. As soon as our 7-year-old son found out that there was a jail in the game, he made up some wild story about why he had been in jail once before. Our 6-year-old son was entirely different than he had been during that morning's doctor's appointment. He was full of life, energy, words, and, last but by no means least, wanting us. He didn't leave us for even a minute throughout the entire visit, which is somewhat unusual, and probably indicates just how messed up he'd felt earlier when his foster father was encouraging him to divide his loyalty. He, with constant encouragement from my wife and occasional participation by our 8-year-old daughter, and I tossed a ball back and forth for about the first half of the visit. He was standing up without assistance, both throwing and catching the ball, for most of that time (would that the doctor were there to have seen that). Even though I am blind, which made it hard to catch a ball which was silently headed my way, and even though his poor arm and leg control, coupled with his imperfect balance, made the task of catching difficult for him, we had a tremendous amount of fun and the crazy misses provided endless fuel for great bursts of laughter by all. It all came to an end, unfortunately, when he lost his balance, fell, and banged the back of his head on the baseboard of the wall. We don't worry about accidents like this too much, because, if we were to protect him from them, then he wouldn't have the opportunity to learn to do anything on his own. I'm not sure, however, if the visit supervisor agreed with our non-babying approach. We picked him up, stood him on his feet, hugged him, let him sit on our laps for a while, and encouraged him, once we were sure that the pain had sufficiently subsided, to get up and play again. He did, and, within minutes, we were enjoying the next activity. Our 8-year-old daughter had been playing with a set of magnetic fishes, a net, and a vertically mounted board made to look like a boat. The goal was to fling the fishes out of the net and into (onto) the boat. Our 6-year-old son was watching her while he was recovering, and, as soon as he felt well enough, he wanted to give it a try too. She then spent several minutes showing him how to do it. He wanted me to lift him up really high so that he could place fishes onto the boat way up near the top. While he was up there, he started to pull at something which, I think, was supposed to be a fishing rod and line. My wife told him to be careful, and the visit supervisor agreed. My wife then further explained that she was concerned that he might choke himself, to which the visit supervisor responded that his concern was that our son not break the magnetic fishes. After he no longer wanted to play with the fishes, our 6-year-old son gave me a real workout. He started out by holding my hands so that he could practice jumping. Eventually, he wanted me to assist his jumping by lifting him up higher and higher. This culminated in his wanting me to lift him, several times, as high as I could so that he could stretch out his arms to touch the ceiling. He then wanted me to toss him up into the air and to catch him on his way back down. All of this did get a bit tiring for me, especially in that hot, small room, so I devised a fun way to get a break in between each toss. I worked on teaching him to count to twelve, and, only when he would successfully do it (with help, of course), would he earn another toss. After that, he wanted to hang by his knees from my shoulders, to lean back until he was all the way upside down (which is very difficult, but good, for his stiff back), and to pull himself back up again. While upside down he would reach down to touch the chair, look and laugh at those who were still upright, and ask the visit supervisor to look at him. All of this direct interaction with him sure more than made up for that morning's pain. When it was time to leave, our 10-year-old daughter kept putting the magnetic fishes up onto the boat, and then knocking them back down again, in a way that made it appear as though they weren't sticking, so that she'd have to put them back up again. I rather suspect that this was a delay tactic. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 18:27:59 -0400 (EDT) Our 18-year-old daughter just sent the following letter to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen (one of our local newspapers) in response to an article in today's paper. Dear Editor: The article in today's paper about the CAS (40% rise in number of children in CAS care, September 22) caught my attention, because a number of my brothers and sisters are in their "care". I will fully admit that the house we lived in was in a disasterous physical state due to various things that my family has been through, but that was no excuse for the separation of 13 children and 2 parents who care about us into five (might I add, "strange", when children today are taught to steer free of strangers) foster homes across the region, under the false accusation of violence! Jeanette Lewis is right when she says "these children are being taken away from their families and this is traumatic." It hurts, and there's the answer to one of Nico Trocme's questions. It is not better for children to be in foster homes, where even the values are conflicting. I was not removed because I am 18, and had my own choice in the matter; although I had been working at a wonderful Christian camp, so I found out about it a little while later when I contacted my family (which means, I didn't have a choice anyway. But I would have chosen to stay.) Which is one of many examples to show that my parents care. They phoned the camp, and requested that my phone calls be screened until they had an opportunity to tell me themselves what had happened so none of my work at camp would be interrupted. I didn't hear a word about the situation for two weeks, when I phoned them while we were at a church in Kanata to witness a girl's baptism, to avoid a long distance call. My 20- and 16-year-old brothers are here, too. Another example is that we have our teeth checked every 6 months. Some of my friends hardly ever have their teeth checked. While this doesn't mean their parents don't care, it expresses some of how much mine do. My mom often took the little ones to play groups, and my dad often helped us out with our homework, despite the fact that he is blind. My dad works from home so he can help keep a closer eye on the children, and my parents were always very careful about who took care of the children should they both have to go somewhere (which, they made sure, was not very often.) Our family has higher moral standards than most. According to the CAS, my family was abusive and neglective. Excuse me? I have lived with them for 18 years, and feel that I cannot pay them back for what they have given me, constant support from the time I was conceived in my mother's womb. And yet from Trocme's research reference, the CAS doesn't know whether I would have been better off in a foster home or in my own home (had I been a few years younger.) I am generally a hard worker, but I found out that I have to be told by someone who doesn't even know me and is pre-judging me that I have to help out at home. And I know that I would have been worse off in a foster home, because God didn't put me in this family for no reason. I have many people in my family to love and care for. And have I "fared poorly in life" as a result of being in my own home, because it was "abusive" and "poor" and "neglective"? I doubt it. (Parents do not suddenly become that way after they've been raising children for 21 years.) My marks are not all A+'s, but neither are they D's or F's. The only course in high school that I've failed is 4A math, and now I am completing my OAC's. I could have had my O.S.S.D. in the middle of my Gr. 12 year, had I taken 4A English in the first semester. Although I am shy, there are many things I am capable of doing, which are of far more value and significance than doing well in school. I owe much of it to the support and guidance of my parents, next to the amazing love and genuine blessings of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Instead of tearing families apart that love and care for each other, if a 'serious' problem (such as a dirty, worn-out house) is found by a culture which judges exteriors rather than what really counts, then why not use some of that money to help them fix the physical aspects rather than separating the family under the vain assumption that they have been neglected and abused? In doing so, they would prevent many devastating problems which are currently being created as a result of the system; the children wouldn't be suffering, and we'd all get along just fine. And, their funds would be better spent. We feel very blessed to have a loving, supportive church family that cares for us and lifts us up in prayer continually, and I am thankful to have a father who has a decent enough income to help get us out of this mess, which has been made a mess far worse than the physical state of our old house by people who don't even have children and think they know what they are talking about. But how would those with an unsubstantial income in this situation fare? As long as my little brothers and sisters are not with my family, they suffer. And so does my mother, and my father, and all of us. Tell me this isn't so. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2000 23:22:32 -0400 (EDT) When we arrived at church this morning, all of our children, except our 2-year-old son, were already there. Our younger children began calling out to us, and ran into the parking lot to greet us. We then slowly walked with them into the building, and, as the worship service had just begun, immediately entered the sanctuary. Our 2-year-old son arrived a few minutes later, and our 5-year-old daughter noticed him as soon as he came in. Our 7-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter were extremely restless throughout the entire service. Our 6-year-old son, on the other hand, seemed unusually relaxed, eventually, for the first time since his apprehension, lying down with his head on my lap just like the good old days. Our 4-year-old daughter, attaching herself, as usual, to our 18-year-old daughter, began to cry so her older sister carried her out of the sanctuary. When asked if her foster parents took good care of her, she answered "yes". When asked if she liked them, she answered "no". Since, at other times, she has said that she does like them, I suspect that this was just another of her ways of saying that she wants to go home. Wanting to go home was also very much on the mind of our 6-year-old son. During morning worship he said "I want to go home with you guys". Just before Sabbath School he said "I want to go home with you guys but they won't let me". During Sabbath School he said "I want to stay with you guys". He then, still during Sabbath School, talked about wanting to be in our new house so that he could walk to church with us. Just before evening worship he said "I want to go home with you guys". During the Lord's Supper he said "I want to go home". His last such statement was a series of phrases: "I don't want to be taken away", "it's wrong to be taken away", "I didn't want to be taken away". During congregational prayer time he asked me if the police were bad. I answered "no". He then asked why then did they take them away from us. My answer was that the police didn't want to do it, but that they had to because the Children's Aid people told them to do it. This conversation took a few twists and turns which I can't remember, but, in the end, nothing I said convinced him, since he was unable to accept that the police had to take orders from others. His final conclusion, which I was continually trying to argue him out of, was that the police indeed are bad. Wanting to go home was also on the mind of our 7-year-old son. He told me that he had prayed last night that he'd be home within two weeks. Later on in the day he reiterated, a number of times, that he had been praying that he could go home. I told him to keep on praying, and reminded him that God always hears every single prayer. I also told him that God, sometimes, wants us to learn to trust Him, that He often does this by making us wait, and, therefore, that it was very important that he keep on praying. The artificialness of the situation seemed to have been totally forgotten for a while during lunch as the church kitchen was filled with lots of lively and noisy simultaneous conversations. This is something that all of us are completely used to, but I'm sure that the visit supervisors were totally unable to make out a single word. Too many children wanted to sit right beside one another as well as with me. We ended up with our 7-year-old son immediately to my left, our 2-year-old son on my left knee, and our 8-year-old daughter on my right knee. After a few minutes our 8-year-old daughter cheerfully said "you know what this is proving to them, that we like each other, that we get along, and they don't believe us". We may be up against another value clash. All grade 7 students are given a consent form for a Hepatitis B vaccination. Our position has always been to refuse this shot since we believe that it is unnecessary. This particular disease is typically only passed from one person to another via fornication or via sharing needles. First, we have taught our children that these activities are wrong. Second, we don't believe that we should be taking steps to prevent our children from suffering the bad consequences of bad behaviour. Our 12-year-old daughter understands our reasons, agrees with them, and doesn't want the shot either. We don't know yet what her foster parents' position regarding this shot is, and, if it differs from ours, whose opinion will stand. Our 8-year-old daughter asked me to help her with her homework, which turned out to be the copying down of tomorrow's weather forecast. I gave her the local phone number which presents that information, asked her to try listening to it for herself, and told her that I'd then call it to confirm that she wrote down the correct information. She tried it, but said that the voice spoke too fast. I then called it, and told her what I heard. She had lots of fun writing down those big weather phrases like "probability of precipitation" and "possibility of frost". We had an accident shortly before our younger children were scheduled to leave. Our 5- and 4-year-old daughters and our 2-year-old son were all sitting on my back, one behind the other, and it was my job to walk around on all fours like a horse. At one point, it felt to me like our 4-year-old daughter, who was sitting in the middle, was attempting to climb down. This was a misjudgment on my part, as she was really falling off. She landed on her side on the floor (no carpet). She didn't cry very much or too loudly, she didn't report any injury, and no one else noticed any injury, so I'm quite sure that no damage was done. It is, however, an incident worth noting, and I'll have to be more careful next time. Our 7-year-old son was very roughly taking things away from his younger brothers and sisters, and our 6- and 2-year-old sons were doing a lot of whining to attempt to get them back. Our 6-year-old son's whining was getting a bit extreme, so I told him that other people he's living with might fall for it, but that we don't and won't, and that he should know that. He then stopped. At one point, our 10-year-old daughter complained to me about her 7-year-old brother's roughness. I told her that it was his way of expressing his frustration at not being allowed to come home. As if confirming my assessment, as soon as he heard me say that, he stopped. I then asked him directly if that was true. He started to cry, and, in a soft and shaky voice, said "yes". Our 7-year-old son wasn't all bad. True to his promise last week, after our younger children had left, he, without a reminder, went and got the vacuum cleaner so that his 6-year-old brother could clean the nursery and hallway carpets. I'm not sure how well he did, but our 6-year-old son stuck with the task for at least a half an hour. When he stopped, our 7-year-old son, again without prompting, wound up the cord and put the vacuum cleaner away again. This was another day on which we would normally have joined other members of our congregation to sing psalms for the residents of a local elderly citizens' home. We, of course, could not go. Our children's hearts are sure in the right place, though. Our 14-year-old daughter, for example, said that sometimes, after a lot of singing, she gets a very sore throat, but, when it's psalms or hymns which are being sung, it's all worth it. Our 18-year-old daughter noticed that her 14-year-old sister had one of those lockable diaries, and played with its lock to see how well it worked. It opened, and the diary revealed the following paragraph (reprinted here with the permission of its author). >Sunday, September 10, 2000 >I don't like the CAS. According to me, they're liars and manipulators and >I wish I could ignore them completely because of their stupidity. They >mess up people's lives and families. She also had written a much longer piece, which I'll reprint within its own entry. It begins, "Sometimes I wish I were the type of person who didn't refrain from anger,". Our 7- and 6-year-old sons wanted to take our leftover fries with them back to their foster home. The visit supervisor used the word "home" when telling the boys that they could wait while my wife went to wrap them up. I challenged this, saying that it wasn't their "home". She readily acknowledged this, and immediately switched to "foster home". Our 6-year-old son then said that it was "Tom's home", Tom being the first name of his foster father, and then the visit supervisor switched to just "Tom's". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 07:04:30 -0400 (EDT) Our 14-year-old daughter wrote the following entry in her diary. I have her permission to reprint it here, and have taken the liberty to change her use of her brothers' and sisters' names into age-gender references. Other than that, the following words are hers. Sometimes I wish I were the type of person who didn't refrain from anger, someone who didn't put up with teasing from "Day 1" as some teachers would say. But wishing does nothing. I could wish every single one of my brothers and sisters and I were living with our parents, but it's better to pray, because God answers prayers. Wishing does nothing. I really want my whole family back together again. I feel like writing a book about it, I don't have to wait, I'm sure, but right now I don't think any books that I write, if I write will be read unless my friends read them, and if I waited, I wouldn't have to change any names. Because of the CAS, 9 of my siblings (9 including me) were taken away from our home in July. We were put in 5 different foster homes - my 12-year-old sister and I in Nepean, my 4- and 5-year-old sisters in Carp, my 8- and 10-year-old sisters, my 7- and 6-year-old brothers, and my 2-year-old brother in Orleans. Our mother specifically told me to stay with my 2-year-old brother (the youngest) no matter what happened right in front of the CAS. I was bound to listen to my mother, but the CAS put my 2-year-old brother by himself. That's just not fair for a two-year old. The day the CAS came, I wrote to my best friend through e-mail. I knew it wouldn't get to her for a while because her family doesn't have a computer, she checks her e-mail when she goes to her grandmother's. Also something not fair. I can't right to my relatives right now because I don't know their addresses, and I can't use e-mail because I don't have e-mail where I'm staying and the internet only works downstairs. I get to see my 18-year-old sister and my 16-year-old brother nearly every day, my 6- and 7-year-old brothers on Wednesday's and Sunday's, My parents on Tuesday's and Sunday's and the rest only on Sunday's. My 20- and 21-year-old brothers rarely. The CAS ruined a lot of things for me and my siblings. My 18-year-old sister didn't know about the CAS coming until she called. She was at Camp Galilee. The CAS asked my 16- and 20-year-old brothers if they wanted to live in a group home. They said no. The CAS are cruel. They like ripping families apart. They say it's our parent's fault we were taken away, but I know it's the CAS. They're driving my mother crazy. If they can help it we won't be back with our parent. Thinking about it makes me concentrate less in school work. It's really getting to me. Last Wednesday at choir, I don't like the way Marguerite, my 6- and 7-year-old brother's "foster mother" treated my 7-year-old brother. I can't stand to see anyone, especially my brothers or sisters treated like that sitting in the back near your sister you hardly ever see and forced to sit in the front or someone forcing you to do something you don't want to do. I know at least 1 teacher who is like that and it's my grade 4-5 teacher. As far as I could tell Margeurite likes taking her time with a lot of things. Sometimes I can't stand that kind of person, because they're annoying. I'm glad M's not like that, but sometimes she can be annoying, but no matter what, she's still my friend. On the first day of school (the Tuesday), I knew M got my e-mail from that Thursday, because she told me, but she didn't truly understand until she came over. I know she wants to go to Awana and she still might want to go to youth group. Because of the CAS, none of my family went to Silver Lake, I didn't get to go for the last youth group (watching baseball) The next one is a week from Saturday and it's a hike up by Luskville Falls up to the Fire Tower in Quebec, unless it's a different trail this time, but I hope not. And it'll be a first completely for my 12-year-old sister. We can't go to sing at the Versa Care and New Orchard Lodge's because of the CAS, because my 2-year-old brother, and my 4- and 5-year-old sisters have to leave at 3:00. My 4- and 5-year-old sisters go, but first they usually say bye to us. When my 2-year-old brother goes anybody could tell he doesn't want to go because whenever he has to leave he starts crying. One of the times my dad told us that one of the people who works for CAS said that when my 2-year-old brother had to leave he said "No foster mommy none." Yesterday when my 2-year-old brother got to church, to his foster mother, he said "Bye Mommy", then inside the church when he saw our mother he said, "Hi mommy." and whenever he comes he says "Home." I'll never be able to live in my family's old house again, I'm sure, but when my siblings and I can go back home, we'll live close to the schools we'll be going to. My 12-year-old sister will still go to D. Roy. I'll still come here. My 10-, 8-, and 5-year-old sisters, and my 7-year-old brother will go to D. Roy. My 6-year-old brother will have to go to OCTC still. My 12-year-old sister and I can go to Awana, but the others can't, they "live" in Orleans right now. Something else I have against the CAS is what they did to my mother's family when she was really little and she's only met her real brothers and sisters last September. She stayed there from August 25 to September 14. My 2-year-old brother went with her. I talked to some of my relatives over the phone and the only relative of mine that I ever met in my whole life are, my grandmother on my dad's side, my Uncle Ralph, Aunt Susan and Cousin Connor, all on my dad's side, in July, after I finished kindergarden, for 3 day they visited. We went to KFC, walked on the bicycle path and went to Andrew Haydon Park and some other parks. Because of the CAS, our parents gave Job away. He was our dog. My 18-year-old sister got him for her 11th birthday. I can't stand it. It's like the CAS won't let us be seen with our parents in public. Only my 12-year-old sister and I can go to Awana. The others 'live' 'to far away' When I'm with my parents without having to worry about the CAS, it's like I'm free from the rest of the world. My parents can't go to Awana unless they find a way to get there from Orleans because they have to go to the CAS building to have their visit with my 10- and 8-year-old sisters and my 7- and 6-year-old brothers. During our visits, the CAS has people 'observing' our parents. I like calling them spies because that's what they are. The CAS are very picky and obnoxious. We can't even talk to our parents without any CAS agents around. The only people in my family I can talk to without any 'observers' from the CAS are my 18-year-old sister, my 16-year-old brother and my 12-year-old sister. The CAS are picky, rude, mean and obnoxious. The national anthem says 'God keep our land GLORIOUS and FREE.' Do many people really feel that way? I don't think so. I wish Canada would be glorious and free. This is God's land, but it's the people who should make it free, but they don't. They let the CAS take over the families. They can tear families apart without caring. It's like they're a few of the only ones who really, truly have freedom. In 2 years the CAS will absolutely, completely not be able to control my life. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 00:23:45 -0400 (EDT) Yesterday afternoon, in our new home, we had a meeting with Nancy Keddy (our family social worker). Emma Dimock (social worker for our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons), and Debbie Brown (social worker for our 14- and 12-year-old daughters, our 5- and 4-year-old daughters, and our 2-year-old son) also came along. My wife and I, of course, were also present, as were our 20-year-old son and 18-year-old daughter. Our 16-year-old son was home, but didn't want to be near them. Our 20-year-old son kept staring at them with a "do you really believe what you're saying" kind of look. Our 18-year-old daughter cried and gave them a steady, cold stare. A very helpful lady from work was also present. The arrival of the social workers caused us to have to abruptly terminate a phone call from our 8-year-old daughter. Before the actual meeting began, the social workers asked us for (insisted on) a tour of our house, wanting to see everything including the basement and garage. Even though the whole house was clean, and even though the whole house was, except for a few minor details, adequately furnished, they didn't have even one positive thing to say. They just asked a few questions, uttered a few complaints, and later, during the meeting, observed that they hadn't really seen much change. While in the basement, they were very curious about the sump pump (perhaps they'd never seen one before). While looking at the bedrooms, they commented about there not being enough dressers. We pointed out that dressers weren't really necessary since each room has a huge (wall length) closet with an equally huge shelf, and that the older girls' room (designed to be the master bedroom) has a walk-in closet, large enough to be a room in its own right, with hanger rails and shelves on three of its sides. Their response was that "girls are girls", implying that girls have some sort of unwritten right to unlimited space. I thought, but didn't say, that there's nothing special about girls which exempts them from clothing quotas. Nancy had phoned on Friday afternoon to confirm the meeting. During that call, in a very cheerful and excited voice, she told me that she had lots of updates to give us during the meeting. The only update of any significance which she actually gave us was a total surprise (to someone as naive as myself), and certainly was not a matter for cheer. We were informed that we have been added to the provincial child abuse registry, and that, shortly, we would be receiving instructions by mail detailing the process we would have to follow should we wish our names removed from it. They did this without waiting for the psychologist's report, and without waiting for a judge's decision regarding their suspicions. They admitted that all it takes for the CAS to pursue such a registration is their own belief that their own allegations are true. I asked them for a list of the allegations to which they were referring. They said "there have been black eyes". The fact is, as I immediately told them, that there have only been two cases of black eyes, that only one (involving our 12-year-old daughter last year) had an inadequate explanation because she, to this day, even in complete privacy, still insists that she doesn't know how she got it, and that the only reason that they think that this year's black eye (involving our 10-year-old daughter) has an inadequate explanation is because they didn't believe those who were telling the truth. They, not deterred at all by my reply, then referred to their list of ten incidents, and told us that none of them had an adequate explanation. I reminded them that all but one of the ten (our 12-year-old daughter's black eye last year) indeed did have adequate explanations, and that only one of the remaining nine (which did have an adequate explanation) was an actual case of abuse which I've never denied. They countered that their reports didn't show any adequate explanations, to which I responded that I couldn't help the fact that their reports were incomplete. They then told us that they implicitly trusted their reports because they were made by professionals. I suppose that it's ultimately because they really do believe that there have been no adequate explanations for all of the incidents which they have on file, but, in my opinion, 10 incidents for a family of thirteen children, i.e. less than one incident per child, just isn't all that bad. I suppose, as I told them, I'll now have to spend yet more money to refute them, i.e. to have our names removed from the provincial child abuse registry, which would be much better spent on solving the actual problem. When I asked them why they did it, the most they would say is that it wasn't them, i.e. any of the social workers who were present, who had done it, and that they just wanted to tell us in person so that we wouldn't find out by some other means first. My guess, and that's all that it is, is that the CAS was beginning to see that neither the psychological assessment nor any judge would support its abuse allegations, so, before there'd be any official declaration to the contrary, it quickly acted to register us as criminals anyway. I now wonder what a judge will or will not be willing to do, with respect to ordering the return of our children, given this registration. Oh yes ... Nancy had one more "exciting" update to give us. For some reason (which she did outline but which I don't remember), we'll no longer be monitored and instructed by a CAS family support worker. Instead, we're now to take a parenting course entitled "behaviour management" offered by a non-CAS organization, and to be monitored by one of that course's instructors. We're to be contacted by that instructor, Sharon Doucette, later this week. Perhaps this actually is good news since a non-CAS person is, in my opinion, far more likely to be open and honest with us. We told them that the foster father of two of our children openly says that he doesn't mind leaving messes for his wife to clean up, and then asked if this was really a better environment for our children to grow up in than our home. We went on to tell them about how two of our other children wake up in the morning to their foster parents fighting with, and swearing at, one another, and asked them again if that was really a better environment for our children than our home. Their answer was that they guessed that no one had yet reported those foster parents for poor conduct so they had no reason to investigate them. I then commented that I suppose I could, as others do, phone in anonymous reports about each of them in order to force them to be investigated. They responded with an astounding (for them) statement, i.e. that they couldn't believe that a person with my religious faith would ever do such a thing. I reminded them that I said I "could" do it, not that I "would" do it, and then confirmed that I "won't" do it. Their response, i.e. that a person with my religious faith would never do such a thing, is a very revealing statement. In so saying, they openly acknowledged that a person who lives by good principles would not phone in anonymous reports, yet they readily act on, and believe, those anonymous reports which are phoned in. They have, in other words, admitted that they believe what they are told by people who, in their own opinion, do not live by good principles. They kept on telling us that they wanted to work with us in order to see our children eventually returned, but kept on making it hinge on their long term plans. I clearly asked them, at least five times (I didn't count), what interim plan we could come up with which might facilitate our children's return in advance of their long term plans coming to fruition. They finally, only after a lot of persistence, volunteered that producing a written chore list, along with a provable agreement with a cleaning service, by our next hearing would be a good thing to do, although they still didn't commit to it being adequate. Try what I might, it was impossible for me to get them to tell us exactly what they wanted of us. They told us that they needed to be convinced that we were willing to make the necessary changes, although they never would tell us exactly what changes they wanted to see, and then went so far as to say that they still hadn't seen much in the way of change. Without the little children back, it is, of course, very difficult to show much of anything in the way of tangible evidence that we won't blow it again. We did, however, point out that, after a week and a half in our new house, it was still very clean. We also told them that all of us, because of what has happened, now have a much greater commitment to get it right from now on. We went on to tell them that we actually have done a lot in terms of minimizing the work load (getting a much better designed house, making everyone take their shoes off upon entry, giving our dog away, insisting that food only ever be eaten at the dining room table, not letting our clothes inventory increase above a specific level, ...) so that it would become much more manageable. They appeared to be incapable of understanding that minimizing the work is an entirely valid way to tackle the problem, and refused to believe that we were always willing to do the work but, given our former more difficult circumstances, that we simply had too much work to do. They kept referring to their belief that our house had been in a filthy state for more than ten years. I tried to explain to them that they were wrong because they were failing to separate our two problems, and that the earlier problem was not filthiness but, rather, an almost unbeatable cockroach infestation problem. They insisted, as many falsely do, that the cockroach problem was proof that we were keeping our house in a messy enough state so as to promote it. I explained that this was not true, that cockroaches eat each other for food, but that they lay so many eggs that the population keeps on growing anyway. They said that they didn't dispute that, yet they still clung to their misinterpretation. They asked those of our children who were present whether they had any questions or wanted to say anything. Our 20-year-old son remained silent, and just kept staring at them. Our 18-year-old daughter told them, through tears, that she didn't like, and couldn't understand, the fact that they were acting as though they didn't trust her parents. I wish I could remember their answer, but, unfortunately, I can't. It must not have been acceptable to her, though, since she restated her concern at least a couple more times. She also asked why the visits needed to be supervised if the only complaint was the state of our house. They then returned to their abuse allegations, insinuating that, were the visits not supervised, our children might end up dead. I pointed out that they had now seen our children for two and a half months, for so many hours that it would have been impossible for us to fake anything, and then asked if this wasn't clear enough evidence that our children are not the victims of abuse. They said that these visits have indeed taken place, but that they hadn't personally observed them. I pointed out that they have the reports, to which Nancy said that she had only just received them last week (somewhat hard for me to believe). I told her that, assuming she has the best interests of the children at heart, she'd have read those reports immediately. She didn't have an answer. I then asked, on behalf of our 18-year-old daughter, the next logical question, i.e. given that the visit reports have been good, why is it still necessary that future visits continue to be supervised. They explained, in very indefinite terms, that they still wanted to try to understand our family dynamics. They then tried to change the topic by asking us why we were discussing the possibility of unsupervised visits when our goal was to get our children back. They had trouble understanding my response, i.e. that I was trying to pursue two different plans simultaneously in case the more ideal one didn't come to immediate fruition. I openly accused them (I made it very clear that I was referring to the CAS in general, and not at all to them themselves in particular) of not being honest with us. Their response was to tell us that all of our visits with our children, including school events such as teacher interviews, were supposed to be supervised, and then asked us why we didn't report to them that our 14- and 12-year-old daughters have been stopping by for short visits on their way to and from school. We asked them how they knew that, and the most that they would say was that it had been reported to them. My wife then observed that this was surely a sign that our daughters didn't feel abused, and that they wanted to come home. The workers responded that it was no such proof at all since, as they apparently all believe, abused children enjoy going back home too. I wonder if they'll now take some rash action to either distance the girls from us or threaten them so that they won't drop by any more. I told them, several times, about my concerns regarding the poor way in which the in-take workers do their job. They kept on avoiding the subject with excuses like "we shouldn't stand in judgment over our colleagues", or, better yet, negating our concerns by ascribing them to the fact that they knew our feelings were hurting. They kept trying to get us off the topic by telling us that it was too late for such concerns to help us. We told them that we knew that, but that we still felt that they needed to be raised in order to prevent such wickedness from being perpetrated on the next family. They told us that we shouldn't bother raising our concerns with them, and, rather, that we should take them up with the CAS management. I told them that I just might do that, but that I also wanted to try to encourage them, if they really are concerned for the well being of the children, to initiate corrective action from within. They told us that, although they knew that their process was a difficult one, they didn't feel that there is anything wrong with it, and that it is constantly being improved anyway. In total frustration, we told them that, once we're at a point where the politics have less of a chance of getting in the way, we'd be doing what we could to try to reform their organization. They told us that we were welcome to take that up as a cruscade if that was our desire. We told them that we'd rather seek to change them from within, and that that's why we were raising our concerns with them, but they refused to be part of the solution (or, in fact, to admit any wrong doing whatsoever). We then told them that we might just have to go to the media. I wonder, now, if they'll try to get a judge to rule that we aren't allowed to do that. One final point: I raised Nancy's remark during our September 7th meeting regarding the fact that some people need their privacy, asking her if she really understood the irony of that statement in light of the fact that they were probing so deeply into our lives. Even though, more often than not, she seems to be so forgetful regarding the specifics of a situation (unless she has a report to refer to), this time she was razor-sharp and immediate in correcting my paraphrase of what she'd said (although I can't remember her precise rewording). I, ignoring the insignificance of her minor correction, asked her if she'd consider apologizing for having made such an inconsiderate statement which showed no respect for our feelings. She then just boldly and proudly declared that her organization indeed is a very intrusive one. I asked her again if she'd apologize. She asked what would be gained if she were to do so. I told her that, should she do so, she'd be showing that she's a person of humility and integrity. She never did. After all of the misery, God was truly gracious. Within minutes after the social workers left, there was an incredibly beautiful sunset which caused our 18-year-old daughter to toss her deep sadness aside and leap with incredible excitement as she announced it to us. In case we missed it, the lady from work, who was now on her way home, called us from her car to tell us about it too. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 12:12:43 -0400 (EDT) >I'll play inspector. Sounds okay to me. The small things are that we still need a couple of mattresses and a toddler bed, which, of course, we could get at a moment's notice. The one big item left, just to get it right, is that this house has a huge living/dining room which we want to divide with a half wall, and then replace the carpeting in the dining room area with proper tiling. I am expecting a visit from the flooring company to assess and begin the job within the next couple of days. I'm not sure how long the actual job, probably including the ordering of materials, will take. This may, or may not, be an aspect of readiness. >Any word yet on the assessments? When and who pays? Dr. Groves, the psychologist recommended by our lawyer, has already begun to assess my wife and myself. We will be paying, although I've given his office details regarding Nortel's medical plan so that they can bill us in a way which should help us get some of it back. The CAS seems to now be backing down on wanting our children to be assessed. I just got a call from Nancy this morning in which she asked for permission to proceed with our lawyer's request to let Dr. Groves see our children. She claimed that she was very concerned that we not pay more than was really necessary, which is in direct contradiction to the earlier CAS position, i.e. regardless of the cost, our children must be assessed. I wonder what the reason for this change is. Could it be that they're beginning to realize that an assessment of our children might prove damaging to the CAS? Nancy is also attempting to assert that we're incompetent parents. Yesterday was a perfect illustration of this. The lady from work who has been sitting in on our meetings and hearings, knowing that our evening would be half consumed by the meeting, brought over some food for dinner as a gift. Because it was food which she knew best how to prepare, she gave our 20-year-old son quick instructions regarding what to do. She was doing this just as the social workers came in, and, in this morning's phone call, Nancy said that, to her, it was clear that this lady was making our meals for us. She said this, in spite of the fact that our son did the actual work, and in spite of the fact that our friend had made sure to draw her attention to the fact that our son was doing the work. Later, during the meeting itself, my wife and I were, of course, deeply involved in discussions with the social workers. Our friend, as well as the two of our older children who were there, were, of course, much less involved. Our friend, therefore, occasionally talked quietly with our children while my wife and I were talking with the social workers. Nancy, again in this morning's phone call, twisted this into an observation that our friend was doing all of the parenting. Nancy also accused us of being incapable because we had accepted help from others in order to get moved into our new home. >I thoroughly enjoy your reports. You're insight is amazing. I always come >away from a reading thinking: Who is really blind? Thank you. As you know, all of these reports are on my web site. Nancy, this morning, finally acknowledged that she is aware of it, and accused me of using it as a way to communicate with our children. I told her that this was not the case, and that it was never my intention. She asked me why it existed then, to which I responded that I was prepared to use all means at my disposal to alert the public to the way in which the CAS deals with families. She asked me what it contained, to which I responded "the truth". She claimed that at least one of our children had accessed it, and told me that its content had made that child hate the CAS. I told her that there is absolutely nothing I could say which would make our children hate the CAS more than its own actions already have. She asked me for its URL, to which I responded that I thought they knew how to thoroughly investigate things and figure them out. She persisted, and finally I said that I should probably talk to our lawyer before giving her an answer. Does she really not know its URL? I rather doubt her honesty in this matter, and suspect that she's just now going through the formal motions in order to cover her legal posterior should an opposing lawyer ask her an uncomfortable question. She used some phrases, regarding our child's opinion of the CAS, which were direct quotes from our 14-year-old daughter's diary entry which I just added to my web page yesterday morning. I know for a fact, and our daughter would testify to this, that those thoughts of hers were in no way influenced by anything I've ever said. They are what she really and truly does feel. All anyone has to do is to read her own words in order to know this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 21:38:13 -0400 (EDT) I now think, after some careful consideration, that Nancy Keddy was probably being honest when she said that she hadn't yet read my web page regarding our current CAS experience. How, then, did she know about it, was she able to quote accurately from it, and why did she believe that its content has turned our children's attitudes against the CAS? I believe that the answer has everything to do with the kind of reporting that the CAS staff tend to do, i.e. their incredible ability to jump to a firm, but altogether wrong, conclusion based on a very few, poorly observed, inaccurately recorded clues. During yesterday's meeting, Nancy told us that she had every reason to believe that past CAS reports on us were more trustworthy than our current explanations because those reports were produced by professionals. She herself, however, during that very meeting, gave very tangible evidence of just how wrong they can be. Seeing our friend giving our 20-year-old son instructions on how to prepare the food which she had brought over caused her to jump to the conclusion that our friend was doing all of our meal preparation. Seeing our friend occasionally talk with our 18-year-old daughter (who was feeling incredibly upset by the mere presence of the CAS people, let alone the unbelievably wrong things which they were asserting) caused her to jump to the conclusion that our friend did most of the parenting within our home. Knowing that a number of friends from work helped us move caused her to jump to the conclusion that we were incapable of moving. So what's the explanation for Nancy's latest false conclusion (regarding my web page)? On Sunday afternoon, at church, our 18-year-old daughter opened her 14-year-old sister's diary, spotted a sentence which very clearly and concisely described her sister's disdain for the type of treatment which not only she, but also the rest of her family, have been subjected to at the hands of the CAS, and read it aloud to me. I then asked her for permission to include it on my web page. I believe that this conversation was only partially overheard by the visit supervisor, who was a bit of a distance away, and, therefore, was completely misinterpreted. It was much easier, I guess, and probably more within the CAS method of operation anyway, to report a guess rather than to confirm the facts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 23:13:41 -0400 (EDT) Here are our 18-year-old daughter's thoughts regarding yesterday's meeting with our three CAS social workers. Her own words follow: I (finally) met the social workers yesterday. It was a meeting I dreaded. I had to leave school in the morning because I couldn't concentrate during my English class. Everything in the room was blurry and looked like it was moving, and I couldn't see my teacher or the students who were presenting their essays clearly. I felt like throwing up. During my peer tutoring class I asked if I could sign out. I have never signed out because I was feeling sick and have rarely missed school for that reason. I avoided going downstairs, but I knew eventually I would. I went into the closet in my new room and sat down to read. I was already crying by then. My dad's co-worker found me as my dad called me and I reluctantly followed them downstairs. Two of the social workers met me and noticed my tears. They asked me if I was upset because of the phone call from my little sister (!!!) or because they were there. How was I supposed to answer? First of all, I didn't know them, so what grounds did I have to answer? Second of all, my whole family is suffering, and has been, for a prolonged period of time, and it's not the only time that people have been reduced to tears. Generally I get along pretty well with people despite the fact that I am shy. But by the time I was sitting in the new living room, I could feel myself giving them a cold stare when I wasn't crying and I was "talking to" them. It was awful and I couldn't wait for them to leave. The over-friendliness made me sick, not because it was friendliness but because it was superficial. Afterwards I told my dad that I hated not being able to say "thank-you" to visitors. My dad corrected my terminology by assuring me that they weren't visitors. I then said they were "intruders". These are the people who have legal charge over my little brothers and sisters, and who wrongly accuse my parents of not being able to take care of us properly, and who are keeping our family apart by twisting the truth. Or representatives of that, anyway. My dad wrote: >After all of the misery, God was truly gracious. Within minutes after the >social workers left, there was an incredibly beautiful sunset which caused our >18-year-old daughter to toss her deep sadness aside and leap with incredible >excitement as she announced it to us. In case we missed it, the lady from >work, who was now on her way home, called us from her car to tell us about it >too. He also caused our friend Carmen to call us and ask if she could come over that evening, and I was excited because Carmen is a very encouraging and generally bubbly person, and I really like her. She was a welcome visitor, the others weren't. I wish I could welcome the others too, as friends, but how do you do that when they have a integral role in the separation of your family, and use great euphonisms to make vain accusations of your own parents under the pretense of wanting your family to be back together? Basically, from what I can tell, they are saying that my parents have absolutely no idea how to do anything, and don't know how to raise us properly, and need to be trained how to take care of our house; and while I thought they were over with the accusations of abuse, they brought the accidents up yet again, and refused to acknowledge the truth about the cockroach situation. And they think that they know how to fix everything when they have absolutely no idea what we've been through in the past or what caused our old house to deteriorate, yet they blame it on my parents' "incompetence". I don't trust them. I think I've lived with them for long enough to know that they know that they care about us, and are not perfect, just like us children are not perfect, and neither is any family on the face of the earth; but that indeed they do know how to care for us, and that they've already done more than enough to get the children back. Consider this: my dad has put much thought into our new house, and gone to the details of the type of furniture and practically everything. Let me explain. (As if he didn't explain enough to the social worker.) Our new house, first of all, is situated in a nicer location. A much nicer neighbourhood. It is much closer to our church and our schools (or potential, HOPEFULLY,) schools. I've already met one of our next door neighbours, and another one is hoping to meet us soon. I can walk back home quite easily if I happen to go to school early on the wrong day (I thought I had band practice this morning.) The bed rooms are all very nice with closets and space enough for more clothes than we will need. We have three bathrooms and two baths, whereas before we had one shower/bath bathroom and another small washroom. There is more space in our house, and there are no cockroaches from Cayman. Our floors are much nicer and will be far easier to clean. It is much better designed. We don't have so many trees around our house that they will mess up the watering system. And stricter rules such as the one about eating food only at the table were promised to be better enforced. And we got rid of my family's precious dog, Job; my 11th birthday present. It was hard to put him in that lady's van, I had to get in it to get him to go with her, friendly as she was; because Job knew he wasn't supposed to go in people's cars. I felt as bad as a social worker should. Yet the social worker says she sees no change that is adequate for the return of my little brothers and sisters (!) As if my mother and father haven't poured their time, love, support, money, skills, into quickening their return because they care about them (!) (!) (!) Man it is hard to listen to my mother crying because she misses them and to see my dad fight and defend not only himself and my mother but my brothers and sisters. It's encouraging, in a greater way, because it shows even greater the depth of their care; but it's still hard. The lady kept saying that she knew how we must feel and were hurting, and she would feel the same way if someone did that to her. But I don't believe her. How could she possibly know? And in her position, how could she possibly be sympathetic? And how could she observe that the possibility of reporting someone for some minor fault did not sound like something someone of my dad's religious faith would do if that is all they need to act on something (i.e., anonymous reporting), IF she really respects the organization for which she works? When they got up to leave, it was more of an "I don't want to pursue this further right now" than a "I was trying to work with you to help you out". The lady left her e-mail address for my dad, and her phone if I ever wanted to call her, she said. Why would I want to talk to her? Did she think that I would appreciate it, or that I would be able to give her more evidence not to appreciate my parents, or that she would be able to change my outlook on what has happened? I don't want to risk having my own words twisted, or misunderstood, too. I've been learning about euphonisms and other literary devices in my English and writer's craft classes. I don't know if I intended "misunderstood" as a euphonism. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 01:28:27 -0400 (EDT) We visited our 14- and 12-year-old daughters yesterday evening. While we were entering the building, they asked us about why their 16-year-old brother was no longer able to come to the visits. We explained that he is now taking four very difficult courses (physics, chemistry, math, law), so, when he comes home from school, he often has a nap and then stays up quite late to get all of his homework done. His current schedule unfortunately does not permit him, at present, to visit his siblings during the week. Yet another fall-out of the CAS family-estrangement approach. As usual, we did the word jumble in the paper. This led to a general discussion about the paper, which, in turn, led to a discussion about the time that our then much smaller family made front page news (our first home birth). We asked the visit supervisor if he knew why we had been on the front page, hinting that it was a good story. He, at first, hinted that he did know, but said that it was a secret. He eventually gave in a bit, and referred to the time the police came, and also made reference to the blood-soaked sheets. He knew, in other words, about this detail from our past. Was it from my web page? Was it from the report from a previous Sunday visit which might have included this piece of our history? I don't know. Our 12-year-old daughter told us a lot about the cross-country try-outs she's taking part in, and about how well she's doing in them. This led to discussion about the track-meet which, should she be selected, she'll eventually be competing in. My wife then expressed her sadness that, for the first time ever, due to CAS constraints, she won't be able to go to watch her children participate in these school events. Our 14-year-old daughter, still on the topic of sports, asked why some people are so hurt when they don't make the soccer try-outs. I explained that it's probably because their pride is hurt. Our 12-year-old daughter then said that people shouldn't get hurt over these sorts of things, and that they should just commit themselves to trying again next year. She also observed that, if it really means so much to them, they could, without waiting a whole year, seek out some similar after-school activity. She went on to explain how the most important thing is that a person has tried hard, and not that he has succeeded. We told our daughters that a person who's well-known to our congregation had died from his cancer this past Sunday. We also discussed an elderly member of our congregation who is very, very ill. This gave us an opportunity to discuss terminal diseases like cancer, as well as death itself, very openly. If the CAS, like many people, thinks that death is a subject which children cannot handle, then I suppose we'll now be tagged as a particularly morbid group. Our children made some sort of comment about MacDonalds which the visit supervisor understood to mean that they wanted to go there (there is one across the street in the mall). He indicated that he would be willing to go there with us if that's what we wanted to do. This, in my opinion, was a very nice gesture on his part, i.e. his being willing to accommodate our desires by going wherever we wanted to go, so long, I assume, as we'd be back by the end of the visit time. The visit supervisor had to momentarily leave the room at one point. While he was gone, our children's conversation became much louder, happier, and more annimated. When he came back, they quietened back down again. He noticed this, and left again for a moment to test the consistency of this phenomenon. It recurred, and, after coming back in the second time, he verbally informed us regarding his observation. He then repeated his experiment three more times. It appeared to us (although we can't be sure) that, for the last one, he just sat quietly right outside the closed door, listening, until the end of the visit. During one of the visit supervisor's absences, our daughters held a spontaneous mock family court session. They appointed one of us to be the judge, another to be the lawyer (for the family), another to be the children's aid, and so on (there were five of us present and I can't remember what the other two appointments were). After a bit of imaginative play (they've never actually been in a courtroom before), one of them said, looking at the children's aid appointee, "you're the children's aid so get out of here". They also discussed wanting to get jobs with the CAS so that they could straighten it out. At one point, our 14-year-old daughter made an assumption (I forget what it was), and our 12-year-old daughter immediately observed that her sister was starting to sound like the children's aid. At one point, our 12-year-old daughter decided to throw caution to the wind, stopped caring what the visit supervisor might think, and, right in front of him, said that she was glad that the social workers didn't come to take them away on her birthday because that would have wrecked it. She said that she would have demanded that they come back another day. Our 14-year-old daughter then added that they should then be told to never come back because every day is a birthday since each day makes you one day older. They both then, still right in front of the visit supervisor, went on to name both in-take workers (Heather Clark and Tina Hatton), and said that they were both very bad people. They then mockingly described how, after those workers knew that they had denied them their lunch at home, took them out for a junk food supper which they neither enjoyed nor appreciated. They also talked about what their plans were for July 13 (that date appears to be imprinted on their minds), and spoke very unfavourably regarding how those plans had been rudely interrupted by the CAS. I held my tongue, not wanting to be declared guilty of encouraging these statements, but also not wanting to discourage our daughters from freely and openly expressing their feelings in front of CAS staff. It's possible, after all, that they, feeling somewhat protected by our presence, felt a little more free to do so. My wife, who is somewhat weaker than I in this respect, couldn't help but add a few observations of her own. While I agree with what she said, and while she ought to be free to express her thoughts, I fear that the better part of politically correct wisdom would have been for her to hide her true feelings on this occasion. It's entirely possible that the CAS will now use this as evidence that she's guilty of attempting to influence our children's feelings, even though our children were the ones who started this part of our conversation, and even though they were the ones who insisted on continuing it. We had some great fun near the end of the visit, again during one of the visit supervisor's absences. My wife initiated a ballless basketball game. Both of our daughters sang some fun songs. Our 14-year-old daughter gave us all of the details within a story (the frog and the whale) which her French class is studying. In the mall, on our way home, we met a nurse from one of our city's largest hospitals who knows my wife from one of the play groups. She asked my wife how she was, so my wife told her, explaining without any detail, that our children had been apprehended by the CAS. This lady's immediate response was one of complete surprise and amazement, as she said "of all the people I know you're the last one I'd expect this to have happened to". I'm sure that the CAS will pass this off as one friend's support for another, but, having been right there, I can personally testify that it was no less than her expression of the highest praise for how my wife cares for our children. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 17:09:42 -0400 (EDT) Our 12-year-old daughter wrote us a letter yesterday. Here, again with the only changes being those involving the replacement of names with age-gender references, is what she wrote. To: Mommy Daddy please send me a camera to take pictures of this house keep this copy send it back to me Send the good copy to the newspaper and have it published. Sept. 26 .00 What it's like to be taken from your home In July of 2000. I was tooken from my home along with my seven younger brothers one older sister. We were taken away from our parents who love us and care for us. By Children's Aid Society. I remember the day July 13 2000 we were just about to eat lunch when the children's Aid were at our door my mom would not let them in until my father came home because she is frightened of the childrens Aid. They took her out of her home because her parents were indian and in the foster home she was abused with a _____ So they ended up calling the police. So the police came just about when my father got here. yeah So I go outside and hear yapping, . So Heather Clark and Tina hattin are standing their smileing pertending they d'ont no anything. Then my little 6-year-old brother asks them why their here and Tina says to tell you how wonderful you are. So she pretty much lied to my brother. So then they give us paper and markers to draw I go up to my room with tears in my eyes because I know they will make me leave. I come outside I'm calm. then I start crying and Tina Hatin asks me why then I try to tell her how much we need our parents and how much they need us. She was pretending to listen I could tell she really wasn't. Then she tried to tell me I'll be better of where I'm going to be living So then they told us to get in the car So we got in the car my parents crying my brother screaming. we were all crying pretty much. It was a sad moment for all of us So then we go to the children's aid building they ask us if were hungrey we say yes because we haven't had lunch of course and It's almost supper So we go to the foster home. They sit and talk to us. So I ended up having one slice of pizza and going to bed. I really was starving that day. As I've learned you don't know a person unless you've lived with them for a month. I don't like being in foster care The foster parents where I live they sometimes fight in front of me sometimes at night I just feel like say "Shut up!" But I don't because I know it's not polite. Because at night I can't get to sleep sometimes because I here swearing in the backround once I even woke up to swearing. My mom says the dog misses us but they gave him away now. and The neighbours always ask where my moms children are. I just miss being at home with my loving parents who raised me up and taught me to love the Lord. who has been shepharding his flock and watching over us through our hard times. by: (12-year-old daughter) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 21:23:23 -0400 (EDT) We visited our 5- and 4-year-old daughters and our 2-year-old son today. We arrived first, and went straight up to the visiting room since, on recent previous visits, our children were already waiting up there for us. This time, however, my wife could see from the window that our children, along with the visit supervisor, were waiting for us downstairs. We, therefore, went back down to meet them, and then, together, we went back up again. Our daughters' school bus was late, which meant that they had no time to eat lunch if they were to make it to the visit on time. Their foster mother, therefore, had quickly stopped along the way to pick up a Macdonalds meal for each of them. The first part of our visit, therefore, was spent waiting for them to finish their lunches. Our 2-year-old son, having no personal lunch for himself, wanted to eat theirs. Fortunately, my wife had brought along a snack of fruit, so, after everything was properly shared, there was enough food for all. The keenly observant will have noticed that, in the previous paragraph, I wrote "daughters' school bus" rather than "daughter's school bus", and those with a good memory will be able to deduce why this nuance is so significant. We now know for sure that our 4-year-old daughter, against our explicit wishes, has been registered in kindergarten. First, the visit supervisor said "their school bus". Second, our 4-year-old daughter herself told us about her own school bus. Third, she told us her teacher's name. Our 2-year-old son had lots of fun placing his box of raisins into the toy fridge, the toy oven, the toy sink, and just about every other toy appliance in the toy kitchen. On a number of occasions, he spoke the word "home". He also kept asking about his 16-year-old brother, who can't possibly make it to this particular visit any more since it takes place during his afternoon classes. Our son was incredibly selfish today. If he was playing with something, then he would scream whenever anyone else wanted to play with it with him. If someone else had something, then he would scream in order to try to claim it for himself. He spent most of the visit behaving this way. At one point, when our 5-year-old daughter was sitting on my shoulders while I was sitting on a bean bag chair, he, seeing this and wanting to sit there himself, came up behind her, started screaming, and, in addition, hit her back very hard several times. Until then, we had tolerated his poor conduct. At that point, though, I firmly grasped his hand (the one that had done the hitting), turned around to face him, and told him that he was being very bad. That silenced him for a moment, but it really was hardly adequate. It's always very hard at such times to know exactly what to do. If the child no longer responds to parental discipline, then he'll kick up such a fuss in response to the discipline that it'll ruin the rest of the visit for the other children. If he does, then there's always the possibility of a value clash, with respect to the style of discipline, between the parents and the CAS which, of course, could endanger future visits, or, perhaps, even the eventual return of the children. Officials, after all, and especially those who don't have children of their own, always know far more about these things than parents who have raised large families and have a proven good track record to point to. Our 4-year-old daughter gave me a full box of raisins from her portion of my wife's snack. She then gave me another one, and told me to take it home for her 16-year-old brother. We then played a fun game wherein we placed our four hands on top of one another, and kept switching which one was on the bottom and which one was on the top. After she finished eating, she took my hand, led me to one of the bean bag chairs, told me to sit down, and then sat down on the other one with her legs across mine. She, for quite a while, was being very nice about sharing her toys. This came to an end, however, when she got into a dispute with her 2-year-old brother. She had a small doll which she let him play with. When he was no longer playing with it, she took it back and put it into a paper bag which she'd asked the visit supervisor for. Then her brother wanted it back, and the two of them ended up playing tug of war with the bag and screaming at each other. After about a half a minute of this, I forceably took the bag away from both of them, put it behind me, and told them that neither of them could have it. At this point, both of them began to whine. The volume and manner of their whining had me really concerned that the visit supervisor would fault me. He remained silent, however, although I have no idea regarding what he reported, and I waited what seemed like several minutes for them to give up. When they finally did, our son began to play, with a much healthier attitude, with the others, and our daughter sat beside me, lay her head on my lap, and just wanted to know that she was still loved. Our children learned that the standards haven't changed, that we haven't given up, and that we still care about them. When it was time to leave, our 4-year-old daughter grabbed onto her 18-year-old sister, and wouldn't let go for several minutes. I'm glad that our current visit supervisor is willing to patiently wait, while gently coaxing, until a child is ready to leave. This is most unlike our first mid-week visit supervisor, who was more than willing to exert however much force was necessary to abruptly take a child away right on schedule. It would appear that the CAS has no guidelines for this part of the process, that each visit supervisor is implicitly trusted do get it right, and that the effect on the child is never considered. As we left, we passed two ladies in the hall. I'm not sure who they were, but, by the content of their conversation, I'd guess they were a pair of social workers. We over-heard them discussing various means of transporting some group of children to some place. The goal of the conversation seemed to be the determination of the method which would least require the parents' opinions. The statement that one of them made which really caught my attention was "I don't want to deal with parental permission". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 22:59:08 -0400 (EDT) We visited our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons today. We have to go all the way to the other end of town during rush hour for this particular visit. This involves taking two buses, the second of which tends to be very crowded. The second bus was so full today that, although our 18-year-old daughter and myself managed to get on, the door was closed before my wife could do so. Our children were already there when we arrived, and, you guessed it, the big question was "Where's Mommy?". Fortunately, the visit room had a window overlooking the parking lot, so it was easy to see her when she finally made it, and the visit supervisor then went to show her where we were. The weather was rather nice, albeit a bit chilly, and the visit supervisor, again, in my opinion, making a very nice offer, asked me if we should spend the time outside. Unfortunately, not expecting such an invitation, and having had to take a couple of crowded buses, I wasn't wearing more than basic clothing. I, therefore, selfishly declined even though everyone else would probably have enjoyed the change of venue. In retrospect, I should probably have risked a slight chill. My wife brought a snack of juice and fruit which our children slowly ate as they played. Our 6-year-old son ate the most, occasionally sharing a bit with me, as he sat on my lap. The other three, as well as our 18-year-old daughter, played a game of monopoly and talked with their mother as they ate the rest. The monopoly game lasted for the entire visit. Our 7-year-old son told us that he, rather than being a fireman or a policeman (both of which have been recent aspirations of his), now wanted to be a judge. I asked him what kind of judge he'd like to be. He asked me what I meant. I told him that there were different kinds of judges, and, deliberately avoiding "family court judge", began to give him a list which began with "justice of the peace" and "criminal court judge". He interrupted me to declare that he wanted to be a judge who has authority. Our 6-year-old son asked me if I liked the police. I gave him my standard answer to such a question, i.e. that I liked most of them, because I always try to teach our children that there are good and bad people in every profession. His mind, however, was clearly still on his last Sunday evening's theme because he then asked me if I didn't like the police which had taken him away. I tried to change the topic, but he wouldn't let me, reaffirming that he thought that the police were bad because they had taken him away. He again reiterated this statement a few minutes later. I wonder if the visit supervisor thought that my initial response, i.e. that I liked most of the police, was an attempt to bias our son's feelings. Our 6-year-old son sat on my lap, playing with my clock and telling me lots of things, for about the first half of the visit. The highlight of his day was that members of the Canadian Special Olympics team had visited his school. He just said "olympics", i.e. not "special olympics", at first, so I was duely mystified since I was sure that our olympics team was in Australia and couldn't imagine how, given such a distance, they were able to stop by. He then traded my clock for my measuring tape, got up, told me to stand up, and asked me to hold the end of the tape up near my head while he carefully positioned the case near the bottom of my foot. After carefully trying to determine my height, even though he can't yet read, he asked me to let go of the tape and had a good laugh as he watched it retract into its case. After doing this several times, he wrapped the tape around his waist, and proclaimed that he was an athlete. Again, at leaving time, our children used a number of delay tactics. Our 8-year-old daughter said that the monopoly game wasn't finished yet. Our 7-year-old son said that he hadn't yet finished his cup cake. Then both of them went to get a toy camera and said that they hadn't taken enough pictures yet. Our 10-year-old daughter gave her 18-year-old sister a lizard which she had made with beads and a string. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 20:51:06 -0400 (EDT) Our lawyer has asked me to remove my web page for the time being so as to avoid the possibility of the CAS causing more time to be wasted on issues not directly related to the return of our children. It's lawyer has informed him that she's thinking about prosecuting me for being in violation of a section of the Family Law Act of Ontario which prohibits the publishing of any data which can be used to help identify children whom the CAS is "protecting". Hopefully, the fact that the CAS now knows that I've been documenting its conduct will help to serve as a warning that it should tread somewhat cautiously. Another very valid concern of our lawyer, by the way, which I (being very legally ignorant) hadn't thought of, is that the CAS's awareness of the content of my report is, in effect, giving our case away. In an environment wherein common sense, truth, and doing right count for very little, it just gives them the opportunity, without warning, either to come up with a different plan of attack or to use their normal methods to attempt to refute it as a delay tactic. He's also concerned that the CAS might use my report to attempt to prove that I'm being negative, uncooperative, etc. One last point: Our psychologist has not had enough time to produce his report. This means that Monday's hearing will be very short, and simply be the forum in which another, hopefully very short, delay will be sought. The big hearing, therefore, is now at an as yet undetermined time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 23:49:00 -0400 (EDT) All our children were at church today. Our 5-year-old daughter wanted me to hold her, and didn't want me to let go until about half way through morning worship. After that, our 6-year-old son wanted to be held for quite a while. Our 2-year-old son, on arrival, seemed to want to keep his distance. After a few minutes, though, he settled down and wanted me to carry him, in addition to his 5-year-old sister (whom I was already carrying), into the sanctuary. He remained quite restless, so, shortly after morning worship began, my wife took him to the nursery. Later on in the day, he was content to be held on each of our laps. Our 4-year-old daughter, near the end of morning worship, suddenly began to cry. I asked her what was wrong. She answered that she didn't know. She just wanted to be held tightly for quite a while. She eventually seemed to recover, and went out, with the other children, to her Sabbath School class. Later, when I went down to speak with the children in one of the classes, she wanted to join me and sat quietly on my lap during the entire discussion. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters told us about our congregation's youth group outing which they were able to go on yesterday. Our 14-year-old daughter told us about a book which she has to read for her English class which she doesn't like because it contains too many descriptions of killings. We spent a couple of hours in the nursery during which our 8-year-old daughter read stories to her 4-year-old sister and to me, and my wife read stories to our 5-year-old daughter and our 2-year-old son. Our 7-year-old son and I had some fun arm wrestling. Our 12-year-old daughter told us that, yesterday when she woke up, neither of her foster parents were there. Her foster father was out playing golf, and her foster mother was out at a sale of baby things. Further questioning revealed that this is a reasonably routine situation. Each foster child is asked whether he wants to go along, and, if he refuses, he's allowed to stay. Usually, their other 14-year-old foster daughter is left in charge. If, however, a former foster son of theirs (who's ten) is there, then he's left in charge and even given authority over the older children. Our 12-year-old daughter expressed her frustration with the attitude of that other 14-year-old foster daughter. Our daughter wanted to watch the televised events pertaining to former Prime Minister Trudeau's death. Even though she's only 12, she still shows a great understanding of the significance of the event, as well as a keen sense of the great respect which is due to a former leader of our country. The other girl, however, kept wanting to change the channel so that she could watch irrelevant stuff. Our daughter also wanted to watch the olympics, but, again, her efforts were thwarted by the other girl. I used this as an opportunity to remind her of the need to forgive those who've been raised within a completely different value system. Our children showed some more imagination as they freely expressed to us their thoughts regarding the CAS. They suggested that a good use of cloning would be to clone all of them, to send the fake children to the foster homes, and to let the real children return home. They suggested that they should each trick their foster parents into writing a letter to us, to then become completely flat and get into the envelope, to take along an air conditioner and a snack so that they could survive the journey, and, thereby, to be mailed home. They said that the social workers should have wooden noses like Pinnochio, and, although they didn't explicitly say it, we all know what Pinnochio's nose was renowned for. Our 14-year-old daughter told us that, yet again, our 7-year-old son's foster mother demonstrated heartlessness. They both (along with our 12-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son) go to a choir on Wednesday afternoons. He always wants to sit beside her. His foster mother, however, with her own agenda in mind, forces him to move by pulling hard on his arm. All she seems to care about is that he sits right up in the front row. Our 6-year-old son again wanted to vacuum the nursery and hallway carpets. I told him that he should wait for our younger children to leave because his 2-year-old brother is scared of the machine. This wasn't good enough for him, so he spent the last twenty minutes or so before his younger brother's departure telling me that he wanted to vacuum "right now". I alternated between saying "no", reminding him that he needed to wait, and ignoring his pleas. I wonder what the official CAS-approved way of handling such a situation is. I was talking with a lady from our congregation in the kitchen while our children were eating supper. She asked me if our "big hearing" was tomorrow. I then confirmed that we indeed had a hearing tomorrow, but explained that it would really only be of an administrative nature since all three lawyers had agreed that they'd ask for a delay. I continued by giving her my thoughts regarding the reason for the delay, at which point the visit supervisor came over and asked me if this was an adult conversation. My response (probably not the wisest one) was that our children aren't that unaware, and that they knew full well that they were being manipulated by people who ought to know better. I'm so used to speaking openly in front of our children about absolutely anything that, for that moment, I forgot that she was listening to my every word. The rule seems to be that we, the parents, aren't allowed to say anything to our children which might lead them to suspect that the CAS is anything less than perfect. I know our children, and I know that my willingness to tell them everything is helping them stay calm. They know they're being mistreated in a major way, and, if they were never allowed to know that we understood their situation, and if they were never allowed to know that we were trying to get it fixed, they'd probably be in much worse shape than they're in now. The balancing act between not offending the CAS and maintaining our children's stability isn't exactly easy. So why do I think that another delay is being sought? The psychologist has now formally requested to see all of our children. The CAS knows that this will only help to reveal the foolishness of their actions. They, therefore, no longer want this to take place. Nancy tried to talk me out of giving permission for the assessments of our children by referring to the high financial cost of such an endeavour. I, however, using their own attitude against them, i.e. the experts are always right, said "if the psychologist wants to see them then by all means he should be allowed to see them". The CAS, being the legal guardian of our children, now has the responsibility for scheduling the appointments. To date, no appointment has been scheduled. They are, in other words, deliberately stalling in order to gain time. Our 6-year-old son, several times, again let us know that going back home is still very much on his mind. Early in the afternoon he again accused the police of being bad because they took him away. During the evening message he said "I want to go home". During congregational prayer time he said "I want to go back with you guys". When it was time for him to leave, he hit the visit supervisor twice, walked away from her in the wrong direction, and said "I'm not going with you" (she politely told him that hitting wasn't nice). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 22:16:02 -0400 (EDT) we were in court today. Present were myself, my wife, our 16-year-old son, our 18-year-old daughter, our 21-year-old son and a friend of his, a lady with whom I work, the lady who ran a play group (until she retired around last March) which my wife has been frequently going to with our small children for the last 15 years, the lady who has now taken over from her, two of the CAS social workers (Nancy and Emma), and all three lawyers (ours, CAS's, children's). We entered the courtroom a little after the hearing began, and the first thing we heard was our lawyer telling the judge that the CAS hasn't yet made arrangements for our children to see the psychologist. The CAS lawyer then responded by saying that the social workers haven't yet had time to hold a meeting in order to determine exactly what they wanted him to assess. One would think that they would have already figured this out after two and a half months. The judge told her that the CAS has no say in what is being assessed since it has elected not to help pay for the assessments. She observed that we, i.e. the family, had privately hired a highly respected psychologist, and stated that the CAS, therefore, had no choice but to accept his good judgment in the matter, and that its one and only responsibility is to see to it that the children show up on time. The judge seemed to sense that we have been trying to cooperate, and that the CAS is being a bit obstinate. It's amazing how quickly the CAS then started making statements hinting that they might now be willing to pay. I'm still not counting on it, though, although I sure would welcome the assistance. If, however, they actually do agree to cover some of the cost, and if that means that they then gain some say in what's being assessed, that's okay because I think that total openness (something which the social workers, in my opinion, aren't very good at) is always the best policy. The rest of the discussion centred around the scheduling of the next hearing. The judge pushed for, and got agreement for, an approach which should help end this matter sooner rather than later. The next major hearing, therefore, will be a "settlement conference" rather than a "care and custody hearing" (which is what this hearing was originally supposed to be). It's exact timing has not yet been set because that hinges on the completion of the psychologist's report. A brief hearing has been scheduled for 9:30am on November 2 at which either a firm date or a more predictable short delay will be set. My poor understanding of these things is as follows: A "care and custody hearing" is one which ends with the judge deciding who (the parents or the CAS) owns the children. A "settlement conference" is more like a discussion between both parties with the judge as the mediator. Both sides are expected to compromise to a point wherein the CAS is willing to let the children return home and the parents can tolerate the level of CAS supervision. If this mediation fails then a "care and custody hearing" is scheduled. My take on all of this is that the judge is encouraging both sides to study the psychologist's report, and then, even before they show up in court, to constructively settle the matter. Our lawyer told us that, as far as he can tell, the CAS is pushing three concerns. First, physical abuse. Second, insuring that our house won't return to its former disastrous state. Third, insufficient nurturing. He'll be writing them a letter to force them to formally list them. Their concern about physical abuse can't go anywhere unless they manage to "prove" that a very occasional, well-intentioned, highly controlled spanking is abusive. If they're real concern is injuries, however, as it appears to be based on their statements, then they'll have to accept that their reports, which claim inadequate explanations, are wrong. I don't expect them to take an accusation of inadequate reporting lying down, since, in their own eyes, they've shown that they consider themselves in all ways to be beyond reproach. Their concern about the state of our house is legitimate. We'll only be able to prove that we can maintain the state of our house, though, once all of our children are back. I hope that they'll understand this, and suspect that we'll have to accept unexpected drop-ins by social workers for some amount of time after that. Hopefully they won't insist on doing this for too long, since we really don't enjoy their company. In the mean time, we can probably show cooperation by putting together a formal chore list and by presenting a signed contract with a cleaning service. Their concern about adequate nurturing appears to mean that they think that we don't offer our children enough warmth, e.g. hugs. I find this hard to believe since our younger children love jumping up onto us to be held and our older children love to talk with us. It seems to be based on the fact that our children aren't willing to look the CAS people straight in the eye while being questioned. I believe that this indeed is the case because our children treat those whom they don't trust with a high degree of coldness. They're wonderfully warm, however, when around those whom they do trust. Even the children's lawyer has reported coldness, but, being as she only visits them for an hour or so each month, and being as the CAS won't let us tell them that their lawyer is their friend, what are they supposed to think? They hate the social workers for having stolen them from their family, and I'm not surprised that they equate their lawyer with the CAS. I wonder what they'll think of the psychologist. Perhaps our older children can find unsupervised time to attempt to tell them that their lawyer, as well as the psychologist and his staff, can and must be trusted. Again, the children's lawyer sat beside ours. She also told us, after the hearing, that she had visited all of the children and that all of them have told her that they want to come home. Our lawyer told us that we needn't worry about our 14- and 12-year-old daughters stopping by. He also counselled us what we already knew (but it's nice to hear it from someone else) not to ever do anything which might give our children the false impression that we didn't want them around. He's also going to ask about the possibility for unsupervised weekend visits at home, although he warned us that the CAS has the right, without appeal, to deny the request. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 23:25:14 -0400 (EDT) Our 12-year-old daughter has been stopping by to "visit" us in her own home on her way both to and from school each day for the last couple of weeks. Our 14-year-old daughter also did at the outset, but stopped when someone scared her off. She came again this afternoon, though, and both girls didn't really want to leave. Unfortunately, they left a little too late, and, by three minutes, missed one of the buses (which runs only every half an hour) on their way back to their foster home. This is probably the worst day of the week for that to have happened since their foster parents knew that they were under an obligation to deliver our daughters to our 6pm visit. Their foster mother phoned us around 5pm to tell us that she was really stressed out, that she'd spent the last three quarters of an hour driving around looking for them, and that they had finally arrived safely "back home". I, not yet knowing what had happened, suggested that perhaps the buses were slow. She agreed that this was possible, and asked that our daughters give her a call if there's a possibility that they might be late. This was a completely reasonable request, I immediately agreed to it, and she seemed to be contented. Whether or not she was contented with my response, there is obviously some discontent between the foster parents themselves. Our daughters, during our evening visit, told us that they had told their foster parents where they had been. Their foster mother tried to tell her husband to let it be, that she didn't mind that our daughters were visiting us at home, and that she understood why they wanted to do that. He, not being content with this, threatened to dispatch his wife, on a daily basis, to pick them up from school, and called the CAS to report the "problem". Contrary to normal practice, he, rather than she, then drove our daughters to our visit. As soon as he got there, he registered another complaint about our daughters' conduct with the visit supervisor. I could not hear enough of that conversation to know what his response was. When he called the CAS, he spoke to Debbie (the social worker responsible for our 14- and 12-year-old daughters). She told him that she didn't know that our daughters were visiting us at home. I know for a fact that Nancy (the social worker responsible for my wife and myself) knows, and our lawyer also confirmed yesterday that he knew that the CAS knew. This leaves two possibilities, i.e. either Debbie lied (I'd like to disbelieve this one since she is a member of a good local congregation), or the CAS social workers don't have an adequate means to pass critical information amongst themselves even though they work in the very same building. Our 7-year-old son phoned us just before it was time to leave for the visit. We had to curtail that call so that we'd make it to the visit on time, but we did our best to do so as gently as possible, explaining clearly to him what the problem was, so as not to discourage him from calling us again. This approach was especially important today since he had just learned to call us all by himself. The only other time he had done so before was this very morning. He was extremely happy to have learned how to call us whenever he wants to. The visit supervisor again did a kind thing. Since we were a bit late in leaving, a friend of ours, who had stopped by to help move a very large and heavy table from our old house, drove us to the visit. Since we didn't walk, we didn't pick up the paper from a box along the way. We checked out the store which is near to the CAS Pinecrest Queensway offices, but it had sold all of its papers. The visit supervisor, therefore, personally went to a nearby restaurant and picked one up for us there. The restaurant didn't have the right paper, though, so, although it had a crossword puzzle, we couldn't do the word jumble. The visit supervisor again spent quite a bit of time out of the room as he again noticed the phenomenon that we seemed to be a lot freer and livelier when he was not present. I'm not sure whether he went off to do something else, or whether he stayed immediately outside the closed door to do his best to listen. Our 14-year-old daughter told us that her current French assignment was to invent and to write (in French, of course) a story about the worst possible day. We then had some fun inventing all kinds of awful scenarios. One of our children finally suggested that July 13 was the worst possible day, and that she should write about that. July 13, of course, was the day that the CAS took them away. Our 12-year-old daughter spent several minutes reading aloud an article about the funeral preparations for former Prime Minister \Trudeau. Our 14-year-old daughter told us that her school had a moment of silence in honour of his funeral, and our 12-year-old daughter said that her school was bad because all it did was have its flag at half mast. Our 14-year-old daughter had a bit of fun which I doubt she'd have dared to do were the visit supervisor in the room. First, she showed us how she could balance the coffee table on her head. Then she put two arm chairs together, front to front, and showed us how she could fit herself completely under them. Our 18-year-old daughter thought that the pair of chairs looked just like a crib. They then told us about how a small friend of theirs could fit inside a school locker. Our 12-year-old daughter, demonstrating techniques which she's learning in her drama class, launched into some (highly exaggerated, I'm sure, but probably with an element of truth) highly critical statements about life within her foster home. One thing she said was that her life, starting on July 13, was only misery except that her only peaceful times were Sunday (our all day, full family, church visit) and "here" (her visit with us at the CAS offices). Another was that she's frightened of her foster parents because, when they're angry with her, they come right up to her face and look at her as though they're going to murder her. I think that she was speaking rather loudly on purpose in order to ensure that the visit supervisor, were he listening outside the door, could hear her. She was getting so into the dramatics that her voice began to sound seriously angry. I, therefore, had to caution her to not do that since someone passing by in the hallway, without knowing what she was talking about, might get the wrong impression. I also took the opportunity to remind her, conveniently assuming, for the moment, that her remarks were largely based on truth, that she must use such circumstances to help her develop a spirit of forgiveness. She also said a few things, when in a clearly serious frame of mind, which are worth noting. She must be expressing her frustration with being in her current foster home to her current foster parents since she told us that they sometimes suggest that she request a transfer to a different foster home. She went on, however, to tell us that that wouldn't be worth it since all foster homes are probably about the same anyway. At one point, I referred to their "foster mother" (using that exact term). Both of them told us that they didn't like that term, and insisted that their foster parents only ever be referred to by their first names. Our 12-year-old daughter had made a gecko out of beads and a string. She made us guess how long it took her to make it, as well as how many of those tiny beads were on the string. After the visit supervisor was back, she, throwing it all the way across the room right to him for up close inspection, also asked him the same two questions. The answers are that it took her an hour and a half to do it, and that she used about 175 beads. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 23:01:59 -0400 (EDT) Today was a bit of a reversal. Our 18-year-old daughter, having finished her work early, signed out of school half way through her last class and arrived at the visit on time, whereas my wife and I, delayed by snack preparation, were about ten minutes late. We went up the elevator as the visit supervisor went down the stairs to look for us, so he wasn't there when we entered the room. Our 5- and 4-year-old daughters and 2-year-old son all ran to greet us as soon as we walked in. Our children spent the first part of the visit, as expected, eating the snack which my wife had brought. After that, they began to do other things. Our 2-year-old son pushed a toy around the floor, and, whenever he came by me, he said "me home". He also spent some time pretending to vacuum the rug with a corn popper toy. Our 5-year-old daughter, using my keys, played with a table-top toy made to look like the dashboard of a car. Our 18-year-old daughter read a book to her 4-year-old sister. Our 4-year-old held the book so that she could look at the pictures. Our 18-year-old sat facing her, and, therefore, had to read upside down. She did quite well at this, in spite of the fact that her younger sister made it even more difficult by constantly moving the book around. My wife read another book to our 2-year-old son (who was sitting on her lap). Our 5-year-old daughter also listened while sitting on my lap. It was a Sesame Street book about animals which described things like the sizes of their eggs, the words used for their babies, how the mothers carry their babies, etc. It contained a very interesting statement, given that it was being read in a CAS room. When describing baby swans, it said "some children don't like to be with their parents". At one point, the visit supervisor noticed a blimp flying overhead. He told us, and everyone went to the window to watch it. It turned out to be one which was advertising the company for which I work. Our 5-year-old daughter took her 18-year-old sister's glasses off, thinking that that would help her see it better. She then tried watching it through her older sister's glasses for a while, and then our 4-year-old daughter also gave it a try. Our children all behaved very well today. Even at leaving time, they all helped put away the toys, and they all left without complaints and in cheerful moods. The only behaviour-related incident was once when our 2-year-old son wanted to take a toy away from his 4-year-old sister. She resisted, and he started to whine and to hit his mother. My wife told him to use words, rather than to whine, so that other people could understand what he wanted. He calmed down fairly quickly, and all was well from then on. At another time, our 4-year-old daughter was playing with my clock and he wanted it. She immediately gave it to him, and no incident developed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 22:56:39 -0400 (EDT) Nancy, our social worker, phoned us today. She said that, since our 14- and 12-year-old daughters were coming here before and after school anyway, the CAS has decided to change their visit from being supervised between 6pm and 7:30pm each Tuesday at the CAS to being unsupervised from after school to 6pm each Tuesday at home. She gave every indication of having accepted the fact that they're visiting us on their way to and from school on the other weekdays too, and no indication that she'd try to stop them. She told us that our daughters would walk here from school, and that one of their foster parents would be picking them up at 6pm. She made a big deal about them being ready to go exactly on time. She also suggested that, during their visit, we provide supper for them (probably a test to see how much we'd do for them). I told her that we'd be glad to do that since it'd be nice to have a meal with them. The CAS originally wanted us to be taught how to be better parents by a CAS "family support worker" (formally called a "parent aid resource" [par] worker). I don't recall what went awry with this plan, but this task has now been handed over to a non-CAS program called "caution parenting" (I think), and we're to take its "behaviour management" course. This will occupy each second Tuesday morning (beginning October 10) until June, and transportation to and from the course will be provided. Child care is also provided (not that we agree with the concept), should our pre-school children be returned before then. One of the ladies who runs the course, Sharon Doucette, spent over two hours with us last Friday morning, during which we explained our current situation to her. She offered that she could look into taking over the supervision of our visit with our three youngest children, and that it could be moved to our home. Nancy, during today's phone call, confirmed that, starting next week, this change would indeed be taking place. Our visit with our 5- and 4-year-old daughters and our 2-year-old son, therefore, is now in our home under Sharon's supervision from 1pm to 2:30pm each Wednesday. The half hour earlier time means that our 18-year-old daughter, whose last class ends at 1:41pm (schools are very precise these days), will have less time with them. There will also be a marked difference in style. The CAS visit supervisor would never say much. He'd just relentlessly take notes, and we'd never know how they were being interpreted. Sharon, on the other hand, told us that it was her job to teach parents how to do their job better, and, as such, she'd speak up should she feel that we weren't doing something in an appropriate way. This increased openness should be better, but I can also see how a value clash might make things worse. Nancy concluded today's call by presenting these changes as a sign that the CAS was willing to show some motion, and then added, hinting that there might be more motion in the future, that she'd be watching how it was going for the next couple of weeks. I truly hope that this is so, although, having been hardened by their conduct to date, I can no longer accept anything they say without doubting it. Whether or not it's true, I told her the truth, i.e. that she made me happy today. She answered that it was never her intension to make us unhappy (which, although I didn't say so, I took with a grain of salt). It now looks like the psychologist will be able to start assessing each of our children, as well as our whole family together, on October 11. There is a possibility, of course, with such a massive undertaking, that the date may move, but, in my opinion, there's now no doubt that the assessments will finally be taking place. Conversation with a member of his staff indicates that he's working very hard to accommodate our court schedule. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 00:05:56 -0400 (EDT) We visited our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons yesterday afternoon. My wife was greatly delayed in picking up the supplies for a rather large snack which she wanted to bring along. Our 18-year-old daughter and myself waited at home as late as we dared, and finally left for the visit without her. A friend of our daughter also came along. We arrived about fifteen minutes late. Our 6-year-old son was walking around the room, and the other three children were playing a game of monopoly. They were all happy to see us, but, of course, wondered where their mother was. In addition to just plain asking, they also made a few statements which indicated their desire that she were there. Our 7-year-old son, for example, said that he would die since he couldn't eat the snack which she was supposed to bring. Our 18-year-old daughter's friend joined in the monopoly game. Our 6-year-old son held both my hands and showed me how well he can now jump. He was able to get a few inches off the floor, and did so steadily for several minutes. He then asked the visit supervisor for some water. I took the opportunity to remind him about how successful his Surgery (hip, knee and heel muscle releases in both legs) last January had been, even though it caused him months of serious pain, and suggested that he remember to thank the surgeon during his next follow-up appointment. My wife finally did arrive, food and balloons in hand, about fifteen minutes later than we did. The monopoly game came to an end, and everyone went to welcome her, and to get about the task of eating. She brought so much food that they may well have been unable to eat supper upon their return to their foster homes. We let our 8-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son cut the cheese with a plastic knife. Although the monopoly game was over, it remained set up until our 6-year-old son, having trouble with his hands, accidentally knocked it to the floor. The visit supervisor, along with our 18-year-old daughter's friend, patiently waited for him to pick up each individual piece and hand it to them. I'm not sure why, but, a little later, he knocked it down again, and, again, he picked up each piece and they put it away. Our 10-year-old daughter had lots of fun performing static electricity tricks with some of the balloons. After rubbing them on her hair, she threw them up to the ceiling and they'd stick there, held them over various people's heads so that their hair would stand up, etc. Our 7-year-old son popped one which he'd blown up as much as he could, and it was so loud that some thought it was a gun shot. He also, letting the air out of them, sent them flying around the room like rockets which had rather strange trajectories. At one point, our 7-year-old son took up letting the air of the balloons blow out right into my face. After a few such incidents, I warned him that I'd tickle him if he did it once more. He did, so, right in front of the visit supervisor, I tickled his ribs for about ten seconds. I wonder if this constitutes abuse. Whatever the CAS thinks, it worked, our son calmed down, didn't stop laughing, and came right back to play with me some more. Of course, I've forgotten that the CAS believes that abused children love going back to their nasty parents. There has been on-going evidence that some of our children have begun to say things which we consider to be rude. Today, for example, our 7-year-old son, several times, said "holy cow". This, in our opinion, is rude because cows are not holy, and because, regardless of the falseness of the belief, it is wrong to use a phrase which ultimately pokes fun at those who practice the hindu religion. Each time he said this phrase, I gently reminded him that he shouldn't speak that way. I lost count, but he finally said "hol...", paused, switched to other words, and didn't say it again. They all left happily but slowly. Our 6-year-old son came back to finish his piece of cake, and our 8-year-old daughter came back to have some more grapes. There were lots of balloons, so each child had several to take with him/her. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 23:48:05 -0400 (EDT) All of our children were in church today. Our 5-year-old daughter was so restless that my wife took her, along with our 2-year-old son, straight to the nursery before morning worship began. Our 4-year-old daughter and 6- and 7-year-old sons stayed in the sanctuary but were very restless anyway. Our 4-year-old daughter, at one point, lay under a chair and quietly cried that she wanted her mommy. While I crouched down, with my head under the chair, to talk to her, our 6-year-old son climbed onto my back. I did eventually manage to get myself back up, and to get her to sit on my lap and to calm down. Our younger children, especially before lunch, showed significant resistance to our authority. I wasn't there, but I'm told that our 5-year-old daughter, when told, by my wife, not to do something, said that she didn't have to listen to her mother. Our 4-year-old daughter resorted to whining when she was told not to do things. Our 2-year-old son wanted to pull the fire alarm, and kicked up a big fuss when told not to. Our 4-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son were both being very bossy, telling everyone to do "right now" whatever they wanted done, and not accepting any "excuses". Being as this is the Canadian Thanks Giving weekend, my wife made a bigger than usual deal out of the visit. She brought lots of balloons for our children to play with, finger paints, picture frames, and other craft-type materials for them to work with, and, last but not least, a huge turkey lunch, lots of assorted fruit and nuts, and a cake. The foster mother of our 14- and 12-year-old daughters sent along a plate of butter tarts. While my wife did the crafts with our younger children, I chatted with our older children. Our 12-year-old daughter told me about the movies which have been most recently watched in her foster home, and commented that there was so much swearing in them. She and her 14-year-old sister told me about the other 14-year-old foster daughter in that home, e.g. how she bosses everyone around, how she orders others to clean up the house when her boyfriend is coming over, how she smokes behind her foster parents back, and how she hangs out with bad friends. We had a brief discussion about a retreat which the youth of our congregation have been invited to. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters both want to go, and their foster parents have said that it's okay. The problem is that it's in New York state, which means that our daughters will need their birth certificates in order to cross the border. My wife and I both don't want to risk the CAS being able to get its hands on their birth certificates. We finally decided that, contrary to normal practice, we'll entrust their birth certificates to one of the leaders rather than to our own children. We talked with him later, and he promised not to let them out of his possession. When it was time for the younger children to leave, our 2-year-old son started crying and climbed up onto my shoulders. My wife tried her best to get his coat on, but he threw it off. He then started screaming as he was carried out of the door and up the stairs. This must have been one of my weaker moments as, for the next couple of hours, the joy of the visit was lost. I just sat quietly in the kitchen, wondering how an organization with the goal of protecting children could itself so blindly inflict such great emotional abuse. Our 6-year-old son put me into a rather awkward situation. With the visit supervisor right beside him, he said to me "the children's aid took us away". He repeated this statement a couple of times, and I finally answered "yes they did". He then repeated his next statement, i.e. "you didn't like that", until I finally answered "that is correct". He then said "they were bad". I didn't answer. He continued "I want to go home". Our 10-year-old daughter interjected "I wanted to stay". When it was time for the older children to leave, some of them again demonstrated a desire to stay. Our 10-year-old daughter, when asked to get into the van, said "no" but then got in. Our 6-year-old son started walking back toward the church building. Our 7-year-old son was the most innovative in that he climbed a tree and said that he wouldn't come down until the foster father who came to pick them up left. They all ultimately cooperated, though, and no major incident erupted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 07:48:24 -0400 (EDT) On Tuesday morning, we went to the first session of the course which is supposed to teach us how to be better parents. It's being held, each second Tuesday morning, in a nice house which is unoccupied during the day because it's a group home for developmentally challenged adults who are all out at work. A very homey atmosphere is maintained. We all, instructors included, get to sit on very comfortable furniture which surrounds the living room, juice, coffee and tea are available in the kitchen, and a nice deck in the back is available for smokers. Two ladies utilize a room in the basement (which we didn't check out) to look after children. The instructors are three women, all of whom have children. One has two (a 9- and an 11-year-old), one has four (a 23-year-old, two older teens and a young teen), and one has three (teen-aged boys). The main instructor, the one with the three teen-aged boys, has been doing this sort of work for the past eighteen years. They made a point of telling us that they knew they weren't perfect, but, being as they were the instructors of the course, they've been taught what are believed to be sound principles with respect to the raising of children. My wife asked what would happen if we (the parents and the instructors) ever disagreed on some specific point. They told us that they, unlike the CAS, don't have authority, that the final decision would always be ours, but that they hoped that such differences would always be discussed openly with the intent of reaching a compromise. My own additional thought, which I didn't reveal there, is that one must still be cautious because the instructors and the CAS do compare notes. We're being driven to and from the course by a family-operated (mother-owned, father, daughter, and friend from parents' church) business called "The Kids Mobile", which normally drives children to and from school. The daughter drives us, and she is a wonderfully cheerful person. Her father, who left us voice mail the day before to confirm the pick-up time, also seemed to have the same disposition. They seem to be a family who loves, and who is highly motivated by, the children it serves. This, in and of itself, was highly refreshing to us. I guess we've lived to sheltered of a life because going to, and attending, the course was almost like entering a different world. The lady who picked us up also picked up another man on the way who told us how glad he was that his child was now spending so much time in day care. When we entered the house in which the course is being presented, we came upon a discussion about baby killers, and who got off and who didn't. When the session was over, and one of the babies was brought to his mother, she exclaimed "no, not the baby!" Perhaps she was only joking, but I wonder if she realizes the message that she's giving her child through such remarks. We also had to endure a discussion amongst some of the other parents regarding the various techniques they use to force their children to like being left at day care centres. The kinds of reactions in their children which they described were exactly like those which our children have when they're being taken away at the end of a visit. It really hurt, therefore, to see how hard-hearted those day care worshipping parents could be towards their children whose only crime, at least to me, is that they're just pleading to be back home where they belong. One of the mothers told us that she didn't mind to have the father of her child as a boyfriend, but that she'd never want to marry him. She told us that she hated all men because they're stubborn. After hearing this for a while, I got a bit fed up and dared to challenge her. I told her that she shouldn't be so hard on men because no man is perfect. I concluded by telling her that she wasn't perfect either, so she shouldn't be so judgmental of others. The first part of the session was used to give everyone a chance to introduce themselves to everyone else. Each person was asked to reveal fairly benign things like his name, how many children he had, what ages and genders they were, etc. Each person also passed around pictures of his children so that others could gain a sense of his family. My wife didn't want to pass ours around because, especially at this time, she really treasures them, so the instructor very gently suggested that others could ask her to show them to them during the break. The main instructor also asked each person what he planned to get out of the course. She, however, being the one who visited us the previous Friday and knowing our current situation, didn't ask that of us. I had a bit of fun, though, because, when it was the first instructor's turn to introduce herself, I asked her what she planned to get out of the course. She told us that every course was different, and that, while it would be impossible to predict with respect to this one, she really did learn something new from each one. I think she meant it, and hope that the same is true for us too. Several of the parents described some really serious behavioural problems in their children, and said that learning to manage these behaviour problems was their course goal. Some of them expressed a great deal of appreciation for the help that they were receiving from the children's aid. Based on what they said, while I think I would disagree with the kind of help they were getting, I suppose that some help, in a bad situation, is better than no help at all. One of the mothers described some really bad things which her child had done. At one point, she mentioned that she had laughed when her child did these things. Whether or not it was my place to do so, I commented that that might be one of the reasons her child did such things, i.e. because her laughter was, in effect, showing approval. She, in self defense, immediately responded by telling me that she also gave her child "s---" for being bad. I wonder if she stopped long enough to get the point. One of the fathers described an apparently very unmanageable child, who is now in foster "care", who even ran away from home five times (including right after having been brought home by a policeman who turned his head for a moment). The "experts" have now attached all kinds of labels to this child, e.g. attention deficit disorder, and, from what I heard, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he'll end up being force-fed some set of behaviour-managing psychiatric drugs one of these days. What a needless tragedy, when the real solution, in my opinion, is probably very simple. This father went on to explain his initial theory on child raising (which he now seems to be beginning to doubt), i.e. that they'll eventually, on their own, grow out of their various bad behaviours, and that all a parent needs to do is to "love" them, cuddle them, coddle them, say nice things to them, etc. He even told us that he never felt that it was necessary to teach his child that something was wrong. While I'm no expert, I think that this approach to the job may well be a significant contributing factor to his child's attitude. Our experience has consistently been that our children love to know what the boundaries are, and that those boundaries will be enforced. Knowing and heeding the rules of life is, after all, the only way that a person can truly, freely, and safely reach his maximum potential. A lot of the parents mentioned that they dreaded the time when their children would be teen-agers. Not being the instructor of the course, I should probably stop trying to give others advice. Once again, however, I couldn't resist. I told them that raising teen-agers is really not that bad of an experience, so long as parents realized that their real job is to raise their children to leave home and not to try to hang onto them for life. I explained how teen-agers are at a stage wherein they want to, and need to, learn how to make good independent decisions, but, having been rightfully protected by their parents up until then, they have usually not yet learned to think in terms of consequences of actions. The last part of the session was spent doing a safety awareness exercise which I couldn't take part in. A number of pictures (child's room, bathroom, kitchen, backyard) were shown, each containing innumerable safety hazards. The goal was for each of us to pick out as many of them as possible. It actually was the kind of puzzle which, were it possible, I would have enjoyed doing. The class was divided up into three groups, and my wife and I joked about the fact that she ended up with all other men while I ended up with all other women. My wife and one of the other mothers there (whose child is now in foster "care") knew each other from one of the play groups. As soon as we walked in and they saw each other, the other mother told my wife "you're the last person I'd ever have expected to have seen here". On the way home, I asked our driver about her family's church. She told us that her parents wanted her to continue going to church, but that she had given up the practice some time ago. I asked her if she was an atheist, an agnostic, or what. She told me that she was a "miscellaneous". I asked her what exactly that meant, with additional questions like does she believe that God exists, does she believe that there's exactly one God, who does she believe that Jesus is, etc. She said that she believes all of the stuff that she's been taught in her parents church, but that church attendance, to her, became very boring because it was more of a procedure than a joy. This, to me, means that she may well believe in God with her mind, but that this belief hasn't yet penetrated her heart. I hope that I'll have opportunities to discuss this issue with her more deeply and at greater length. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 11:04:53 -0400 (EDT) Our 5- and 4-year-old daughters and our 2-year-old son visited us at home, under the supervision of the main parenting course instructor, for the first time on Wednesday afternoon between 1pm and 2:30pm. Our daughters arrived almost a half an hour late because their foster parents had become somewhat confused somewhere between the fact that the visit is now a half an hour earlier than it used to be and the fact that there was a second appointment to keep later that day (the observation of our entire family by the psychologist). The visit is a half an hour earlier than before since the lady supervising it has to be somewhere else by 3pm, so our 18-year-old daughter can't make it home from school until near the time when our children must leave. This week, however, was an exception as she was able to leave school earlier since it was progress report preparation day. Our children were all very excited, especially since this was their first visit to their (hopefully soon to be) new home. They checked out every room, including the unfinished basement, and had a good look at the back yard from an upstairs window. They were especially interested to know which beds were theirs, and then they "practiced" lying down on them. Our 5-year-old daughter, at various times during the visit, would run upstairs, call down to all of us that she was tired, and then jump onto her bed for a while. While waiting for the girls to arrive, our 2-year-old son built a car with some blocks. Once all three children were here, we sat around our kitchen table eating a snack which my wife had prepared. After that, there was quite a mixture of running around the house, playing with toys, and talking with us. It was almost life like normal, except for two incidents of fighting for possession of a toy. This is something which our children didn't used to do very much, so I consider two incidents in just over an hour a bit extreme. I don't think it'll be a long term problem, though, once they're eventually returned. Our children wanted to check out the yard so, a few minutes before it was time for them to leave, we told them to put their coats and shoes on, and then we all went outside. Our 2-year-old son was happy to be putting his coat back on, which means that he clearly understood that he wasn't leaving yet. He cheerfully went outside, and joined his sisters as they ran around the yard. He began to cry immediately, though, as soon as the parenting lady eventually picked him up to take him to the waiting car. She showed some sensitivity to the whole thing by taking him around the side of the house rather than back through it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 12:06:13 -0400 (EDT) We visited our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons at the main CAS offices yesterday afternoon. We actually arrived about three minutes early, having finally figured out, for the first time since we moved, how to get there from our new home on time during rush hour. It was still tricky, though, as we had to carefully hold bags full of fragile arts and crafts things, as well as plates of fruit, while standing on very crowded buses. We went looking for our children as soon as we arrived. They were all already there, still in the office near the side door where children enter and leave out of view of their parents. When they heard us out in the hallway, they came running out to meet us. We then went straight to the visit room with stopping off at the toy room not seeming to even cross their minds. We got the big conference room again, since our usual room was occupied by someone else. Our children immediately began doing the arts and crafts which my wife had brought. There were papier-maché eagles and 20-pointed stars to be painted, as well as cardboard planes which needed to be assembled and painted. As they worked, they ate. The boys did most of the eating, whereas the girls just ate a bit every now and then. Our 8-year-old daughter painted an eagle for her 6-year-old brother (who can't do that sort of stuff very well yet), and asked her 18-year-old sister to paint one for her which she then went and showed off to everyone. We had a couple of plane crashes. Our 6-year-old son, due both to the fragility of the thin cardboard and to his inability to hold something gently, threw his plane which crushed on take-off. Our 7-year-old son, being rather rough by nature, launched his plane with rocket-like force so it very quickly lost control and fatally crash-landed. Our 8-year-old daughter created a game wherein a plane had to fly over at least two of the lights in order for a point to be earned. This turned out to be lots of fun, and the visit supervisor even joined in. Our 6-year-old son wanted to play with a ball so the visit supervisor took him to the toy room to get one. While that was happening, our 7-year-old son invented a new game. He pretended that he was a ball, asked me to "throw" him by gently pushing on his back, and then ran across the room. He'd then run backwards to me, leap up into my lap, and say that I caught "the ball". Still on the pretend ball theme: Our 6-year-old son asked me to roll him up like a ball and then laughed as I gently bounced him on my leg. He then (I'm sure with a big grin on his face) told me to throw him like a ball to the visit supervisor (who was all the way across the room). The visit supervisor said that that wouldn't be a good thing to do. I then quietly told our son that I'd throw him in a way that the visit supervisor would think that I was actually going to do it, and then gave him a good but safe toss and caught him. I guess the visit supervisor has figured out by now that I would never actually do something dangerous since he quietly told our 18-year-old daughter that he really wasn't worried. Having said the fore-going, I must also note one small accident. Being blind, I'm unable to survey the ceiling. This particular room has very low-hanging lights and, shortly after the visit supervisor said that he really wasn't worried, our son's head gently collided with one of them. Fortunately, no damage was done. He didn't stop laughing, and didn't even once mention any pain. I guess the visit supervisor also understood that it was an unfortunate accident because he didn't reprimand me. The nature of the lighting in this room is one more of those architectural details which I'll now have to commit to memory. The real ball, by the way, did get a lot of use too. Our 7-year-old son and 18-year-old daughter threw it back and forth while our 6-year-old son, the one who wanted the ball in the first place, held my hands and did a lot of jumping. He eventually tired of jumping, which, for him, really is a great deal of work, and went to join in the ball passing. Perhaps it's just a little thing, or perhaps it's a little thing which really is a big thing. Our 10-year-old daughter asked me to sign her homework book. At leaving time, our 7-year-old son kept wanting to play with his crafts while the visit supervisor kept very gently asking him to say good-bye. The visit supervisor finally asked for them, and told him that he'd get them back after he'd said good-bye. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 12:09:41 -0400 (EDT) Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters visited us at home, with permission, and without a supervisor, for the first time on Tuesday after school. Other than a couple of anti-CAS statements which they made during dinner, it was just about as though the last two and a half months hadn't happened. We just had a good old-fashioned normal time. Our 12-year-old daughter even brought a couple of her friends from school over, and they had a lively game of hide and seek in her new home. Unless something really significant happens, I may not be mentioning these visits any more. The foster parents of our 14- and 12-year-old daughters had their annual assessment on Wednesday afternoon. The social worker interviewed each foster parent separately, and then gave our daughters the choice of being interviewed either separately or together (they chose together). Their foster mother told them that she'd been asked how she got along with her husband, and I assume that he was asked how he got along with her. Our daughters said that they were asked about twenty questions. The ones which they could remember, in no particular order, are as follows: + What do you think of your foster home? + Do you get an allowance? - How much say do you have about what it is spent on? + Are you allowed to use the computer? + Do you have chores? - What kind of chores are they? + Do you go to school? + Is there anything the foster parents can do to make things better for you? + What kind of food are you given? + Are the rules fair? + Do they discipline you? - Do you think the punishments are fair? + When did you get in the most trouble for something since you've been here? + Do you find that you have enough privacy here? + Are you allowed to go to cultural activities? + Do you have a boyfriend? (girlfriend for a boy) + Do you smoke? In response to the "what do you think of the home" question, they said that they didn't like it because they'd rather be at their real home. They were then instructed to answer the question assuming that that weren't a real possibility. I don't know what they're trying to prove with the allowance questions. Some good parents don't give allowances because they believe that their children should be taught to do good things without bribery. Other equally good parents give allowances because they believe that their children should be taught how to manage money. Some parents give small allowances and don't say anything about how the money is to be spent, whereas others give large allowances along with advice on how to best use such a luxury. None of the alternatives, in and of itself, is either right or wrong. The "are the rules fair" question really bothers me. What if the foster parents really did have good rules but the foster child was very bad? In such a circumstance, I would expect the child to incorrectly say that the rules weren't fair. What on earth does computer access have to do with the adequacy of a home? Our children's psychological assessments have finally begun! Although the psychologist does have a rather large office, it's not big enough for one very important thing he had to do, i.e. to let a family as large as ours freely interact, with everyone present, so that he can make proper observations. He asked, therefore, if he could use our church for a full family observation, and our deacons graciously granted this request. Our whole family had an extra visit this week, therefore, for about two hours on Wednesday evening. My wife and I engaged in a bit of "civil disobedience" on Thursday morning. Our 12-year-old daughter's cross-country run was that day, and we, without contacting the social workers to get permission first, just went to the Sports Plex to watch her. After the run, we stayed for about an hour and a half to talk with her, and to chat with some of the parents of other students in her school. We even had a lengthy unauthorized conversation with one of her teachers. He didn't seem to know that our daughter was in foster "care", and we kept our statements fairly safe as we discussed our recent arrival in the neighbourhood, and the nature of the school and its various programs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 23:44:59 -0400 (EDT) All of our children were at church today. A friend of our 18-year-old daughter also came along (staying until the middle of the afternoon), primarily to check our church out since she says she's a believer (and indeed seems to be) but is currently not going to any. A girl who used to attend our congregation, but has now moved out of the area, also came to spend the afternoon with us. Our 2-year-old son spent morning worship in the nursery with my wife. Our 4-year-old daughter stayed in the sanctuary and was quiet this time. Our 5-year-old daughter drew pictures which she later identified as various members of our family. Our 6-year-old son excitedly told me about a person whom he and his 7-year-old brother were taken to see who juggled fire. While we have a great deal of appreciation for the skill of juggling, we do think that needlessly augmenting it with danger just to give the audience a greater thrill is foolishness. I told him, therefore, that juggling fire is a stupid thing to be doing. He repeated my statement a couple of times, which is his way of showing me that he understood it. I then continued by telling him that it's okay for him to have his own opinion, and that he didn't need to like something just because everyone around him was telling him that it is good. Our 6-year-old son told me that he'd asked his foster mother if he could bring his new school bag to his new home, and she, understanding the unspoken part of his question, i.e. when he's eventually allowed to return, said "yes". He also told me that he'd asked his foster father if he could go to his new house, and was told "no". I was unable to determine if these two questions were asked in close succession or not, and, if so, in which order they were asked. Our 6- and 7-year-old sons are in a foster home where grace is said before meals. Our 6-year-old son told me what the content of this morning's breakfast prayer was by singing "God is good to me, Johnnie Appleseed, Amen". They are sadly being clearly taught that prayer is nothing but a cheap ritual. We use a small two-wheel shopping cart to bring the day's food supply to our church. Our 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter fought with each other for the right to push it around. My wife eventually decided that their selfishness had gone too far, and took the cart away from both of them. They both protested this by serious whining which she was willing to wait out. Unfortunately, a well-meaning member of our congregation, not knowing the full details, comforted them. I hope that this won't end up in the CAS records as my wife needing others to do her parenting (as has already happened in a similar, previously recorded incident). During lunch, our 14- and 12-year-old daughters spoke openly about their disdain for what the CAS has done to them. This part of our conversation culminated with our 12-year-old daughter telling me that she wanted to sue the CAS, and asking me whether or not it's sin to sue people. I told her that I wasn't sure, and that I'd have to give it further thought. I don't think it is, although there's something very distasteful about the practice. I know that the wrong-doing of a fellow believer is best handled by the church (if he won't repent of it privately), but, when the offender isn't a believer, perhaps suing is a legitimate way to proceed. My preference, of course, is that the CAS would come to their senses, in which case I'm willing to forgive them. Our 7-year-old son, who is a very active and energetic boy, and who also possesses a very definite streak of mischief, noticed that I was standing with my back fairly close to a table. Also knowing that the visit supervisor was watching him rather closely, he climbed up onto the table and made it very obvious that he was about to leap to my back. He waited until she told him that he shouldn't do it because it's too dangerous, told her "no it's not", and then, with the precision of a shuttle launch, leapt, and landed on the upper part of my back with his hands hooked over my shoulders so that he wouldn't slip. Having successfully made his point, he then, without further commentary from the visit supervisor (although I couldn't see her face), repeated the jump several times. I found out today that the CAS has gotten all of our children (the nine whom they took) a completely new set of health cards. This means that, when they're finally returned to us, we'll have to again get ourselves a completely new set of health cards. Not only will we have to fill out nine of those nasty forms, but, since it takes about three months for that process to complete, we'll be without valid health cards for them for quite a time. What a needless and stupid procedure! It was a very nice autumn day. Our children, therefore, enjoyed an outdoor dessert (a cake which my wife had brought). After that, our younger children, along with my wife, had lots of fun burying one another in the fallen leaves. Our older children, meanwhile, played a building-wide game of tag. Our 6-year-old son asked me to hold one end of my measuring tape, and then pretended that I was a dog whom he had to lead around by its leash. At one point, he accidentally dropped his end and I told him he had to catch me as I took on the part of a wandering dog who had just been set free. One of the visit supervisors, who had only been monitoring us once before, asked me about our 6-year-old son's cerebral palsy. I told her about how little he was able to do when he was one (roll around with one arm), about his muscle release surgery (both hips, knees, and heels) last January, and about how well he's doing now (unassisted walking and powerful jumps). I also told her about the trade-off between keeping him from getting hurt by not letting him do anything and risking that he'll hurt himself much more than others his age by letting him learn, as much as possible, to do things on his own. She asked other questions which showed some insight into a child with his problem, e.g. about the types of therapy he was receiving, about the type of schooling he was getting, about how easily he tired when doing things, etc. About the afore-mentioned trade-off: I told her that we have elected the latter, i.e. to let him learn to do things while knowingly running the risk that he'll get hurt. One such incident actually happened earlier when we were walking downstairs for lunch after Sabbath School. He's usually very good with stairs, so I let him, as I often do, go down ahead of me. About three steps from the bottom he must have leaned just a little too much. He lost his balance, slid to the bottom, and ended up with a long scrape on his back. I immediately hurried to the bottom, picked him up, and held him until he felt better. Within a few minutes he was up and cheerfully walking again. One of the visit supervisors quietly warned me that our 2-year-old son, with whom I was playing at the time, had to leave in ten minutes. I continued to play with him for a bit, and then, as gently as I could, told him that he'd have to be going soon. As soon as those words were out of my mouth, his attitude abruptly switched from happy laughter to sad cries. In spite of his struggles, I did manage to get his coat on, and my wife did manage to change his diaper and to put his shoes on. Then the visit supervisor took him out to the waiting car. He kept up his crying at least as long as we were still able to hear him. I'm becoming more and more of the opinion that we shouldn't do anything at all (put his coat on, put his shoes on, change his diaper, etc.) when it's time for him to leave, since, at some level, it must be appearing to him as though we're agreeing with his departure since we're helping with the events which surround it. Perhaps I'll ask the psychologist the next time we see him. Peace returned fairly quickly this time after our younger children left. Our 7- and 6-year-old sons vacuumed the hallway. Our 14- and 8-year-old daughters sang psalms. Our 10-year-old daughter built a tower with blocks. Our 12-year-old daughter and the girl who used to attend our congregation chatted with the visit supervisor (primarily about the other girl's foster and adoption experiences). Our 7-year-old son often likes to climb up onto my back, and then to give me one-word instructions (left, right, forward, backward, etc.), which I must rigorously obey, in order to go places. Today he added an interesting twist. He asked me to hold my hands behind my back, and he then stood on them and developed a series of foot signals. While this was a rather novel idea, it didn't end up working too well since it caused him to lose his balance. I guess we have at least one vote of confidence from within "the system". Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters told us that their foster mother had told them that she wouldn't mind if they were to give us their phone number. She said that we were nice people, and that she didn't fear us like she feared other parents. She also seems to be doing all that she can within the rules so support our daughters being able to spend unattended time with us. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 07:32:37 -0400 (EDT) >Not understanding the secondary results of cerebral palsy, I'd like to ask >you what condition your 6-year-old's muscles were in, such that >muscle-release surgery was required. Since cerebral palsy is a brain (and >also nervous system?) disorder, how could that cause problems with his >muscle development? Can you explain a bit what the surgery does to the >muscles? You are correct that cerebral palsy is a brain disorder. Our son suffered major oxygen deprivation within the womb. A routine ultrasound at eight months detected a major, unexplainable pressure build-up within the placenta which caused blood flow through it to stop. My wife was immediately taken to the hospital where inducing labour was attempted. Since even the smallest contractions dropped his heart rate below 90, the doctors decided that Caesarian Section was necessary. When they finally rescued him, there was neither heart beat nor breathing. It took them five minutes to get his heart to beat once, and another two minutes to get it beating regularly. I'm not sure how much time after that it was before they got him to start breathing. They then rushed him into some emergency care room and worked on him ceaselessly for the next eighteen hours, at which point they finally took a break just long enough to take his picture and have it brought out to us. After about two and a half weeks of intensive care, even though he probably wasn't quite ready, the doctors trusted us enough to let us bring him home. The common theory is that such oxygen deprivation causes some cells within the brain to die, although there are those who now believe that many of those cells are still alive, and just either idle or dormant, hence the practice of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (but that's another story). Depending on which parts of the brain get hit, any number of things can happen. In our son's case, he is somewhat (not too much) slower at learning things, has some trouble committing things to long-term memory, and has trouble controlling the muscles for his left eye, his left arm, his back, and both of his legs. The problem with his legs is that certain nerves are always "on", causing some of the muscles to be in a constant state of pulling. This, before his surgery, caused him to be incapable of fully straightening his legs out, which made it very difficult for him to move around. His feet would also get pulled back all the way, which made it essentially impossible for him to stand up. He was also unable to spread his legs apart. This lack of normal motion, in turn, caused his tendons to grow at too slow a rate so, as his legs outgrew them, the problems became more and more severe. We were given three choices. The first was to continue to let the problems, and his associated suffering (restricted mobility, pain, fatigue, etc.) worsen. The second was for them to sever the troublesome nerves within his spinal cord, thereby deactivating those muscles. The third was to let the nerves continue to do their troublesome thing, but to extend the affected muscles so that they would no longer be constraining him. We chose this last alternative. To my understanding, a repeat of this surgery won't likely be necessary so long as he gains essentially normal mobility reasonably soon. He seems to be well on his way. He still wears ankle braces, so his heel tendons aren't getting any work-out, and he has no strength within his feet. His ability, even while wearing his braces, to very forcefully jump, however, indicates that his hips and knees are doing very, very well. That's why I probably say a great deal about a seemingly benign activity, i.e. his ability to jump a couple of inches up with great vigor. >You had mentioned once how God's providence had ensured that all the >children's birthdays had occurred just before July 13. You could also say in >another sense for your 6 year-old, because you earlier wrote that the >surgery caused him long-lasting pain, but that it now seems to be over. How >blessed he is that the surgery did not occur during this time of suffering. How very true your statement is. Thank you very much for bringing yet another blessing to mind. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 07:58:17 -0400 (EDT) Just how much did it take? Somewhat categorized, but in no particular order, I ask: Was it the tremendous support for us shown by our congregation, my colleagues at work, and those who lead, as well as those who participate in, the play groups which my wife has been attending? Was it our older children's insistence on staying at home, and their consistent support for us in the courtroom? Was it our younger children's unanimous, clearly and frequently stated desire to return home? Was it our 14- and 12-year-old daughters' civil disobedience in taking the initiative to boldly, in complete opposition to the social workers' wishes, stop by each week day on their way to and from school? Was it our openness to share all of the facts (including the negative ones), our willingness to be assessed, and our eagerness to have our children assessed? Was it our immediate and unconditional acceptance of guilt for those of their issues which were valid, but our total refusal, with clear consciences, to accept any of their false accusations? Was it our having taken steps to quickly rectify all of their legitimate concerns while, at the same time, boldly confronting them with their own misconduct? Was it their awareness of my lengthy (by now over a hundred printed pages) detailed reporting on their conduct, their statements, and the impact of their methods on the children in their "care"? Was it the fact that almost two hundred hours of our visits with our children, which have all been carefully supervised by their own staff, have probably shown (I can't be sure) very little to complain about? Was it that the judge has said favourable things about us, has revealed her inclination to see our children returned soon, and has tried to force an early settlement, but has rebuked their conduct? Was it the fact that their own lawyer, at best, has only been able to offer the judge poor excuses while our lawyer has consistently demonstrated openness, honesty, boldness, and calm assurance? Was it the fact that the children's lawyer has consistently delivered the message that she wants to see our children returned to their home? Have they become aware that at least one of the foster parents have begun to give us their complete support? Has the parenting course instructor given them positive feedback? Have they taken seriously, and do they fear, the occasional time that I let a remark accidentally slip regarding the fact that I might be seeking support from the media? Are they embarrassed by the scathing comments within our 14-year-old daughter's diary? Are they bothered by the fact that our children have finally begun to speak openly, clearly, and disdainfully regarding the treatment which they've received? Did our local representative within the provincial government, after I contacted him and gave him all of the details, do some work behind the scenes? Are they afraid that the psychologist's report might make them look somewhat incompetent? Just how much did it take? It's impossible, of course, to know for sure which straw finally has apparently broken the camel's back. Whichever one(s) it was, our lawyer has now notified us regarding a most interesting letter which he's received from the CAS. It looks to me like they've finally decided to back off, and that this letter is their attempt to save face, maintain control, look good, appear cooperative (both with us and with the court), and, for one last time, to attempt to defame us. Since God has taught me to not care about what others think of me when they're wrong, this latter goal, while apparently of great importance to the CAS, is really of no consequence so far as I'm concerned. Here, with all of its rhetoric, and with my added commentary, is the content of that letter: >October 13, 2000 It was written last Friday. >Barnes, Sammon By Fax #235-7578 >Barristers & Solicitors >Suite 401-200 Elgin Street >Ottawa, Ontario >K2P 1L5 > >Attention: David Hughes Our lawyer. >Dear Mr. Hughes: > >Re: Mielke children > >Further to your letter of even date and my telephone message to you this >will confirm that the Society is developing a plan to re-integrate the >above noted children with their parents on a gradual basis commencing with >the elder two until all nine are successfully returned to the home. It concerns me that they haven't presented an explicit schedule. This means that they may be using yet another stalling tactic. >It is >contemplated that the Society will do so by way of supervision orders, and >it is the Society's position that any diagnosis of the parents with respect >to mental health issues, and any treatment recommendations for them by Dr. >Droves be made known to us so that same may be incorporated into the >contemplated supervision order(s). In addition to the "supervision orders" clearly meaning that they want the right to enforce whatever follow-up is recommended by the psychologist, I believe they also give the CAS the right to drop in on us, as often as they want, at whatever time they want, without warning, so that they can assess how well they think we're doing. Their desires in this area are also not, and should be, documented. >In your letter to me dated September 8, 2000, you indicated "Dr. Groves >will determine whether there is any problem with either parent and/or with >their joint relationship, which caused or contributed with the problem re: >hygiene and lack of quality parenting techniques". They have a point with respect to hygiene, so long as it only refers to the state of our former house and not to the cleanliness of our children themselves, but that interjection about poor quality parenting, in my opinion, is in great need of clarification and is a wonderful example of how they so glibly toss around incriminating phrases without ever substantiating them. >It is, of course, this >information in which the Society is most interested. The Society is not >requiring a full assessment of this family. After they've been saying all along that the children's assessments, which they were willing to wait nine whole months for their Family Assessment Clinic to perform, was an essential part of their research. >As we have previously >discussed, I do not share the view that Justice MacKinnon made an order >for an assessment, nor would she have the jurisdiction to do so prior to a >finding in need of protection having been made or without the consent of >the parties. They're playing word games. The judge most definitely told them that they had absolutely no say in either what or who is being assessed since we, the parents, had privately retained the services of the psychologist and since they, the CAS, had not offered to help fund the endeavour. The judge further instructed that the CAS would have to trust that the highly respected psychologist whom we had retained would know best regarding what needed to be done, and that the CAS's only obligation in this matter was to produce the children on demand and on time. The judge, in other words, simply gave them sound legal council. She didn't have to order an assessment for our children since we, the parents, who had privately retained the psychologist's services, had the freedom to, and indeed did choose to, do so. >Her Honour did acknowledge that the parents have retained >Dr. Groves and that he had requested the production of the children to >complete his assessment of the parents. Not so. He very clearly told my wife and myself that he needed to see all of our children in order to get a complete picture of the entire set of dynamics within our whole family. The CAS is clearly daring to try to tell him how to do his job. >The Society has produced the children to Dr. Groves for that purpose. As >no individual assessments of the children or the parental capacity of Mr. >and Mrs. Mielke is being requested by the Society at this time, please >advise should Dr. Groves require to see children further in order to >complete his psychological assessment of the parents. How can they, especially right within the same short letter, accuse us of poor quality parenting, and then say that they aren't requesting an assessment of our parental capacity? Perhaps the phrase "at this time" is very critical, and is hinting at further angles which they may wish to try to follow. I wonder, therefore, if the end is still nowhere in sight. >I trust the above is to your satisfaction, and I remain, > >Yours very truly, > >Tracy Engelking >Legal Counsel The CAS lawyer. >c.c. Adriana Doyle The children's lawyer. In addition to wanting an explicit schedule for the return of our children, as well as documentation regarding the specifics of the supervision orders which they're seeking, there still is, in my opinion, one more outstanding issue, i.e. our placement on the provincial child abuse registry. This, too, will have to be resolved. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 23:51:20 -0400 (EDT) Our 2-year-old son arrived half an hour earlier than the start of the visit time today. The parenting course instructor wasn't here yet. The driver simply brought our son to the door, told me that he was a new driver, and asked if this was the right place. He didn't appear to have any procedure at all to ensure that it was. If he had brought our son to the wrong place, and if some person at that wrong place had claimed that it was the right place, our son would have fallen into the wrong hands. My wife had gone to the store, and hadn't returned yet. Our son didn't want to take his coat off, and didn't want to do much but lie on the floor while remaining in a rather irritable mood. Eventually, I was able to pick him up, and sit on the couch with him on my lap. He then began to say phrases like "me sit here wait mommy come". As soon as she came home, he got up, went right to her, and cheered up. The parenting course instructor had arrived by then, and did observe this transition. Our son, before his apprehension, used to spend many a happy hour sitting on my lap at my computer while I worked. Today, however, when I tried to sit at my computer with him on my lap, he seemed to become very frightened, and began to scream "no" at me. All I was trying to do was reintroduce him to an old familiar setting, and have absolutely no idea what his reaction to that attempt means. Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters also arrived a little ahead of my wife (who was held up at the mall). They played with each other while I was still holding our 2-year-old son. Once my wife got home, we all shared a fruit cake and some ice cream, and then the children did some arts and crafts with her. After that, all of the children played with the few toys which we have here so far. Once our 18-year-old daughter got home from school (near the end of the visit time), the girls ran to her, and then went upstairs with her, while our son stayed downstairs with us. Our daughters have now become sufficiently hardened that they actually act cheerful when it's time for them to leave. Our son, however, still protests vehemently. As soon as he became aware that he had to get ready to go, he started kicking and screaming. Any attempt to put his shoes on was met with failure. Even the parenting course instructor couldn't do it, so she eventually carried him out to the waiting car, delivering his shoes as "unattached accessories". If this keeps up, I'm sure that our new neighbours will start wondering what awful people we must be since they routinely see this screaming child being dragged off. After our children were gone, the parenting course instructor came back into our house and we talked with her at great length about our concerns regarding the emotional abuse which our youngest son in particular, and our children in general, were being subjected to by the authorities. We did our best to help her to understand that we considered the actions of the authorities to be of a criminal nature. We pointed out to her the fact that if we were to wilfully treat a child in that way then we'd be jailed, whereas the CAS people, simply by virtue of the fact that they are CAS people, get away with it and call it "protection". We told the parenting course instructor that, when our son is returned, we don't want to leave him downstairs with the care givers during the parenting course sessions because he would interpret such an action as his being taken away from us yet again. We requested her permission, therefore, to keep him with us, but she, not wanting to set a precedent, resisted the idea. Her recommendation was that we take turns, with one of us in the course while the other stays with him downstairs. We don't like that idea because, if we're going to have to take that course, we want to do it together. As the parenting course instructor left, our 18-year-old daughter handed her a letter which she'd hurriedly written. I don't have its exact text, but it essentially said that all those who were really interested in knowing what kind of parents we were needed only but to look at our older children, herself included, in order to make that assessment. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 02:31:15 -0400 (EDT) We visited our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and our 7- and 6-year-old sons yesterday at the CAS main offices. This was probably the last time that we'll have to go all the way out there since we've been informed (last Monday) that this visit, as of next Thursday, will be moved to our home. It will be a half an hour later, i.e. from 5pm to 6:30pm, and will still be supervised by Dominique. We will be serving them their dinner. As of now, therefore, all three mid-week visits are in our home (one being unsupervised, one being supervised by the parenting course instructor, and one being supervised by the CAS). As my wife was somewhat delayed due to the preparation of a snack, she told our 18-year-old daughter and me to go ahead so that at least some of us would arrive on time. She almost caught up to us, but missed the bus we got on by about half a minute. We, therefore, arrived at the CAS main offices about five minutes early, whereas she arrived about ten minutes late. A couple of minutes after we arrived, the visit supervisor, accompanied by our children, came to look for us. We met right in front of the main CAS information desk, and all of the children leapt up for hugs, and greeted us with invigorated cheerfulness. A man from our congregation, who doesn't work for the CAS, but who does work on the fourth floor of its main building, was leaving round about then, and, as soon as they saw him, they ran over to warmly greet him too (so much for being elective mutes). We were in no great hurry, since my wife hadn't yet arrived, and ended up blocking the CAS main entrance with these happy reunions for about five minutes until the visit supervisor finally asked us to go to "the room". What a contrast to the pictures of gloomy children which hung on the surrounding walls. I wonder what the lady at the desk thought. The reason for our children's great cheerfulness became evident fairly soon. Although they didn't yet know about the CAS's apparent plans to start returning them to their home, they did know about the other change, i.e. that their visit, starting next week, will be in their new home. They were all thrilled by this good news, especially since they've known for some time that the other two visits are already at home, and our 6-year-old son even promised the visit supervisor that he'd show him his new room. While waiting for my wife, our children climbed up on my back (10-year-old included), jumped up to be held, and chatted with their 18-year-old sister and the visit supervisor. When she arrived, they ran to greet her, we all shared the snack, and then the three older children did a craft which she'd brought while our 6-year-old son wanted me to bounce him on my lap while he talked with me. Our 6-year-old son, wanting to show off how well and fast he can now walk, and also wanting to have some fun, kept going out of the room and escaping down the hallway. After my wife went to get him a couple of times, I figured I'd best follow him around for a while in order to spare her some energy and so that she could spend proper time with our other children. He tried to leave a couple more times, but I was able to catch him right at the door. He then found a closet-like room off the main room, and had fun going in and out of it. He found a switch in there, and, surmising that it just controlled a light within the closet itself, I turned it off so that he could see what it did. Much to our surprise, however, the whole main room went dark. The visit supervisor just quietly said that he thought we'd better turn it back on. Our 7-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter had lots of fun trying to see what the visit supervisor was writing in his book. They managed to sneak right up close a number of times, and were able to read a few of the words. Our son was constantly tempting him with phrases like "Dominique's the worst person in the world", and our daughter was saying things like "don't say that or he'll write it down". The visit supervisor found all of this quite humourous, eventually telling them that they didn't need to worry about what he was writing (was he telling the truth, or were they smart?). He also told them that he'd write down that they were being silly. At one point he saw our son eating raisins off the floor, and asked him if it'd be a good idea for him to write that down. My pager battery died a couple of days ago, so I left it that way so that our 7-year-old son could change it for me. Since there was a phone in the room, he then asked me to page myself with a message. I did, and my message was that he wanted to know what the visit supervisor was writing in his secret book. He got all excited by that one, and, being as my pager has a memory, he went over and replayed it several times for the visit supervisor who then said that he wasn't too worried if that's the worst thing that would be said about him all day. Our 8-year-old daughter then left her message, which was that the visit supervisor would be leaving the children's aid society right now. I'm not one to miss too many opportunities to teach what I believe to be a Godly approach to life. While our 7-year-old son was taunting the visit supervisor with my message, therefore, I commented that I don't believe in saying anything which I'd be ashamed to have either overheard or repeated. The visit supervisor, in response to this statement, said "that's the key". I then added that the ultimate goal is not to even think something which one wouldn't want known. When the visit supervisor told our children that it was time to get ready to leave, none of them made any significant effort to comply. They just went right on doing what they were doing at the time. He then specifically asked our 7-year-old son if he was ready to leave, and he answered "no". He eventually managed to get all of them to leave the room, but then they all came running back several times for more hugs. Our 7-year-old son, the most mischievous of the bunch, snuck back and told us that he was going to hide on the visit supervisor. When the visit supervisor came back to look for him, our son just stood up, directly faced him, and told him that he was hiding on him. This was a very happy visit. The visit supervisor visibly laughs quite a bit of the time these days, even seems to have developed a genuine appreciation for our children's humourous departure antics, and now always remains very gentle and patient in his attempts to persuade them to leave. Our children like him too. Our 8-year-old daughter invited him to come watch her bowl at 8am on Saturday morning (I think he declined, saying that he didn't work on weekends). Even though our 7-year-old son can be very silly quite a bit of the time, he also remains polite when it counts. He's been asking us for a watch with hands for the last couple of months since he's now become proficient at reading his digital watch. We finally got him one this week, and our 14-year-old daughter delivered it to him when they met at choir on Wednesday after school. First, he, in exchange for his new analog watch, gave her his digital one (so she has a watch too now). Second, when he phoned us around 8:30 the next morning (as he usually does each weekday morning), as soon as he heard me say "hello", he, of his own accord, thanked me for his new watch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 23:40:35 -0400 (EDT) Our 18-year-old daughter and I arrived at church a little early today. This gave me some unsupervised time to talk with our 14-year-old daughter (who also arrived a bit early). She told me about a meeting which she and her 12-year-old sister had with their social worker on Friday afternoon. The social worker picked them up from school, and took them to a Tim Horton's. She told them that they might be allowed to go home, but probably not before November 16. This contradicts our lawyer's current understanding, i.e. that they might be allowed to return home this week. Did they lie to our lawyer? Did they lie to our daughters? Is it just that the social workers don't communicate amongst themselves, and, therefore, that our daughters' social worker is not yet aware of last week's legal discussions? Our 12-year-old daughter told their social worker that we hoped to get our 2-year-old son back at the same time as they were allowed to come home (because, which she didn't mention, he's greatly suffering as a result of his separation from us). She told them that that probably wouldn't happen because he, being the youngest, would probably be returned last. She also added, however, that he's having lots of problems where he is. If they recognize that there is a problem, why won't they also recognize the wisdom of our desire to get him back as soon as possible? Do they really think that wilfully inflicting yet more emotional abuse upon him is worth it, just so they can have a bit more time to convince themselves of what they already must know, i.e. that he'd be safe and content here? Perhaps they attribute his problems to something about his foster home itself, but, if so, why don't they move him to another one? Our 2-year-old son didn't come. We received a phone call on Friday afternoon from his foster mother, who told us that he again had hand, foot and mouth disease. He's now missed three Sunday visits in three months (hand, foot and mouth disease twice, and a flu), whereas he was very healthy before he was taken. My current theory, although it's only a guess, is that the extreme stress which he's under these days has significantly weakened his immune system. When our 4- and 5-year-old daughters arrived, our 4-year-old came running to me, ordering me to pick her up. I had to ignore her for the time being, though, since the visit supervisor told me that our 5-year-old was very sick, and that she was very pale. The visit supervisor kindly offered to look after her while I went into the sanctuary with the other children, but I asked our daughter herself, who insisted, in a very weak voice, that she wanted to go with me. I carried her in, therefore, and our 4-year-old, giving up on me, went to her 18-year-old sister. I asked our 5-year-old daughter a few questions about what was wrong with her, and determined that she had a severe stomach ache which began during the long drive in. I lay her down flat on her back, therefore, on two chairs beside me, and checked her every few minutes. Half way through the service, she got up, told me that she was okay, and sat on my lap. Within a couple more minutes, she was right back to her normal, lively self, standing up, telling me things, turning around to look at everyone, etc. Then she went and got her 18-year-old sister's glasses, and played with and wore them until I, not wanting to risk any damage, told her to give them back. Our 4-year-old daughter sat with her 18-year-old sister until my wife arrived, at which time she immediately went to her. My wife had brought the pictures of our children which they themselves took several weeks ago with those disposable cameras, and, near the end of the service, she, along with her 5-year-old sister, spent a lot of time looking at them. Fortunately my memory didn't fail me, and I gave her a great big hug after the service to make up for my earlier ignoring of her pleas for attention. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters told us about a new foster daughter whom their foster parents now have. Only two children were taken in that apprehension, she and her brother, and they were split into two foster homes. They also told us that her social worker told her that she hoped that her mother would go to jail, and then immediately changed her statement by saying that what she really meant was that she hoped that her mother would do better. We, once again, had to miss our monthly outing wherein we sing psalms to residents of a nearby home for elderly people. The lady who organizes these outings asked the visit supervisor if it would be possible to make special arrangements for these days so that we could go. The visit supervisor told her that is wasn't her decision to make, and then told me to ask our social worker to do so. I told her that we already had, that our request had been completely ignored, and that that's the way they usually treat our requests. Rather than telling me not to speak in such a negative way about CAS people in front of our children, which is her custom, she, in a cheerful voice, encouraged me to give it another try. The younger teen-aged girl who used to attend our congregation, but who's now moved out of the area, came to spend the afternoon with us again. She told us that she wanted to phone the CAS to tell them that we're not bad, and that she's a good witness because she's stayed overnight in our home before. She, along with our 14- and 12-year-old daughters, also spent some time cheerfully looking forward to next weekend's youth retreat in New York state. Our 5-year-old daughter, when wanting to play with my clock while another of our children had it, gave an incredibly good performance of the pouting, my world will come to an end, style of emotional bribery which some women are known for. None of our daughters have ever done this before, so I assume that she's learned it in her foster home. I wonder if she's modeling her foster mother, or if she's picked it up from television. Which ever it is, I told her that such conduct would guarantee that she wouldn't get it. Our 6-year-old son is doing better and better on his feet. He wanted to play train for quite a while. At first, he was content to be the caboose, and hung onto my legs as we walked. After a while he decided that he wanted to be the engine, wanted me to be immediately behind him, and was thrilled when our 7-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter joined in. He happily led us several times back and forth along the hallway. The visit supervisor even commented that he was the happiest train that she'd ever seen. My wife read books to our 4-year-old daughter in the nursery. Several of our children, several times, picked on the visit supervisor for smoking. Our older children played a rousing game of tag in the fellowship hall, hallway, and nursery. Our 8-year-old daughter wanted me to sign several of her math tests. At one point, our 8-year-old daughter used the term "foster parents", and her 10-year-old sister told her that they should be called "foster people". While most of us were in the fellowship hall, our 6-year-old son stood up on a small platform at one end, and, with a Bible and psalter beside him, gave us a short sermon on keeping God's rules. He told us that it was bad to break them, and that those who break them should go to Hell. He then pretended to read a few passages from the Bible, and concluded by raising his hands to bless us. The visit supervisor was quite impressed. While our children were leaving, a well-meaning member of our congregation came to tell us that our 6-year-old son was crying because something was wrong. We went out to check, and discovered that his crying was because he didn't want to leave. I held and hugged him for a while, and then put him down as the visit supervisor approached. He then ran back into the sanctuary as fast as his difficult-to-move legs would carry him. She, of course, managed to catch him and take him out. The lady who'd come to get us stayed with us through all of this, and told us how much she hated to see our children leave each time. Our 7-year-old son had yet another unique way of showing his reluctance to leave. He, being very fast and agile, ran at top speed around the sanctuary, weaving in and out of isles and between chairs, making himself essentially impossible to catch. I'm not sure how he was finally "convinced" to leave. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 21:17:47 -0400 (EDT) Our 5- and 4-year-old daughter and our 2-year-old son visited us at home today. They all arrived right on time, this time, so I guess that everyone is now used to the new schedule. We first shared some fruit, cheese, and cake, and then, for most of the rest of the time, our children played with toys. Both girls invited their younger brother to play with them, there being only one minor dispute over one of the toys which was fairly quickly resolved without adult intervention. Our 2-year-old son laughed several times, which, for him, is a rarity these days. As he played, however, he repeated the phrase "me 'tay mommy daddy" (he doesn't pronounce "s" yet) at least ten times. He also went upstairs once and wanted to lie down on his bed. His sisters' drive arrived before his, and I think he actually thought he was being allowed to stay. His drive, of course, eventually did get here, at which point the parenting instructor told him that it was time for him to go. He then began saying "no me 'tay mommy daddy" over and over, ran to his mother, clung to her, and started crying. While he was still clinging to her, the parenting instructor asked him if he wanted to give me a hug too. He, not being fooled by that tactic, exclaimed "no". She finally did get ahold of him, and then asked me if I wanted to give him a hug too. I didn't respond, figuring that it would probably just make matters worse. While our daughters now seem to have come to terms with having to leave, our 5-year-old did delay her departure by coming back to eat strawberries. The parenting instructor asked her a couple of times if she'd had enough, and, each time, she said "no" and kept on eating. She finally did stop, though, and then went out peacefully. We found later that they'd both left their treasure boxes in their bedroom drawers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 01:16:11 -0400 (EDT) Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and 7- and 6-year-old sons visited us at home, for the first time, late yesterday afternoon. About an hour before they were scheduled to arrive, we got a phone call from our social worker. When I came to take the call, I accidentally sent the handset flying, bouncing off a chair, and crashing to the floor. After retrieving it, I apologized to the caller, and only then discovered who was calling. I guess she has a bit of a sense of humour because she said that, given the way I felt about her, I was probably glad that I'd done that. I told her that I was not vindictive. She called because she was unaware that the start time for the visit had been changed from 4:30pm to 5pm (another example of poor information flow within the CAS), and wanted to let us know that our children might be a bit late because of the fact that they have to be driven from the other end of town. I told her about the change, and added that, if the driver was also unaware of the change, then our children might, in fact, be arriving a bit early. I then raised my concern that, should they arrive early, the driver, one of the foster fathers, might insist on waiting outside with them until the visit supervisor arrived. She asked me not to get into an argument with him over it, pointing out that their drivers are given very careful instructions not to leave the children unsupervised if the visit is to be supervised. I told her that I understood, and that, even though I may have issues with her, I don't have any issues with the foster parents. She told me about their plan to start returning our children, a few at a time, from oldest to youngest. I asked her when this process would begin, and she answered that it would be soon after the next hearing (November 2). I asked what she meant by "soon", she said a week or two, and I commented that, where I work, soon would mean a much shorter period of time. I asked her what was keeping them from starting to return our children right away, to which she answered that they were still awaiting the psychologist's report. My take is that they're looking for a way to return our children without having to take any responsibility for it should something go wrong. She told me that they were considering one exception to the returning of our children from oldest to youngest, i.e. that they were seriously considering returning our 2-year-old son first. I asked if she'd consider returning all three, i.e. our 2-year-old son as well as our 14- and 12-year-old daughters, at the same time. She initially resisted, saying that it would be very important for our 2-year-old to receive a lot of very special, individual attention for the first while to help him get over what has happened to him. I told her that she was absolutely right, but that returning the oldest two wouldn't interfere with that. She gave a vague response indicating, without making a commitment, that she understood what I was saying. While she never actually came out and said it, this, in my opinion, is the first time I've ever heard any of them admit that their process has a negative impact on the children. While discussing this issue, I dared to use the term "harm" (just like I did during our meeting early last month). This time, instead of arguing with me, the most she did was start to say something, and then stop, mid-word, before it was possible to know what she was wanting to say. There's a lesson in this which, it appears, I have yet to more perfectly learn (big surprise). I was very annoyed when ordered by the CAS to take the parenting course. I now realize that I should simply have obeyed God's command to give thanks in everything since it now appears that that order was simply God's way of putting into place a very important tool for Him to use. It turns out that it was the parenting course instructor who finally convinced the CAS to consider returning our youngest child as soon as possible. She's now had three separate opportunities to see how happy he is to come here, how upset he is when it's time for him to leave, and our righteous anger at a system which can so heartlessly destroy a baby. She's also had time to see how we interact with, and look after our children, and to consider how we contribute to the discussions during the course sessions. I guess she's also considered to be enough of an expert that the CAS takes her concerns and advice seriously. Now ... to the visit itself: The visit supervisor arrived a bit early, and waited outside for our children. They arrived just about on time, and were absolutely thrilled to be here. This, I think, was the happiest we've ever seen them since their apprehension. All four of them ran in as many different directions to give their new home a thorough initial inspection. I'm not sure what paths the older three took, although I could easily hear their joyful chatter and laughter, as I was carefully showing our 6-year-old son where each room is. He was especially excited to go into his own room, and even more excited to know which bed is his. We had been so busy looking for a house which would be ideal for a family the size of ours that we forgot to consider the special needs of our 6-year-old son. God, however, clearly did not. There are at least two aspects of this house which are ideal for him. First, he can easily, on his own, get in and out of the front door with his walker since there are only three long steps to navigate. Second, he can easily go up and down the stairs since the rail on one side is supported by several thin round vertical posts which he can easily grab with his hands. We had our version of a practical joke awaiting the visit supervisor. The wall on one side of the entrance way has a concave curve which I think is meant for a plant. We found that a stool easily fit into it, so we put one there, and placed a sign over it entitled "Dominique's Spot" which proclaims that he must sit there. I was still showing our 6-year-old son around the house when he saw it, so I'm not sure what his reaction to it was. Our 6-year-old son and I arrived for dinner a bit late. While we were finishing our meal, our 10-year-old daughter and the visit supervisor were playing a game of chess. He acknowledged that she made a couple of very good moves, but, in the end, he won. He seemed to be more cheerful than usual, and was actually humming along with the music which was playing in the background, i.e. good, old-fashioned, God glorifying, solemn, Christian music from my favourite Christian radio station (on the internet at http://www.familyradio.com/). Our 7-year-old son had fun experimenting with all of the light switches (there are lots of them) in order to determine which switch did what. He was especially fascinated with the dimmer control for the chandelier which overhangs our dining room table (the former owners must have been quite self indulgent and left us quite a legacy). The next most fascinating switch to him was the one which turns on and off the gas fireplace. Our 7-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter wanted their 18-year-old sister to accompany them out to the shed at the far end of our back yard. While in it, our son was intrigued by the fact that it has a working electric light. They then went out to the tree beside it, and had fun climbing on it for a while. The visit supervisor observed that it was perfect for a tree house. They then asked if we could build one, and later asked if we could hang a tire from it. I, thinking that the visit supervisor was still over by the tree with the two children, quietly commented to our 18-year-old daughter that he seemed to be pretty happy here. He was actually coming back across the yard, had over heard part of what I'd said, and asked her what he was happy about. She just said "here". He then said that it was a nicer environment. Our 7-year-old son recognized our former dining room table which, having been patterned after a picnic table, is now outside fulfilling that function. He immediately noticed that it was a little smaller than it used to be. I told him that he was right, and then asked him if he knew what about it was different. He looked at it a bit more, and then correctly observed that it now only has one, rather than two, centre pieces. Very observant, I must say, given that he hasn't seen it for over three months, that it's now in a completely different setting, and that counting centre pieces isn't exactly your every day activity. Other highlights: The visit supervisor noticed that we have The Ten Commandments posted in our entrance way. We all shared a cake while outside. Our 6-year-old son kept wanting to show the visit supervisor his room. Our 8-year-old daughter wanted to go to the store with her 18-year-old sister but my wife and I, both wanting to play it very safe during these times of apparently improving conditions, independently told her that she couldn't go. All four children very definitely indicated their strong desire to stay when it was time to leave. As soon as the visit supervisor told them that it was time to go, they all started running around the whole house. When he finally got all of them to the door, our 10-year-old daughter told him that they could stay for another thousand hours. Our 8-year-old daughter then said that they could stay next week, saw his head make some sort of nodding motion, and immediately cheerfully yelled "he said yes". She also said "me stay home with mommy and daddy" twice (someone must have told her what her 2-year-old brother had been saying the day before). Our 6-year-old son kept closing the front door and laughing at the driver through the window. After the visit supervisor got all of them out of the door, our 6-year-old son said that he had to go to the bathroom and came back in. Once they were all outside with the door shut, and we thought it was all over, our 7-year-old son could be seen running around the backyard. After our children were gone, the visit supervisor came back in to give us some more good news, i.e. that our next visit with these children would only be partially supervised. This means that they'll be arriving and leaving without him, and that he'll only be dropping in for about twenty minutes in the middle to check if there are any problems. He then said that he didn't expect that there'd be a problem, and added that he expected his involvement with us to be coming to an end shortly. Knowing from experience that information flow is poor within the CAS, I asked him to ensure that the drivers knew that the visits were becoming unsupervised so that they'd let our children come in. He assured me that he would. He told us that the partial supervision would be coming at a price, i.e. that we'd have to ensure that our children would be ready to leave, right on time, with no game playing. I told him that I understood because it's not the driver's job to round them up. I continued that they probably wouldn't do it anyway without him being there because they considered him to be a representative of the enemy and, therefore, wanted to make a statement to him. I also told him that I deliberately didn't stop them while he was there because I didn't want to interfere with their right to freedom of speech. I did assure him, however, that I'd instruct them to comply with his wishes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 09:40:36 -0500 (EST) All of our children were at church yesterday. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters only arrived a little after 4pm, though, because they'd been away at a youth retreat near Syracuse, New York, from Friday evening until after morning worship. Our 18-year-old daughter and I arrived very early, which gave us an opportunity to chat with some of the children, i.e. those who also arrived early, before morning worship without supervision. Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters, as well as our 7- and 6-year-old sons, told us about their having been taken to the Icecapades on Saturday. I don't think that this outing was organized between the two foster homes since the girls went to the afternoon show whereas the boys went to the evening show. Between all four of them, we were told about many a performance. They spent a lot of time telling us about two of them which, contrary to normal public opinion, cause me to wonder if even the Icecapades has become a show not fit for children. Since, of course, I happen to think that something not fit for children is also not fit for adults, I don't think that we'll ever be going there again. The first such performance involved skaters somersaulting over fire. Our 6-year-old son got the most excited about it, although it had enough of an impact on all of them that none failed to mention it. What's wrong with somersaulting over a raised bar instead? Why do shows like this always seem to have to include the needless risking of danger? Man's insistence on flirting with danger, i.e. getting as close to it as possible without getting hurt, really is an ugly picture. To me, at least, it's highly illustrative of how unsaved man likes to proudly demonstrate how close to sin he can get without falling. The sad fact is that he rarely succeeds. Those who cozy up to a sin usually get ensnared by it. The second such performance amounted, in my opinion, to a strip show, and I'm glad that the children all expressed disgust when describing it. Skaters slowly took off one piece of clothing after another, usually revealing more clothing underneath, but at least one of them undressed right down to his underwear. He then, while playing bag pipes, did something to cause his underpants to pop open, revealing a bathing suit underneath them. Again, however, even though none of them ever fully exposed himself, one must ask what the purpose of such a performance is. The only answer that I, personally, come to is that they wish to attract an audience by titillating those wondrous senses which God has given us solely for the purpose of augmenting, beautifying, and facilitating the oneness within, our marriages. When our 2-year-old son arrived, he immediately asked where his mother was. He then looked at his 7-year-old brother, and said "my brother ..." (fill in his first name). Finally, he lay down on the carpet (not the safest thing to do when lots of people are arriving for morning worship) the same way he did at home when my wife was still at the store just before a visit a couple of weeks ago. He seems to be increasingly using both words and actions these days to indicate his desire to be with us and his desire that we all be together. His increasing lack of self-discipline provided a bit of congregational humour at the start of the worship service. Our pastor had just thanked God for the correction in church teaching which was brought about by the reformation. Our 2-year-old son, for reasons as yet undetermined, yelled out "no, no". Our pastor, undaunted by such unscheduled interruptions, immediately responded with a very emphatic "yes". Our son finally escaped from us, eluded recapture, and sat down on the steps to the platform. One of the ladies in the congregation went to get him, and, after requesting my permission, took him to the nursery. He didn't fight her at all when she picked him up and took him out of the sanctuary, which must mean that he's distinguishing between those who will and those who won't take him away from us. I'm not sure if he's choosing his response based on an ability to discern the motive or if he's reacting to whether he's being picked up in love or due to process. Our 4-year-old daughter stayed in the sanctuary for about half of the worship service, and then went to the nursery to join her mother who, by that time, had arrived and was with our 2-year-old son. Our 5-year-old daughter lasted a little longer, but also eventually went to be with her mother. Our 8-year-old daughter made a number of trips back and forth. After Sabbath School, while playing with our 2-year-old son, he began to laugh again. Unfortunately, however, his happiness was short lived. While we were eating lunch, he and his 4-year-old sister got into a nasty dispute over a toy. The whining chorus which ensued was one of those events which ruined the moment for everyone. We ignored them for a while, although, with all of the racket, it was impossible for the rest of us to maintain a conversation. My wife finally took him to the nursery, which got them apart for long enough that the issue went away. The parts for our Christmas pageant were distributed, and our 10-year-old daughter, while sitting on my lap, read to me those which belong to our children. Given our family's current situation, I don't think that we're going to be able to do much to help them prepare. Our older children will be able to practice on their own. Our younger children, who only have to learn the words to a couple of short psalms, will hopefully pick them up during the Sabbath School practices. Our 5-year-old daughter told us that she would be going to North Carolina in four days for seven days. Time will tell if she has all of the facts straight. If she does, then this must mean that the foster parents have the right to take our children out of the country without our permission. Even if there are no bad motives involved in this particular case, it does highlight a serious potential problem. Our children, while legally in the custody of our provincial government, are allowed to be freely taken beyond the legal reaches of that government. This gives foster parents an avenue whereby they can kidnap other people's children. Our 5-year-old daughter happily told us how she would be a ghost for halloween. I reminded her that ghosts are bad, that halloween is bad, and that she should tell her foster parents these things. Our 6-year-old son then told me how students in his class were to put halloween pictures on their homework. I told him that he didn't have to do that. He said that he didn't, but that everyone else did. I told him that it's okay to be different from others, especially when they're wrong. I then told all of them, and, of course, also indirectly told the visit supervisors, that, as far as I'm concerned, halloween is Satan's annual special day of worship so it's a sin to participate in it. I've just (right between writing these two paragraphs) left voice mail for the children's social workers instructing them to instruct the foster parents to not involve our children in halloween related activities. Let's see if they heed our family's wishes. If they do, then they'll earn back some respect. If they don't, then they'll be earning further disdain, and they'll also be furnishing me with yet more ammunition with which to teach our children how Godless and evil the ways of the world are. Our 8-year-old daughter brought a miniature banjo with half of its strings missing. She had lots of fun playing notes on it, letting others try it out, and showing her 6-year-old brother how to use it. She even "played" it for the visit supervisors. Once, while our 6-year-old son was playing with the banjo, his 7-year-old brother wanted it. In his attempt to get it, he did what is becoming more and more typical of his, as well as of his younger siblings', behaviour nowadays, i.e. kick up a major fuss, whine, claim that no one lets him do anything any more, etc. I called a stop to it, and, in the hearing of one of the visit supervisors, gave him a very controversial lecture which he needed to hear, but which can't possibly assist in getting our children back. It was one of those moments where the unpleasant call must be made regarding what's best for the short term situation verses what's best for the long term situation. I told him that I didn't care what attitudes are being taught to them within their foster homes, and that he dare not behave that way in front of me. I told him that the CAS's process is a system which does everything it can to make children independent, selfish, and self centred. I told him that it was ultimately a war between God and Satan, and that he, as one of God's people, had to stand his ground and be good every single time that others, as Satan's people, created a temptation for him to be bad. I told him that there would be a very special pit in Hell reserved for those, should they not repent, who teach children such bad ways. Some sort of a dispute (I didn't catch what it was) caused our 5-year-old daughter to uncontrollably cry for at least twenty minutes. She's been holding up very strongly ever since her apprehension, and my guess is that this was the cry she finally needed to have. I just held her tightly until she stopped, and then, even though her 18-year-old sister was able to get her to start laughing again, she wanted nothing else but to sit on my lap, hug me, climb onto my shoulders, etc. This happened just before 3pm, i.e. the time she had to leave, and I'm glad that she recovered first rather than being ruthlessly stolen in the midst of her grief. When the visit supervisor told our youngest three children that it was time for them to leave, our 5-year-old daughter kept saying "one more time", and then climbed back onto my shoulders to perform various acrobatics. Our 2-year-old son, as usual, started to do lots of crying, and my wife eventually asked the visit supervisor how she'd feel if her child were being taken away like that. Our 4-year-old daughter ran behind the church building and looked at us through the nursery window. After our youngest children were gone, while we were still in the nursery, and with the remaining visit supervisor right out in the hallway, our 6-year-old son, who has always enjoyed playing with doors, pushed the door shut. We all instantly broke out into a chorus of laughter, realizing that, through such an innocent event, the visit supervisor, without having a single thing to complain about, could no longer hear us very well. Our 6-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter then teamed up to add to the humour by running to the door and briefly opening it to yell "I want to go home". The visit supervisor finally responded to this by saying that she wasn't the right person to yell at. Our 7-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter played a game with me wherein I, on my knees, had to capture them as they attempted to sneak by me. I was only allowed to use one hand for each of them, whereas they were allowed to use their whole bodies. It eventually got even more complicated when our 6-year-old son climbed up on my back and, in addition to capturing his two siblings, I had to balance him. We had lots of fun until we stopped when our 8-year-old daughter banged her head on the floor. She felt better after about two minutes, and was ready to resume, only insisting that we stay on the carpet. We didn't resume, however, because it was too close to the start of evening worship at that point. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 19:13:55 -0500 (EST) The social worker for our 5- and 4-year-old daughters phoned us this afternoon. She wanted to confirm with us that she'd contacted all of the foster parents to inform them of our desire to have our children kept out of any halloween-related activities, and to inform us that all of them had no problems with, and agreed to comply with, our request. I thanked her. She also wanted to request permission for our daughters to go on a trip. It turns out that our 5-year-old daughter was essentially right yesterday regarding that trip. She told us that it'd be to North Carolina, whereas her social worker told me that it'll be to South Carolina. She told us that it'd be in four days (from yesterday) for seven days, whereas her social worker told me that they'll be leaving on the third (five days from yesterday) and returning on the twelfth (it'll last for ten days). I was wrong in assuming that they'd be leaving the country without our permission. I asked her what they'd be doing on the trip. She said that she wasn't sure, and seemed to want to leave it at that. I told her that, no matter who took any of our children anywhere, I'd want to know what they'd be doing. I illustrated my point by saying that, were they going to Las Vagas, I'd certainly have my doubts regarding it being a good thing to allow. She then told me that she thought they were just going to use up time in one of those time sharing places where they'd likely have access to things like a swimming pool. I insisted on wanting to know more specific details, and she promised to get back to me tomorrow. If we say yes, then we'll miss two Sunday visits and one mid-week visit with them. They'll also miss a week of kindergarten, but, in my opinion, that really doesn't matter. If we say no, then the foster parents will probably go anyway, which means that our daughters will probably be temporarily transferred into another foster home. Neither of these alternatives is good, and I, therefore, don't like either of them. I'll probably let them go because such experiences, assuming that the foster parents are okay, are probably worth it. I sure hope that the resort atmosphere won't lend itself to too much casual drinking. I offered my own solution to this dilemma, i.e. that our daughters be allowed to return home before Friday, thereby making the whole issue go away. She then mentioned the fact that they were now looking into returning our children, but that, as I should know by now, this would take some time. I used that as an opportunity to mention my concern that it seems like the best interests of the children aren't really all that important, and that it looks to me more like the children are being held as blackmail so that the adults can impose their will. She told me how she could understand why I might think that way, but that was probably because I wasn't aware of what work was being done behind the scenes by them. I told her that I knew plenty about what was going on behind the scenes, and that most of it involved social workers getting together in private meetings to invent stories to fit those sketchy facts which they've collected. I told her about how I knew the real stories behind all of the past reports, but that I'd never be believed because, as our social worker put it at the end of September, their reports are made by professionals. I then illustrated what I think about the quality of their professionally prepared reports by pointing out how they saw our friend bring over some food that evening and then immediately jumped to the conclusion that she did all of our meal preparation. Our daughters' social worker tried to defend our social worker by ascribing good, albeit imagined and unprovable, motives to her conclusion drawing. She told me, for example, that they needed to find out what really goes on within our home, including whether or not my wife was really capable of doing her job. I told her that they shouldn't expect us to put on a special performance if they truly wanted to know what really goes on. She said that if she had any doubts then she'd call to ask about them. I told her that that was a good approach which even agreed with Jesus's command to first take up an issue directly and privately with a person, and then asked her why our social worker didn't do so. She answered that she didn't know. I noticed, as we talked, that our social worker hasn't been telling her a lot about what's been going on. I decided to tell her myself, therefore, so that she'd be in a better position to draw her own conclusions about where truth really lies. I told her about how our social worker had blocked the children's psychological assessments. She, being aware of the one full family observation, told me that she was sure that the psychologist had seen them. I told her that that one appointment indeed did take place, but that our social worker had then refused to give the psychologist the foster parents names and phone numbers so that he could talk with them, as well as with each child individually, in order to complete his work. She told me that that was because it wasn't being done by the family assessment clinic. I told her that the judge ordered them to produce the children on demand, and told them that they had no say in what was being assessed since we were paying the entire bill. She didn't know any of this, and said that she'd check with our social worker to see what she has to say. I then asked her the ultimate in rhetorical questions with respect to this issue, i.e. why wasn't our social worker overjoyed to have us pay the entire bill for an assessment which would uncover all of the dirt that she's looking for. Our daughters' social worker agreed that this didn't make any sense at all. I told her that I'm not scared at all regarding what this assessment might uncover because I know what kind of children we have, and that it must be our social worker who's worried about what might be revealed about the way the CAS has handled our case. She had a hard time believing my claim that I can play two contradictory roles simultaneously, one of which leaving me very much emotionally involved with an issue, and one of which allowing me to become very detached from it so that I can make open-minded and unbiased assessments. She told me that, as a Christian, my children would be my highest priority, and that would make it impossible for me to see this whole ordeal clearly. I told her that, as a Christian, it is also essential for me to look at things, no matter how much they may involve me personally, with an open mind so that I can determine truth. I then accused her of having unknowingly become hardened, by her job, to the effects of its process. She insisted that she couldn't do her job if she weren't motivated by doing what's best for the children. I, using sin as the model, explained how hardness usually creeps into ones heart ever so slowly and undetectably until it's too late. Then, to drive my point home, I referred to the destruction which is being brought upon our 2-year-old son. Since she is also his social worker, she understood, without my actually saying it, that I was directing my remarks right at her. She tried to take the edge off my remarks by reminding me that the next hearing is only three days away and that we don't know what'll be said therein. I, not taking too well to sweeping an issue under the rug, told her that she'd try to have our son returned immediately, without waiting for the results of a hearing, if she were really interested in what is best for him. I also told her that, were I of a mind to do it, I think I could sue them for having inflicted severe emotional abuse upon our son, and that I was sure that it would stick. She asked me if I really would sue them. I told her that I probably wouldn't since I hated the concept. I told her that they should have worked with us, without removing our children, to resolve our problems and alleviate their concerns. She acknowledged that, in our case, that probably is true, but that, in general, it is not true. With all of the secrecy which surrounds their actions, there's no way, even though I don't agree with it, that I could properly challenge her stock answer. Even she herself must know that it's no more than a stock answer, since she works in foster care, i.e. neither in in-take nor in protection, and since she also knows that they don't tell her everything. She kept referring to "issues" (plural), so I, at one point, emphatically declared that there was only one issue, i.e. the fact that we let the physical state of our house become so disastrous. She responded by noting that the physical state of a house has an impact on the physical and emotional states of its inhabitants. I asked her to look at our children to verify that they're very healthy and that they don't suffer from any emotional problems. I added that I'm pointing to a long and large track record, and am not just making a claim. She told me that she did have some concerns regarding the emotional well-being of our children. I asked her what they were, and she, to illustrate, told me that our 14- and 12-year-old daughters were timid when asked by her to order donuts for themselves. It may be that we hardly ever go to restaurants. It may be that, whenever we do, it's usually a very involved undertaking wherein they wouldn't feel singled out. I think, however, that I know the real answer. They've already told us several times that they hate the social workers' tactics of taking them out for meals in order to coerce them to like them. I told her, therefore, that, no matter how nice of a person she may be, she, to our children, is a representative of an organization which they hate. She shouldn't be surprised, therefore, that they don't treat her very warmly and cooperatively. We also had a short discussion regarding the CAS's accountability. I told her my opinion, i.e. that the secrecy laws make it unaccountable to anyone. She told me how much they all watch each other (which is probably one of the reasons the visit supervisor found our home to be a nicer environment), and felt that that internal accountability was good enough. I told her that it couldn't possibly be good enough since they all agreed on the same wrong methodologies. My final statement during the call was one which I suspect no one has ever dared say to them before. I told her that the CAS should apologize to our children, and ask for their forgiveness, for the way it's treated them. I pointed out to her that, being Biblically oriented, our children would probably respond very well to that approach. She said that she'd make a note of my suggestion, and bring it to the attention of the others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 17:18:39 -0500 (EST) First ... a correction to the correction. Our 5-year-old daughter had the location of her upcoming trip correct after all. They're going to New Bern, North Carolina. She was also right about it lasting seven days, given a correct understanding of what she meant. They'll be there over seven nights. The rest of the ten days will be taken up by the driving. I asked our daughters' social worker what they'd be doing, and was told that the foster parents just planned to spend the time relaxing. I then raised my concern that many people, when just relaxing, engage in too much casual drinking. She checked with them, and they confirmed that they both neither drink nor smoke. I told her that, to us, church attendance is very important. She checked with the foster parents, who agreed to take our daughters to church on the first Sunday of the trip (they can't on the second because they'll be driving back). I, through the convenience and speed of e-mail lists, have been able to find what appears to be a good congregation right in New Bern. I have called its pastor to tell him what's going on, to give him our daughters' names and those of their foster parents, and to learn a little bit about the congregation. He asked me if the foster parents were believers. They aren't, although they do have some sort of church background. We both agreed that this may be God's way of getting the Gospel presented to them at least one more time. When our 4- and 5-year-old daughters arrived to for their visit, I, through the parenting instructor, gave their foster mother (who drove them) a written set of instructions regarding how and when to get to the church in New Bern. When she returned to pick them up, the parenting instructor asked her if she understood the instructions or if she had further questions. She said that she did understand them, and then added that she'd only promised to try to get them there. Our 2-year-old son arrived a few minutes before our daughters. I had fun chasing him around the driveway and the front lawn while pointing a leaf at him and twirling it by its stem. As he ran, he laughed. He continued to laugh, on occasion, throughout the visit. He seems to have finally settled in his mind that when he's with us it's just like old times, and that when he's taken away it's not our doing. This may mean that, when he's finally returned to us for good, he'll take less time recovering than I'd originally thought. God is clearly answering "yes" to our prayers to help him endure this ordeal. He is usually driven to and from these Wednesday visits by the foster father of our 10- and 8-year-old daughters. He, noticing that our son gets so upset whenever he has to leave, came up with a plan to hopefully make it go a little easier, i.e. he invited our 2-year-old son to visit his 10- and 8-year-old sisters for the afternoon. It worked. When the parenting instructor told him that his drive had arrived, he yelled "no" and started to cry. She then reminded him that he was going to visit two of his sisters. He immediately cheered up and left happily. I'll find out tomorrow what he did when he had to leave them. As I'm writing this: We just got a phone call. He's there. Our 8-year-old daughter called us and taught him how to talk on the phone (which is more than his foster mother ever did). He sounded so happy. Our 4-year-old daughter was sleeping when she arrived. I sat on the couch and held her, thereby enabling my wife to spend time with the two who were awake. She gave them a snack and played with them. Eventually, our 4-year-old daughter awoke, drew a boat, ran upstairs to put it in her 18-year-old sister's room, and then finally went to eat her snack (long after the others had finished). After our 5-year-old daughter finished her snack, she came to sit with me in the living room, and drew some pictures too. She then started roaring at me, and telling me that she was a tiger. I started chasing her around the house and telling her that I'd have to catch her and put her in the zoo. She asked me where the zoo was, and I didn't have a good answer. All three children then migrated to the upper floor and started running in and out of their rooms, jumping on and off their beds, and hiding in the closets. Now I had the answer. While our 5-year-old daughter was in her closet, with its door closed, I told her that that was the zoo. When our 18-year-old daughter came home from school, the children all went to play with her for a while. While we were alone with the parenting instructor, she decided to pursue a few other issues. She told us that she'd asked our social worker for specific things which the CAS felt we'd done wrong. In addition to our house cleanliness problem, there was only one other thing our social worker was able to come up with, i.e. that there was no food in our house. We told her that that was an absolutely false claim, recounting how they'd seen an empty fridge because it was the end of our two week grocery shopping cycle, and how I'd personally shown them our full freezer which they failed to include in their report. We asked the parenting instructor if any of our children looked malnourished? She asked us if she could have a look at the food we had in our house today so that she could report that a random spot check revealed that we indeed did maintain an adequate food supply. We showed her our kitchen fridge and cupboards, and the two freezers and extra fridge in the garage. We reminded her, of course, and she understood, that we don't have nearly enough food to feed our whole family right now since most of them aren't living here. We told her that our social worker can't possibly be accused of originating such a false claim since she's only going by, and blindly trusting, what the in-take people reported. We then described how the in-take people had made many other false claims also, and how they'd told us, when directly challenged about the practice, that that's why we have a lawyer to refute their claims. We told her that our theory regarding why they lie so freely is that it maximizes the probability that the judge will agree that they were right in apprehending the children. The parenting instructor asked us if what she observes during these visits is typical of what normally happens within our home. I explained to her that these visits could never be typical of normal life since a lot of activity is concentrated into so short a time. People who love each other, but who haven't seen each other for an extended period of time, strive to maximize what little togetherness they're able to share. Under normal circumstances, each person tends to invest more time in individual pursuits. An incident then occurred which highlighted just how different these visits can be from the norm. Our 4-year-old daughter wanted some pop. My wife said no. She started to kick up a fuss. My wife gave in. The parenting instructor asked us if giving in was our normal way of dealing with child insistence. We told her that it most definitely was not, but, during these short visits, one often has to make compromises so as not to destroy the rest of the visit for everyone else. We also described how it would actually be worse if we began to deal with the problem, but were unable to finish before the end of the visit interrupted the process. We finished by giving her our operative principle, i.e. that a parent must never back down, and, therefore, must take care to never say anything which he might not be willing to follow through on. When our 2-year-old son left, he wanted to take a couple of toys with him which we'd bought for him. My wife, knowing that we might never see them again, but not wanting to upset him as he was leaving, reluctantly told him that he could. We'll have to figure out a better way to handle this. Our experience, when changing him into clean clothes, is that they're never returned. We want to properly care for our children, but we also don't want to give all of our resources away into the foster homes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 06:49:15 -0500 (EST) Yesterday's hearing, as predicted, was, in and of itself, a fairly boring event, although lots of valuable discussion took place before and after it. No judge sat on the bench, and it was run by a court clerk. This apparently is a common practice these days, given the shortage of judges, when it is known in advance that the purpose of the hearing is purely administrative. I'm told that, by the end of the day, a judge will put his/her stamp of approval on the documentation of what went on within the courtroom. The CAS lawyer immediately declared that they are willing to move to a settlement conference. The court clerk then began, starting with the earliest, to offer court dates which will be available for such a thing. The first one which will be available to the court, our lawyer, the CAS lawyer, and the children's lawyer, is November 23. The settlement conference, therefore, is scheduled for one hour on November 23 at 2pm. All parties then, since a judge wasn't present to order it, formally indicated their agreement to this by signing an adjournment form, and it was all over. The children's lawyer was not present since she was required in another courtroom, and our lawyer told the clerk that he was acting as her agent. I suspect that this, too, even in her absence, is her way of letting the court know where she stands. The lady who currently runs one of the play groups which my wife attends, as well as another lady who goes there, came along to give my wife some much needed and appreciated support. Our friend with whom I work also came along. Our 16-year-old son took the morning off school (grade 11) to come along as well. Outside the courtroom: Our lawyer reminded us about the two options available to us, i.e. that we could elect to have either a "settlement conference" (his first choice) in which the judge serves as mediator while all concerned parties try to come to a mutually agreeable compromise, or a "care and custody hearing" (his second choice) in which both sides fight it out with the victor legally owning the children. I told him that we most definitely prefer constructive dialog to antagonistic battles. Apparently, based on the CAS lawyer's opening statement during the hearing, they also, at least at this point, believe that that's the best route to follow. Before the hearing, and before we'd even spoken with our lawyer, I asked our social worker what she expected it to accomplish. She predicted, since the CAS hadn't seen the psychologist's report yet, that nothing would happen but the setting of the next court date (as indeed was the case). I, ever hoping to start the child return process as soon as possible, asked her if this would mean that everything would be on hold until then. She said that it wouldn't be, and that we'd be having meetings between now and then to iron out the details of an agreement. I told her that I hoped that we, as adults, could put all of this antagonism aside and commit to coming to an agreement before the next hearing. Our lawyer, after the hearing, also gave her a similar message. Our social worker had called us on Wednesday to inform us that we were now being allowed to bring our children home between worship services on Sunday. While we welcome this change, as do our children, it does pose a slight problem which we discussed just before the hearing. Our pre-apprehension schedule was to give our children supper after evening worship. These days, however, since they're being picked up right after evening worship, we've been giving them supper as late as possible in the afternoon. If we can't start warming up lunch until we get home, and since we must have supper a little earlier to give us time to get back for evening worship, the two meals will be much too close together. The current plan, therefore, is for us to give them a large lunch and a light supper, and for our social worker to alert the foster parents to be prepared to give our children a late evening snack should they still be hungry. I also asked our social worker if our three youngest children could be picked up somewhat later than 3pm due to the later lunch time. She said that she'd look into it, but that it was probably too late to have that changed for this Sunday's visit. I told her that the closeness of the meals problem would get even worse once snow started to fall, since walking back and forth would take longer, and since the putting on and off of winter apparel takes a lot of time. To this, she gave a very hopeful answer, i.e. that she doesn't expect much snow to have fallen before this would no longer be necessary. When our lawyer showed up, he brought, fresh of the press, the psychologist's report. He told us that his office had received it at 6:50am that morning. This must mean that the psychologist, who had taken us on on short notice when he was already fully booked, had stayed up very late the night before in order to prepare it in time for our hearing. I asked our lawyer if he'd had time to read it yet. He said that he'd skimmed it. I asked him if he'd seen enough of it to know what sorts of things it said. His short immediate answer was "you win". He then hurriedly went off to give copies to the CAS and children's lawyers. Afterwards, he came back to tell us that the report would finally put an end to all of their concerns that my wife and I are, or ever were, either physically or emotionally abusing any of our children. I asked our lawyer what our status was regarding our having been listed on the provincial child abuse registry. He told us that he's already written the CAS a letter requesting that they remove us from it, and threatening that we will sue them if they don't. He believes that the CAS lawyer who's been handling our case, who has just been made their head lawyer, is intelligent and should be able to see that compliance is the best option. He suspects that they'll soon be offering to remove us from the registry should we be willing to sign a release which promises that we won't sue. He did caution us, however, not to sign any such document without first seeking his approval. The risk, I suppose, is that they'll get us to sign it and then not carry through with their end of the deal. The CAS will be having a meeting early next week to make a decision regarding our 2-year-old son (presumably to determine whether he gets to come home first, last, or somewhere in between). Our social worker told us that that meeting would have taken place the very next day (today) if it weren't for the fact that her supervisor is away. It constantly looks like those at the bottom of the CAS totem pole do all of the work, but that they're not empowered to make any decisions (take any responsibility). I'm fairly optimistic that he'll be allowed to return home sooner, rather than later, since both our social worker and our son's have both made favourable comments in that direction. Our social worker asked us if we could meet, in our home, at 9am on Tuesday to begin to iron out the details of a settlement (schedule for return of children, how much the CAS can snoop on us, etc.). I, at the moment, am taking this as a very significant sign since she's only giving herself a couple of working days to ponder whatever the psychologist has written. Something within my mind nagged me to refuse that particular date and time, but, not being able to figure out what it was, I accepted. My wife later reminded me that the reason that next Tuesday morning is no good is because it conflicts with our bi-weekly attendance at the parenting course. I've left our social worker voice mail alerting her to this conflict and asking her what she'd like to do about it. Our lawyer has scheduled a meeting with us at 7:30pm on Monday, in our home, to give us private advice regarding what we should expect and how we should proceed. It's sure gracious of him, in consideration of the fact that we don't drive, to so consistently offer to meet with us outside of working hours and away from his office. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 10:44:26 -0500 (EST) Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and 7- and 6-year-old sons visited us at home yesterday. My attention was immediately drawn to our 6-year-old son, as I gave him his next lesson in how to get up our few, long, front steps with his walker, and then accompanied him as he checked out every single aspect of our upper floor. The other three children spent time with their mother, and ran back and forth between us. She and our 20-year-old son were finishing up the preparation of dinner, which we eventually sat down to eat. Our children had lots of fun while they were here. Our 8-year-old daughter showed us how she can now walk on her hands for a few steps. She also did lots of somersaults and cartwheels. Our 6-year-old son tried, several times, to do a somersault, but he couldn't quite roll himself far enough over to succeed. Our 7-year-old son energetically ran all over the house. He then started jumping into my arms from a few stairs up. I had to call an abrupt end to this when he accidentally kneed my stomach rather forcefully. Our 10-year-old daughter, who has a much quieter disposition, talked with us as she followed us around, and also spent a lot of time sitting peacefully on her own bed. When I told our 8-year-old daughter that we were now allowed to come home between worship services on Sunday, she leapt up into my arms and gave me a great big hug. Our 18-year-old daughter told me that our 10-year-old daughter also showed great excitement when she told her about the change. Our sons already knew since our 7-year-old son now phones us for about twenty minutes each weekday morning just before he has to leave for school. The visit supervisor showed up at about 5:45pm, and stayed for about 20 minutes. When he finally said that it was time for him to go, one of our children laughingly yelled "yay". I told him that in principle they liked him but in practice they're tired of all of the supervision. He received a vote of confidence from one of our children while he was here. Our 8-year-old daughter told him "you're the nicest children's aid I've ever met". He was very humble in response to this compliment, never actually giving it verbal acceptance. I'm certain, however, given that he's well aware of our children's hatred for the organization, that it meant a great deal to him. Our 18-year-old daughter is selling $4 tickets to her school band concert next Friday evening. The visit supervisor bought one from her, giving her $5 and trusting her to give him $1 back next week. He also said, without being asked, that he'd look into getting permission for our 14- and 12-year-old daughters to attend. He was even going to look into getting permission for our younger children to attend, but I told him that that probably wouldn't work out very well since it would be very late and since their foster homes are so far away. Our children were very cooperative with respect to being ready to leave right at 6:30pm. I'd explained to each of them earlier that this would be a requirement if they wished the visit to remain partially supervised. Their awareness that it's now probably only a matter of weeks before they're permanently returned to us also helped. Our 8-year-old daughter, just before it was time for her to leave, asked me to sign her homework. As she was leaving, my wife and our 18-year-old daughter both gave her great big hugs. She, in response, cheerfully told them that it wasn't like she was going away for dear life and that she's coming back next week. She also left her five bandanas here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 07:35:32 -0500 (EST) Our 5- and 4-year-old daughters weren't in church yesterday because they're with their foster parents, who are taking a vacation in North Carolina. My wife arrived somewhat late because she, in anticipation of the visit supervisors accompanying us back home between the two worship services, was a bit nervous and wanted to ensure that there would be nothing for them to complain about. This attempt, of course, was mildly inadvertently foiled (although I don't think a complaint will be filed anyway) by a lady we know, who runs a flooring company, who dropped off a huge container of vinyl cleaner on our front door step during morning worship. Our 2-year-old son arrived and immediately wanted to know where his mother was. I carried him into the sanctuary and helped him take his coat off, but, soon thereafter, he took off to look for her again. Our 18-year-old daughter, rather than chase him, left the sanctuary by a different exit, managed to unexpectedly intercept him, and waited in the lobby with him for their mother to arrive. I, from within the sanctuary, could hear him excitedly greet her as soon as she did. At one point, while waiting, he momentarily came back into the sanctuary, looked around, and, in an unhushed voice, said hi to his 7-year-old brother a couple of times. The visit supervisor who was to leave at 3pm actually did think ahead a bit. She asked me for driving directions, so that she wouldn't be stuck at our place without her car. The other visit supervisor accompanied us on foot. My wife carried our 2-year-old son, occasionally putting him down and letting him walk as she held his hand. I carried our 6-year-old son on my shoulders. I haven't been able to take him for a long walk like that since early summer, and he thoroughly enjoyed it. He gets a great view from up there, he likes to be held, and sitting right next to my head enables him to talk to me very easily. Our children were very excited as we walked. Our 7-year-old son, who was holding my hand, was so excited as we approached our house that he abruptly turned into our yard long before our driveway, causing me to stumble into a drainage ditch which I didn't yet know is there. Thankfully, God has granted me a very good sense of balance and ability to recover, so our 6-year-old son remained unscathed. The visit supervisor got to see this, as well as the fact that our 7-year-old son didn't get in trouble for doing such a dangerous thing since it was clearly just innocently careless. I did, however, caution him to be a little more careful next time. Our children immediately got about the business of showing off their new home to the visit supervisors. They especially wanted them to see their rooms and beds. Our 8-year-old daughter then set up a bowling alley in our entrance way, and, when it was his turn, our 7-year-old son taught his 2-year-old brother how to play the game. Meanwhile, my wife and our 20-year-old son finished getting lunch ready. As we ate lunch, our children told the visit supervisors about my dislike for cheese. I commented about how I tended to not like products which were made from sour milk, and then started something which I didn't realize would take off so well, i.e. I added that perfume comes from whale guts. One of the visit supervisors added that lipstick, which she herself was wearing, also comes from there. For the rest of the day our children then kept reminding her that she was wearing whale guts. While the visit supervisors were here, they were subjected to a good dose of our favourite radio station. There was lots of good Christian music interspersed with the reading of several passages from the Bible. At 2pm there was a whole half an hour of uninterrupted Bible reading (Mark 15 through Luke 3). At 4pm there was a full-length message on how Satan deceived Eve, of how Adam listened to her rather than to God, and of how that totally upset the entire creation order. Add this to the fact that they get to hear two messages each Lord's Day from our pastor (who, these days, is very clearly showing how every single event, starting with Jesus's entry into the garden, added to his suffering and total aloneness as He paid for our sins), and there's absolutely no question that God has brought them under the hearing of His Gospel. May He indeed grant them salvation, especially now that they're way more without excuse than ever before. Our 12-year-old daughter told us that she and her 14-year-old sister were being taken out of school the next day (today) during the afternoon so that they can be at a "plan of care" meeting. I take this as another significant sign that they'll be allowed to return home soon, but don't understand why the CAS is meeting with our children before it meets with us. It can only mean either that the CAS is planning to return them really soon or that its meeting with us, which is supposedly to involve us in the decision making process, is really to force us to agree to an already worked out plan. In any event, both girls spoke very resentfully about the fact that they'd have to miss that half day of school. Our 12-year-old daughter told us about how she can't wait to be back home and away from her foster parents because they routinely send her to her room, slamming its door, for incidents wherein she doesn't feel guilty. I asked her what sort of incidents precipitated this reaction of theirs. She told us about how they ask her all sorts of nosy questions about her life, and that she gets fed up with this and tells them that it's none of their business. She also told us about how she, when they fight with each other, tells them to stop fighting and to get a life. She then told us that its her foster parents, and not we, who need to be trained, adding that people shouldn't be allowed to become foster parents unless they already have experience with raising children (I believe she meant that they should be required to have children of their own first). A couple of days ago, in reference to the same issue, she, without detailed explanations, told us that her foster parents needed to be trained, and then jokingly added that she was doing it and, therefore, that they should be paying her. While sitting in our living room, our 10-year-old daughter tried to get one of the visit supervisors to read Luke chapter 2 out loud. She didn't, so our daughter, starting with the first verse and ending with the last verse, sat on my lap and read the entire chapter out loud herself. The visit supervisor didn't comment on the content, but did commend our daughter for being able to read so well (which must mean that she was listening). A few other highlights: Our 8-year-old daughter, staking another claim to her new home, went upstairs and had a bath in her new bathtub. Later, she and her 18-year-old sister sang a few psalms together. The visit supervisor, along with our younger children, through our back window, watched some squirrels for a while. Our 2-year-old son really is making the distinction now between "us" and "them" when he's being prepared for an outing. We had absolutely no problem at all putting his coat on and taking him out of the church building, having prepared him by telling him that we were taking him to our home. He immediately began to cry, however, as soon as the visit supervisor, also attempting to prepare him, told him, just before 3pm, that it was time for him to get ready to go back to his foster home. He kicked so hard that she could hardly get his shoes on, and began to plaintively call out "mommy, mommy, mommy". After our 2-year-old son was gone, our 6- and 7-year-old sons wanted to go outside. While we were outside, they wanted to check out our shed. We went into it, and were soon joined by my wife, and our 14- and 12-year-old daughters. Although the remaining visit supervisor did come outside and sit on our deck, we, being clear across the yard and inside the shed, could definitely talk without her having any idea regarding what was being said. Our 12-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son went to get our two rakes, and began to rake our leaves. Eventually, our 14-year-old daughter took over the raking as her 12-year-old sister started putting the raked leaves into bags. Our 7-year-old son, wanting to straighten out one of the bags, went, head first, all the way into it. I told him that we should put him out on Thursday morning (which is our garbage pickup day). My wife, being more worried about these things than I, told me that I shouldn't say things like that in the presence of the visit supervisor. I then told the visit supervisor that she should report my statement so that we can see how it'll get twisted. I had some fun with our 6-year-old son, who has always loved to play with doors. While he was in the shed by himself, I would close the door for a short period of time and then reopen it. While the door was closed he would yell "let me out", and then, while it was open, he would ask me to close it again. After a while, once he understood how the sliding doors worked, he started closing and opening them for himself. Our 7-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter had fun climbing the trees at the far end of our backyard. I let them go right up near the tops of the trees, just reminding them to test each branch as they climbed onto it. Our 7-year-old son, finding a branch which overhangs the shed, stood on the roof of the shed while holding the branch for support. While eating supper, we talked with the visit supervisor about her job. She told us that she wasn't given any particular training with respect to the supervision of a visit, and was just asked to hang around us and write up a report. She was also given no details about us, and doesn't even know who our social worker is. She just writes all of our names on the front page of her report, and then sends it into the CAS office where it gets distributed to the right social worker. She then jokingly observed that, with a list of names as long as ours, there'd be no way that our reports would be accidentally misdirected. Deciding that she must be rather curious by now, after having observed us for months without seeing any particular problems, I told her what, in my opinion, was the main reason that our children had been taken away, i.e. the CAS's suspicion that we are child abusers. I told her how they look at injuries per family, rather than at injuries per child, and about how we, having thirteen children, end up with quite a high family total. I then gave her some examples of normal injuries which the CAS was holding against us because it didn't believe its guesses rather than our facts. She asked how the CAS finds out about these injuries, so I told her about how teachers and hospitals phone in allegations. I then told her of how we have had to spend thousands of dollars for psychological assessments in order to prove them wrong, and of how the CAS still wants to maintain snooping rights in order to further prove/disprove it for itself. I also told her something which would have touched on what little training I'm sure she has received, i.e. that while they were instructed to ensure that we didn't tell our children about anything that's going on, the social workers privately repeatedly tell our children all sorts of bad things about us. Our 14-year-old daughter told us, with tears in her eyes, that, whenever their foster parents get mad at her 12-year-old sister, they tell her to go call her social worker. She also told us that, several times, she herself has asked them to put her in touch with her lawyer, but that they've never done so. I told her that it may no longer be necessary, but, if she really still does want to speak with her lawyer, and if her foster parents won't cooperate, then I think I can get them in a fair bit of trouble quite easily since talking with her lawyer is her right. I also told her that I've now learned a little bit more about how the system works, and that, while it would be unethical for me to call her lawyer directly, I can ask our lawyer to ask her lawyer to give her a call. As we prepared to return to church for evening worship, our 7-year-old son told us that he wished that we could keep our new house until the end of the world. Our 10-year-old daughter said that she wanted to stay here "starting tonight". The visit supervisor reminded her that I'd told her that it'd probably only be a few more weeks. She answered that it'd be too long even if it were "just till tomorrow". Our 6-year-old son closed the front door while on the outside. I said that we'd have to write a report about the visit supervisor, who was standing just inside the door, claiming that she locked him out. She, perhaps taking me too seriously, explained that she didn't do it. I then, to make a point, said that I can always twist the facts since that's a tried and true technique. I hastily added, however, that I wouldn't actually do a thing like that. She said "you know ... I believe you". As we walked, one of our children asked the visit supervisor why she was smoking. She said that she guessed it was because she liked it, even though she knew it was bad for her. She added that she had stopped while she was pregnant, so my wife suggested that it might be time for her to get pregnant again. To this she emphatically declared that two children were enough for her. She said this with a slight, but genuine, laugh in her voice, so I'm sure that she, at that moment, was contrasting the size of her family with that of ours. Again, I was carrying our 6-year-old son on my shoulders, and, again, our 7-year-old son, who was holding my hand, was taking a few correct, but unnecessary, turns, and forgot once to warn me about a curb. I suggested to the visit supervisor that she should cover her eyes, put our 6-year-old son on her shoulders, and allow our 7-year-old son to lead the way. She said that she'd be too afraid to do that. When it was time for them to leave, our 8-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son started running all around the sanctuary to avoid being caught. Our son must have found a good place to hide because the visit supervisor came back to tell us that he was still missing. I suggested that this problem could be averted if he were only allowed to come home. Her answer, which I interpret very favourably, was "if only it were my decision". After our children were gone, I talked with a lady in our congregation for a while about what's been going on. She told me that she sits in the "mothers' room" (a room behind our sanctuary with a window for viewing and a speaker for listening where mothers can take their restless children) where the visit supervisors tend to go. She told me how she always makes sure that the volume is turned up loud enough so that they can't ignore what's being said. She also told me that she's made friends with them, that she's told them that, when they no longer have to come here for work, they're still welcome to come anyway and that she'd invite them home for a cup of coffee. She's clearly also grasped the fact that, while this may be an unpleasant ordeal, it's also a great evangelical opportunity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 22:37:41 -0500 (EST) Our social worker phoned yesterday in response to my voice mail regarding the conflict between the parenting course and our scheduled meeting with her this morning. She told me, in a very patronizing voice, that under no circumstances would she ever give us permission to miss the parenting course. What arrogance! It's more like blackmail! We don't need her permission to attend. We just don't get our children back, and they continue to suffer, if we don't. She asked me if Wednesday morning would be okay. I told her that my wife attends a Bible study on Wednesday mornings, and that I really would prefer to have the meeting earlier, i.e. still on Tuesday as previously scheduled, if it might mean that the return of our children would begin sooner. She wouldn't give in, so I had to settle for Wednesday. I asked her if she foresees any of our children being returned before our next hearing (on November 23). She said "no". I asked why. Her answer, in brief, was that it just isn't done that way very often any more. She tried to justify this answer by explaining how complicated it was to have children partly in, and partly out of, "care", and how complicated it would be to set up an extended home visit. I told her that she was making procedures take precedence to the best interests of the children. She tried again, this time justifying the need for a hearing by saying that the CAS has to make sure that children are returned in a planned and orderly manner. I, not challenging this, said that that could be done without waiting for the hearing, and told her that my take on it is that the judge would be happy to sanction any plan which, in advance, has been wholly agreed to by both sides. She tried yet again, this time justifying the need for a hearing by saying that it is necessary to ensure that neither side is being reactionary. I told her that she ought to know by now that neither side is being reactionary any more. Since she already knew that we were meeting with our lawyer that evening, I told her that I'd be asking later for the other side of the story. I then added that she must know by now that it's not in the best interests of our children to keep them away any longer, especially since they all want to come home, and since it must be obvious by now that it's not dangerous for them to be here. She responded to this with a vague and suspicious sounding answer which I can't remember. I pointed out that about two hundred hours of supervised visits must have made this clear to her. All she could say was "I hear yah" (one of her favourite non-committal utterances). Our lawyer, that evening, did confirm that the CAS almost never does allow the return of children without a judge's order. He also told us, however, that there's absolutely no legal reason whatsoever preventing them from doing so. On another topic: I was wrong regarding what the "plan of care" meeting for our 14- and 12-year-old daughters yesterday afternoon was. It's just a meeting, held every three months for children in foster "care", to make sure that they're being adequately cared for and that all important issues are being addressed. Issues discussed at these meetings include their behaviour within the foster home, problems at school, etc. It doesn't look like the single most important issue affecting them, i.e. when they can come home, is ever raised. Our 12-year-old daughter, who often gets into contention with her foster parents, was told to redirect her frustration and anger away from them and toward the CAS. While, in essence, this is good advice, it can't possibly work in practice. She is only with them outside of school hours, which is also outside of CAS working hours. This makes it essentially impossible for her to pick up the phone and call her social worker every time a problem arises. Should a child always be expected to hold her peace until the next business day, and then take time off school to leave voice mail and then wait for the return call? Our 14-year-old daughter was told that she shouldn't take things so personally. I asked her for an example of what they were referring to. She told me that she, when other girls within her foster home began making boys the sole content of their conversations, told them that they were being disgusting. She was attempting to get them to redirect their discussions from filth to intelligence, and is effectively being told to mind her own business and let them continue merrily pursuing their harmful way. They must think that "normal" is "good", which necessarily means that lustful boy talk is the best thing for teen aged girls to be doing. Our 14-year-old daughter is also now being encouraged to attend a foster youth group (or whatever it's officially called), and was taken there yesterday after the plan of care meeting. Including her, six girls and two boys were there. All of them but she and one other girl insisted on making sex the sole topic of discussion for the entire time. What a healthy and intellectually stimulating environment the CAS is attempting to force upon the teen aged children in its custody. Lest there be any misunderstanding: I am in no way opposed to sex being discussed with children. I am even among those who are very open and willing to discuss it with very young children. I believe, however, that it is absolutely necessary to only ever discuss it within the correct value system, i.e. that it is an incredibly beautiful gift given by God to husbands and wives, but which, when used in any context other than marriage, can only ultimately yield devastation. Parents, or, in this case, CAS workers, are demonstrating hatred, and not love, toward those children in their care whenever they allow them, in the pious name of freedom of whatever, to let their sexually oriented thoughts, words, and/or deeds drift outside of those boundaries which God has most wisely established. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 22:54:41 -0500 (EST) My wife and I had a meeting with our social worker this morning. Our friend from work came over to observe and to take notes. The meeting began right on schedule at 9am, and lasted just over an hour. Our 12-year-old daughter, as usual, stopped by on her way to school. At about 8:35 there was a knock at our front door. She panicked, thinking that our social worker had come early, grabbed all of her things, and escaped out the back door. The person at the front door turned out to be a friend and classmate of hers who had come to walk with her to school. Our social worker began by doing something which I really do appreciate. She took out that ugly old service plan agreement from early September (which was scheduled to be reviewed on December 7), and flipped through it marking things "done". There were, in her opinion, only two outstanding issues: - Dave and Ruby are to hire a cleaning service - Ruby is to have continued psychological treatment and support (according to Dr. Groves's recommendation) Regarding the hiring of a cleaning service: I told her that we'd contacted Molly Maid (preferring them because they bring their own supplies) back in late September and are currently on their waiting list. I told her that I hadn't pressed the issue too much since, without our children here, there'd be nothing for them to do. I told her that, as soon as I had a good idea regarding child return dates, I'd be pursuing this issue with greater fervency. She agreed that this made sense. I also told her that we had friends who'd be willing to do the job in the interim, i.e. until an official maid became available. Regarding the continued psychological treatment and support for my wife: Our social worker raised her concern that my wife's assessment didn't contain recommendations for follow-up which would help improve her condition. I first reminded her that the assessment was good, and that the only valid concern would be for follow-up recommendations to ensure that she wouldn't suffer a recurrence. I then informed her that our lawyer had the same concern, and was already pursuing that issue with the psychologist's office. Our social worker then gave us her proposed list of conditions which should be included in the supervision order. First, here's the list, without commentary, all in one place. - We are not to use any corporal punishment (no spanking). - We are to continue with the parenting course. - We are to maintain a clean and safe home environment. - Our social worker is to have access to the children (at school). - Our social worker is to have our consent for her to speak to others who have access to the children (teachers, play group staff, other involved professionals) - We are to follow up on any recommendations from the school with regards to our children. - We are to comply with recommendations from the Ottawa Children's Treatment Centre with respect to our 6-year-old son's care (special needs or services) - We are to bring our 2-year-old son for regular follow-up appointments with our family doctor (as the doctor deems necessary). - Our social worker and the parenting instructor are allowed to make random visits to our home. - I am not to have a web site that refers to the case. - Although it cannot be ordered, it is recommended that we have no more children. Now, here are my comments. No corporal punishment: I can't possibly agree to this, even though I, even with thirteen children, have hardly ever had to use it, since God Himself has declared that there are times when it is appropriate. I don't think that this condition can be enforced anyway since our supreme court has ruled that, when appropriate, and if not excessive, it may legally be used. I believe, therefore, that the supervision order should not include such a condition. Continue with the parenting course: This would include both the bi-weekly sessions and the home visits by the instructor. No problem. Maintain a clean and safe home environment: No problem. Social worker's free access to the children: I'll have to accept this one, although I don't trust what goes on when social workers engage in secret discussions with children. Nothing stops them, as we've already experienced, from coercing a false confession. Consent for social worker to speak with involved professionals: No problem. Follow up on any recommendations from the school: I'll accept this one, with the understanding that we'll certainly listen to what they have to say, but, given that they operate within an entirely different value system, we won't blindly trust and/or obey them. Follow up on recommendations from OCTC: While there's nothing technically wrong with this one, I don't like it because it implies that my wife and I, at least at times, have not done what is in the best interests of our 6-year-old son (the one with cerebral palsy). On this basis, therefore, I think that such a condition should not appear within the supervision order. Bring our 2-year-old son for regular follow-up appointments: Good idea, especially since the CAS has done its level best to mess him up. We, too, would like to see him fully recover from their abuse. Random home visits by social worker and parenting instructor: No choice. No more web sites: This should not appear within the supervision order since it has absolutely nothing to do with our ability to raise our children. The CAS is, of course, always free to charge me with whatever law I'm breaking, should it be that I'm actually ever breaking one. No more children: Agreeing to this would be a simultaneous declaration that we distrust God. He is responsible for each and every conception, and clearly knows better than any man when it is best to (or not to) bless a family with another child. I'm sure that the CAS will attempt to make our total trust in God appear as though it's total irresponsibility before the court. So be it. Man has mere opinions, but God knows the facts. More and other details: While discussing the CAS's concern that there be no more web sites, I told her that I'd check with our lawyer, and that, as a Christian, I am committed, before the God of Heaven, to obeying the law. She then tried to discredit our lawyer by claiming that he didn't know what the law was. She also said that the primary concern was that the foster parents didn't want to be exposed to public critique. Since, to the best of my knowledge, the applicable law offers foster parents no such protection, and since they don't even deserve any such protection, her concern, as stated, is, in my opinion, entirely bogus. I actually take it as kind of a compliment that, at no time, have they accused me of reporting false information, and that they appear to be so scared of the revelations. She was very concerned that a remark apparently overheard by one of the visit supervisors hinted at the fact that my wife is already pregnant again. First, to the best of our knowledge (albeit through no effort of our own), she is not. Second, this is yet another example of poor reporting, poor interpretation, or whatever. My wife had explained that our children climbed on me more than they climbed on her because the latter has routinely been dangerous since she's been pregnant a lot of the time. This got turned into the belief that she'd cautioned the children not to be too rough around her since they might hurt the baby within her. She considers the parenting instructor to be the family support worker, so her demand that we continue with the parenting course is sufficient and an additional family support worker won't be requested. It'll be up to the parenting instructor to decide how long she wishes to stay involved with our family. This involvement could extend beyond the end of the supervision order. She is okay, so my wife and I don't have any problem with this. She discussed how our children should be involved in the doing of chores, and how the parenting instructor could help us organize this. This is, of course, true, and, should we need the help, we shall certainly avail ourselves of it. I told her, however, that we already have a very complete list of chores, but, without the little children being here, there just isn't that much to do, and, without all of the older children being here, it's not possible to prepare the chore assignments in their final form. I didn't elaborate during the meeting, but we believe in involving each child in the decision making process but don't want to consume our scarce and valuable visit time with such things. We do, however, use our visit times to encourage them to think seriously about committing themselves to the extra effort which will be required. I asked her how long she thinks the supervision order will be for. She said nine to twelve months. I asked her how often the random visits would occur. She said that they'd be fairly frequent at first, and then, assuming that no problems are found, they'd become less and less frequent. She said that they might become as infrequent as once per month. In a spirit of openness, I let her know, in light of the fact that my wife is frightened of CAS staff, that I'd be asking for an hour's notice of each random visit so that I'd have time to get home to be with my wife. She told us that she didn't like the idea since that would also give us time to do a massive cleanup, thereby concealing any problems. I told her that my sole interest was the protection of my wife's emotional state, and pointed out that one hour is hardly enough time to conceal a problem severe enough to be worth worrying about. I also told her that I, as a Christian, despised lying, and that concealing a problem is, in my opinion, lying about its existence. She acknowledged that this made sense, and added that it wasn't her job to stress out my wife. We told her about the bruising which we've been observing on our 2-year-old son's face lately. She was surprised to hear this, gave it her immediate attention, asked questions, and took notes. We've observed bruising under his eyes and on his forehead. I failed to report it, even though my wife told me about it, so we were unable to give her a date for the first such observation. She gave us the explanation to something we'd been wondering about for a few weeks now. Our 2-year-old son, some weeks ago, arrived for a visit with his hair nearly completely shaved off. He'd apparently been pulling his hair out so the Children's Hospital decided that removing it was the best course of action to take. This, of course, is yet another sign of just how much emotional stress the CAS has been subjecting him to. Add this to his frequent illnesses, the bruising on his face, and the behaviours which we've observed during his visits, and the CAS doesn't come out looking very innocent. I asked her about her current take on when our children will be returning. She said that she expected our 14- and 12-year-old daughters to be returning right around the date of the settlement conference (November 23), with our other children returning two by two, from older to younger, each week after that. She thinks that our 5- and 4-year-old daughters will be returned before our 7- and 6-year-old sons, though, due to our 6-year-old son's special needs. She seems to think that we need their assistance in order to best care for him upon his return. While this is offensive, it won't make a great deal of difference which order the last two pairs of children are returned in. Our 2-year-old son is an exception to the above. A meeting is being held this Friday (apparently the first day on which all necessary people are simultaneously available) in order to determine what to do with him. The CAS is acknowledging that he's suffering, although it's not accepting responsibility, and is apparently considering returning him sooner rather than later. We, of course, aren't invited to this meeting. I guess that's because we mere parents couldn't possibly have any useful information to contribute to it. I told her that she must know that it's in his best interests to be returned as soon as possible, i.e. right after that meeting, and that I'd be prepared to forgive them for their abusive treatment of him should they do so. I added that, should they stall, I'd have to seriously reconsider my position since I'd know that they were more interested in playing politics. She didn't respond to this with any kind of definite statement, claiming that she wasn't in a position to control the outcome of the meeting. I, of course, knew that, but, nevertheless, attempted to deliver a very strong message to her which I hope she'll pass on to them. She told us that she'd be looking into allowing our 14- and 12-year-old daughters to be home on weekends. Even though there are only two weekends between now and the settlement conference, it'll still be nice if she can arrange this soon. She said that she'd be looking into it before the end of this week. In an attempt to convince us that the CAS had good reason to suspect that we didn't know how best to meet our 6-year-old son's special needs, she brought up the dispute regarding the use of his glasses. I reminded her that there was no dispute since it was a disagreement between what we knew and what his foster parents were guessing. She rejected this assessment of the situation, citing the letter from the ophthalmologist which appeared to give credibility to the foster parents' position. I told her what I think, i.e. that the doctor was trying to eliminate an issue that is so close to being 50-50 that it didn't matter all that much. I can't be sure, of course, but will ask as soon as I'm allowed to talk directly to him again. In an attempt to put an end to all of her allegations that we don't know how to look after our 6-year-old son properly, I suggested that she go and talk to the staff of the Ottawa Children's Treatment Centre since we've been dealing with them since his birth. I added that the OCTC staff don't think that what the CAS has done has been good for him. I also suggested that she consider the fact that he was nearly dead when "born", and that she should contrast this with the wonderful state which he's in nowadays. We told her about our concern that our family doctor be sent reports from all of the other doctors which our children have been seeing while away. She agreed that this was a sensible thing to want, and told us that she'd give us a list of the other doctors, and that we should give that list to our doctor so that he can request the information from them. She tried to ease her way back into believing the emotional abuse allegations by telling us that she was hearing from "all over the place" that our children were "elective mutes". I reminded her that this label had only been assigned by the staff of one school, and that that school provides such an unhealthy environment that our children found it necessary to withdraw from the goings on there. I suggested that she check with the psychologist's office as his staff would be able to confirm that our children were anything but quiet when they met them for the first time. I told her that she may also be misled by our children's reactions toward the social workers since they hated them. She then gave direct evidence to contradict what she herself was attempting to believe, i.e. that those of our children whom she's personally met have been very open with her. I asked her what guarantee we have that the CAS, based on a false allegation (of which we've had our share), won't unnecessarily yank our children again. She said that there's no guarantee whatsoever, and that it would depend on the CAS's own assessment of the seriousness of the allegation. Her reminder that judges are always there to guard against CAS wrong-doing was no real comfort since we've already seen how deceitful the CAS is when providing "evidence" for that initial hearing, and since even the wisest of judges can't undo the trauma of a wrongful apprehension. She did add, however, that further developments are helping them to see things from new perspectives so they might not be as quick to react the next time. As she stood up to leave, she concluded our meeting on a very positive (and, I hope, sincere) note. She, hoping that all is as we're claiming it to be, said that she's looking forward to our supervision visits so that she can finally meet all of our children, and so that she can sit down with us and discuss how great they are. I told her that I was deeply hoping that we could cooperate with one another. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 22:56:28 -0500 (EST) Our 2-year-old son visited us today by himself, i.e. without his 4- and 5-year-old sisters (who have accompanied their foster parents to North Carolina for the week). He greeted me first, since I answered the door, and then ran to his mother. We joined him at the table while he ate a small snack of crackers and fruit, and then he spent most of the rest of the time playing with some cars, a doll (who was the driver of one of the larger cars), and a couple of small plastic wagons. We let him decide what he wanted to do, and, where appropriate, joined in. Just before he ate his snack, I had some fun with him tossing a small jingling ball and asking him to go get it. Whichever direction I threw it in, he would run around the house another way to get it. He has clearly remembered the layout of his new home quite well. Every time, he laughed with accomplishment as he returned the ball to me. When our 18-year-old daughter came home from school, he ran over to greet her, and the two of them spent some time together in the kitchen. We all then had fun asking him to point to various people and things. When he was asked to point to someone else, he would point at that person and say "right there". When asked to point to himself, he did, and correctly said "right here". When asked to point to something in another room which he couldn't see, he pointed in the general direction of the correct room and said "in there". Then our 20-year-old son came back from the library, and our 2-year-old son ran over and excitedly greeted him too. When the parenting instructor told him that it was time to start watching for the driver who was to pick him up (the foster father of our 10- and 8-year-old daughters), our son immediately ran to his mother, said things (which I don't remember) indicating his desire to stay, and wanted her to pick him up. The parenting instructor reminded him that he, once again, had been invited to visit his sisters for the afternoon. He cheered up, asked if my wife and I could go along, went to put his own coat and boots on, came to give all of us big hugs, and left happily. I remarked to the parenting instructor that I hoped that their having found a way to get him to leave cheerfully wouldn't end up delaying his permanent return. He was very happy and relaxed while he was here. So much so, in fact, that I couldn't help but remark to the parenting instructor regarding it, comparing it to is clearly highly stressful state when in his foster home, and observing that it was ridiculous that they wouldn't just let him come home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 00:43:24 -0500 (EST) Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and 7- and 6-year-old sons visited us at home on Thursday afternoon. The visit supervisor came about ten minutes into the visit, and only stayed for about ten minutes. While he was here, our 7-year-old son showed off by walking up and down on the outside of the stair rail. I told him that, if he continued to do it, I'd have to install some sort of electrical alarm which would alert us to this risky behaviour. Our 6-year-old son was very excited when he got here. He could hardly wait to tell us his great news, i.e. his physiotherapist has now given him official permission to walk around without his ankle braces. We were letting him do that at home before his apprehension anyway (and did tell them so at the time), since we wanted his ankles to gain strength, but, in the foster "care" world, he wasn't being allowed to do so because the experts hadn't yet formally given their consent. With his braces off, he was also very excited to show us that, although he can't yet tie or untie them, he can put his shoes on and take them off. Before dinner: Our 10-year-old daughter showed us that she can now read music a bit. Our 8-year-old daughter held my hands and I helped her jump higher than I am tall. She also went upstairs to try out our shower. Our 7-year-old son, being his normal rough self, leapt up onto my back and climbed onto my shoulders several times without assistance. He also got the vacuum cleaner so that his 6-year-old brother could vacuum my office carpet. After dinner: Our 6-year-old son announced that he was tired, and then went upstairs to lie down on his bed for a while. He also experimented with the vacuum, placing his palm over the end of the pipe and sticking his finger into it. Our 8- and 18-year-old daughters hummed a few psalms. Our 16- and 20-year-old sons entertained their younger siblings by instructing my computer to say, via the speech synthesizer which is connected to it, various humourous phrases. Now that our Thursday visits are at home, our 18-year-old daughter and I are able to go to AWANA (a Scripture memory club) again. The people who drive us there came a little early, i.e. while our younger children were still here. A few extra minutes were spent, therefore, as our children ran over to them, greeted them, and chatted with them. Our children's driver (the foster father of our 10- and 8-year-old daughters) didn't mind. This extra time gave him and me an unplanned extended opportunity to talk with one another. I enjoyed it, as I think that it's important for real and foster parents to develop a good working relationship with one another. The foster parents, after all, aren't responsible for what the social workers have done. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 01:39:27 -0500 (EST) Our 7-year-old son has injured himself two times this week. On Wednesday, at school, he somehow stapled one of his fingers. On Tuesday morning, before school, in his foster home, he fell, landing his face on a dinosaur toy, and poking himself under one eye. If the CAS family injury quota system were being applied to that foster home, I wonder what they'd be starting to conclude right about now. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters are definitely staying with us this weekend. Their foster mother dropped them off, with their things, on Friday morning. They then walked to school from here. She'll be picking them up on Sunday evening after church. During a conversation with her on Thursday evening after AWANA (she's been taking our daughters there all along), she agreed that it'd be better to pick them up at 8pm from home, rather than at 7pm from church, since that's where their things will be. Her only concern was that the visit supervisor might not be aware of, and, therefore, might not be willing to accommodate, this change. We agreed to give her a call on Sunday afternoon to let her know what the visit supervisor was willing to allow. Our 2-year-old son has been invited, for the past two Wednesdays, to visit his 10- and 8-year-old sisters at their foster home. This change has helped him to remain happy when leaving us. Our daughters have now told us that he stays happy while he's with them, and even during the drive back to his foster home (they're with him in the car). When he gets there, however, and has to leave them, he resumes his protesting. Our social worker phoned on Friday morning to inform us that the meeting to discuss the fate of our 2-year-old son, originally scheduled for that day, has now been rescheduled to next Thursday. The reason she gave was that all required people were unable to concurrently attend until then. I believe that she was merely delivering the message, and don't think that she's personally responsible for this sad change in plans. During that call, since she'd neglected to confirm it with us earlier, she told me that she hoped we were ready for our 14- and 12-year-old daughters' arrival earlier that morning. I told her that we were, and used the opportunity to raise the issue of their pick up time and location on Sunday evening. She understood the convenience of them leaving their things at home for later pick up. She asked, however, why I was asking for a whole extra hour. I told her that it was because we often take time to chat with people at church before leaving. She, with a tone of command in her voice, said that she guessed we'd have to just hurry up then and not do that. I then did a very improprietous thing, i.e. take full command of the conversation by eliminating any possible objection she might have, by telling her that I'd already checked with the foster parents and that they had no objection to the change in time and location. I then did an even worse thing, i.e. I gave her an order. I told her that I needed her to inform the visit supervisor that it'd be okay for her to still leave at 7pm on Sunday evening, even though our 14- and 12-year-old daughters were still with us. She replied, with a tone of resignation in her voice, that, even though she was at home that day, she'd attempt to contact the visit supervisor coordinator to let him know. It sure was enjoyable as our 14- and 12-year-old daughters, without any supervision, came with us to our 18-year-old daughter's school band concert on Friday evening. Each of them brought a classmate along too. It's difficult to describe the sense of freedom we all felt as we walked together along the quiet streets without a single CAS representative in the vicinity. My wife shed a few tears as we sat in the audience since our seven youngest children weren't with us (we've always brought them along). In the end, though, even she, in spite of her momentary sadnesses, enjoyed the event. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 14:49:26 -0500 (EST) All of our children were at church yesterday, including our 4- and 5-year-old daughters (who arrived back from North Carolina the day before). Our 5-year-old daughter told me that she and her sister weren't taken to church while away. She was very restless, first sitting with me, then behind me with her 14-year-old sister, and finally with her 18-year-old sister, and insisting that I wear her sweater over my shoulders. Our 6-year-old son was very well behaved, sitting in front of me, by himself, for the first half of the worship service, and on my lap for the second. Our 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter stayed with my wife in the nursery. During morning worship, our 6-year-old son told me that he wanted to stay with us. He also complained, several times, that his legs were hurting. It was only later, when we got back to our home for lunch, that I figured out what the problem was. His ankle braces, which he was wearing, had been put on all wrong (the front pads were way out of alignment). I then took his braces off for the afternoon, and then put them on properly before returning to church for evening worship. What a difference it makes to do it right! His legs remained comfortable for the rest of the day. Just how does this jive with the CAS's allegations that we don't know how to properly care for him, and that they can do the job better? One would think that, after four months, they'd know how to do something as simple as that properly! After morning worship, I learned of an event which was to overshadow the entire day. Our 18-year-old daughter came to tell me that her 2-year-old brother had a new bruise under his eye, that he had bruises on his nose, and that he wouldn't let anyone touch him. Being a person who likes to make his own judgments on such matters, but being unable to see, I, later when time permitted, asked several other members of our congregation to describe his face to me. In summary: he had a very large, swollen bruise on the bridge of his nose, a cut just under one eye, another cut a little lower under the other eye, and dried blood just inside his nostrils. One very observant and trustworthy mother told me that her children have had lots of bruises, but that none of them have ever been "that big". She also told me something else which I wouldn't have noticed, i.e. that, even with his hair shaved off but for the remaining stubble so that he can't pull it out, he's continuing to lose it. Whether or not he was actually pulling it out before, the fact that he's still losing more now when there's no way he can be deliberately causing the continued loss, at least to me, is a clear sign that he's experiencing tremendous stress. What caused his most recent facial injuries? The official story seems to be that, while resisting an attempt by his foster mother to change his diaper, he grabbed a cream container and started hitting himself in the face with it. If this is a lie, then he's in an abusive foster home. If this is true, then it's yet another sign of the extreme stress which the CAS process of child removal has subjected him to. I'm still having trouble imagining how a cream container can cause a cut on each side of the nose. Perhaps the sharp edge of a lid could do so on one side. How, however, could it do so on both? One would think that his foster mother, as soon as she saw what was happening, would have grabbed said container away from him as quickly as possible. Our 2-year-old son, right in the middle of the closing Sabbath School prayer for our adult discussion class, came into the sanctuary, lay down on the floor, and cried. He clearly wanted me to know that something was wrong, since, after I picked him up and started discussing the situation with others who could look at him and give me their assessments, he calmed down. I asked one lady if she knew if anyone had a camera. She didn't, but found someone who quickly went out, bought a disposable camera, and took three pictures of his face from different angles. Our other younger children, not quite yet realizing what was going on, thought that all of this picture taking was lots of fun. Our friend and I were happy to get at least some joy out of this sad situation, so he took a few pictures of them too. I encouraged our 6-year-old son to stand straight up without holding onto anything as his picture was taken. This made him really happy. The visit supervisor came to tell me that our 18-year-old daughter had been crying all morning, and that maybe I needed to talk with her (it turns out, although she didn't say so then, that she'd been talking with her during almost the whole Sabbath School time). My immediate response was, given the fact that her little brother has been removed from our nice home, and given the way he's being treated by her organization, what does she expect. I then asked her what she'd do if I refused to let our son be taken away at 3pm. She said that she'd be calling her supervisor for instructions. I told her about how we'd been allegated left, right, and centre regarding child abuse, that we now even have a psychological assessment which declares that we aren't child abusers, and that I was fed up with the fact that he's now obviously being abused while away from us in their "care". Our 2-year-old son clearly likes to be with my wife and I together. I've already seen how upset he now gets whenever he comes for a visit and my wife is delayed, e.g. at the store. During the walk home from church I had an opportunity to assess the situation the other way around. Our 8-year-old daughter wasn't quite ready to leave, so my wife, with our 2-year-old son, stayed behind to wait for her. My wife told me later that he, seeing us about a half a block ahead of him, was struggling in her arms in an attempt to catch up to us. They caught up at a traffic light, at which point he insisted on wanting me to carry him the rest of the way. We accommodated his desire, even though it meant that my wife had to carry our, much heavier, 6-year-old son. The visit supervisor must be slowly realizing that we're not all that bad. She came walking ahead with us, leaving my wife, with our injured 2-year-old son, unsupervised. Perhaps the CAS is slowly coming to this conclusion too, since we only had one visit supervisor (the other regular one was in Montreal, and no one was sent to fill in for her). I asked the visit supervisor if it would always be just one from now on. She said that she didn't know, but that it sounded fine to her. As we approached our house, the visit supervisor tried to lessen the intensity of the situation by cheerfully commenting on the fact that we have flowers which are still blooming. As we entered, our 4-year-old daughter took what was in the mailbox and brought it to me. She was so happy to announce to everyone that she'd brought in the mail. After we got inside, our 5-year-old daughter (who'd been away last weekend and didn't know about the change) asked me if they'd be coming home on Sunday from now on. Answering her, but speaking more to some of our older children who were there, I said that it's supposed to be that way, but, given the complications now developing with respect to our 2-year-old son, the CAS's decision making is getting dumber and dumber. Our 7-year-old son, upon hearing me speak that way, immediately informed me that the visit supervisor was standing right beside me. Although I didn't realize that, and although I might not have spoken that way had I known, I told him that I didn't care. She laughed a bit, saying something to the effect that her presence, or lack thereof, shouldn't have any effect on my conduct. The visit supervisor then called her on-call supervisor to report the state of our 2-year-old son's face. I overheard part of the conversation, and can confirm that she correctly attributed the injury to an incident which must have occurred within his foster home. After a few more phone calls, the visit supervisor asked me to pick up the other phone. Her intention was that we could both talk with this other person, but something unexplainable went wrong which allowed the other person and myself to freely converse, but which only allowed the visit supervisor to hear me, and which prevented us from hearing her. We, not realizing what had happened, just assumed that she was remaining silent. Our ensuing conversation, although she didn't show it, probably made the visit supervisor somewhat nervous. I very quickly determined that the name of the person to whom I was speaking was Charlene Jackson. I thought, at the time, that she was a supervisor of some sort, although, upon subsequent questioning of the visit supervisor, I found out that she was only an on-call social worker. She tried to reassure me that everything was alright, and that this was an explainable incident, giving me the foster mother's version of the story (he hit himself with a cream container), and telling me that he'd already been seen at the Children's Hospital. I told her that this bruising on his face is an on-going problem, that I only finally made a big deal out of it that day since it has become more severe, and that, as far as I'm concerned, the foster home is abusive. She told me that, as far as she knew, this was a once-only occurrence, and that she considered the foster home to be a safe environment. She kept telling me that I should accept the foster parents' explanation, so I asked her why she would even try using that kind of reasoning when the CAS would never accept any of ours. She told me that I had to speak to our social worker. I asked her how I could contact our social worker on a Sunday. She said that I'd have to wait until Monday. I told her that that was inadequate because I was being told to let our son go back to his foster home "today". I then asked her if she'd be willing to attach her name to an order demanding that our son be forced to leave our safe home and be returned to a potentially abusive environment. She paused for a few seconds, and then responded with an emphatic "yes". I then gave her, as well as the silent (probably not by choice) visit supervisor, a demonstration of what happens when I get angry. I called her a mindless, paper-pushing supervisor, and told her that children are not resources for the foster "care" industry, but, rather, that they are people who need care. She answered, "I know". I told her that she may know in her mind, but that she didn't know where it really counts. I then asked her what makes a person become so hard-hearted, and declared that she would pay for this decision, if not in this life, then in the next. I then warned that payment in this life might be fairly severe, but that payment in the next life would last for all eternity. Finally, remembering our social worker's insinuation of late September that our children might end up dead should they be returned to us, I concluded by telling her that it'd be on her conscience forever should our son end up dead before the morning. After that phone conversation, I commented to the visit supervisor that I guess she's finally seen another side of me. She, trying to rescue the day, claimed that my anger must be confusing to our younger children, and told me that I should calm down and make the most out of the rest of the visit. I told her that she must not know me very well, and that even our younger children do understand. I told her how I can be firmly talking a supervisor into the ground one minute, but enjoying my children the next. I then went to talk with my wife for a few minutes (she doesn't calm down as easily as I do), and then did go and play with our children. My wife did manage to calm down fairly quickly, and then she, along with our 14-, 12-, 10- and 8-year-old daughters, made a gingerbread house using a kit which she'd bought the day before. Our 2-year-old son and 4- and 5-year-old daughters selected decorations for it, while continually pulling its walls down. I joked that I'd have to look for another set of contractors were I to need a real house built. This whole construction project provided a very, much needed, humourous interlude for all. At 3pm, right on schedule, our 2-year-old son's foster mother came to pick him up. The visit supervisor went out to directly ask her for her version of the story. Her answer was consistent with what we'd already been told. His foster mother then asked the visit supervisor if we wanted to come out and ask her more questions. The visit supervisor, wanting to avoid a potentially highly flammable situation, declined the invitation without checking with us first. When she told us about this later, I told her that I understood her position, and that I agreed with her having unilaterally made that decision. Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters had to wait quite a while for their return trip. Since their foster parents had been away for a week and a half, they hadn't been told about the change in location (from church to home) for the pick up. Our 2-year-old son's foster mother said that, on her way back home, she'd go by our church to look for them. Our daughters' foster mother phoned a few minutes later to get our exact address. Our 8-, 5- and 4-year-old daughters all brought clothes from our place back to their foster homes, our 8-year-old adding that she felt more comfortable in them. My wife and I both believe that this is yet another way in which they're saying that they want to be back, i.e. if they can't actually be back then they want to have things there which remind them of their home. I asked them to try hard to ensure that they don't lose what they take. Even if they do, however, how much are a child's feelings worth? We'll just spend some more money to replace what gets lost. After our young children left, things more or less settled down. Our 7-year-old son went out to rake leaves, and then climbed a tree and sat in it for a while. Our 8-year-old daughter went out to blow some bubbles, and then raked some leaves too. Our 18-year-old daughter also went out to rake leaves with both of them. Meanwhile, inside, our 6-year-old son vacuumed our livingroom carpet, and then, without the powerhead, vacuumed his and my arms and legs. We asked the visit supervisor if she'd been told that she didn't have to stay after 7pm, and that our 14- and 12-year-old daughters would be coming back home with us and be picked up by their foster parents at 8pm. She asked me what the foster parents were expecting. I told her that, the last I knew, they were expecting a phone call from me to confirm the schedule. She suggested that we deduce what the social workers have, or have not, told them by waiting at church at 7pm to see if they show up. I asked our daughters what they knew, and they told us that their foster parents, having been told nothing, were just assuming that the visit supervisor would know. What does one do when encountering such an impasse? I pointed out the convenience to our daughters of being able to leave their things here, the obvious low risk of the change being as they've been home with us, without supervision, for the entire weekend anyway, and the fact that I'd promised their foster parents a phone call. She agreed that all of this made sense, and gave her consent for the change. I then called their foster mother to tell her. She told me that they might be a little late, since they were celebrating some relative's birthday and would be going out for dinner. I told her that I wasn't in any rush, and added that, no offense intended, our daughters weren't in any rush either. She laughed and said that she suspected as much. When they came, we chatted with them at the door for awhile while our 12-year-old daughter gave one of their other foster daughters a tour of our home. In the midst of that tour, our 18-year-old daughter had an unsupervised opportunity to ask her about her situation, and told her that she'd be praying for her. The day ended with an unexpected vote of confidence as the other girl, just before leaving, declared "Hey, I'm staying here, man!". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 22:40:16 -0500 (EST) Our 2-year-old son and 4- and 5-year-old daughters visited us at home today. They all behaved very well. The only impolite incident was once, when our 2-year-old son told his 5-year-old sister to "get off" when he wanted to use the chair she was sitting on. She, without objection, got up, he sat down, and it was all over. I just quietly told him that he had been impolite. Our children drew pictures and played with various toys. We then had a snack of fruit and crackers. When our 18-year-old daughter came home from school, they all stopped eating and ran over to greet her. Eventually, our daughters went upstairs with her, and our son came back to the kitchen to be with us. Our 5-year-old daughter played house in her room, and our 4-year-old daughter decorated her bed with toy animals ("for Christmas", she said). About twenty minutes before our 18-year-old daughter was due home, our 2-year-old son asked us where she was. We told him that she was coming home from school. He then went to the window beside the front door and began to wait for her. It took a couple of minutes for us to convince him that she'd still be a while. He really does seem to long for us all to be together. Our 2-year-old son had a noticeably rough voice. He also had an infrequent but significant cough. This, to me, means that he either is developing a cold or has been screaming a lot. There were no other symptoms, so it's not possible to be sure. The parenting instructor also noticed blood under his nostrils and wondered aloud if his nose had begun to bleed. The parenting instructor mentioned how upset our 2-year-old son gets when he has to leave, and then compared that to his 4- and 5-year-old sisters who seem to have accepted that leaving is just part of the way it is for the time being. I told her how they used to protest, and she remarked on how well they've accepted the current reality. I told her that the situation may, in fact, be worse than it appears. I noted how painful it must be for a child to have to leave, and then asked her how much she thinks they must have had to harden their hearts to deaden that pain. When it was time for them to leave, the parenting instructor asked us to help put our 2-year-old son's coat and shoes on. We didn't, because we think it's wrong for us to do anything which might give him the impression that we want him to go. He ended up hanging onto me and crying as the parenting instructor put his shoes on. She then went outside, found out that he was again being invited to his 10- and 8-year-old sisters' foster home, and came back in to tell him. This, as expected, cheered him up, and he left happily. When the parenting instructor went upstairs to tell our daughters that it was time to leave, our 4-year-old daughter told her that she wanted to stay here. The parenting instructor then apologized to her as she insisted that it really was time to go. All three children left wearing clothes from here. Our daughters took it upon themselves to change. My wife changed our son since the clothes he was wearing were wet. She put on his favourite clothes, so I sure hope we get them back. Some other notes: Yesterday, the foster father of our 14- and 12-year-old daughters came about an hour late to pick them up. He'd intentionally given them some extra time. When he got here, we talked with him for a while. During our conversation he told us that the social workers had told them that the CAS had been working to help us correct whatever our problems were. We were astounded at this, and proceeded to tell him how the CAS hadn't lifted a finger to help us, and how it had fought us every step of the way. Our social worker called us on Monday afternoon, after hearing about what had happened with our 2-year-old son on Sunday, to hear our concerns directly from us. I told her what his face looked like, reminded her that I considered this to be child abuse by the CAS, and reiterated our desire that he be returned to us as soon as possible. She reconfirmed that the meeting would indeed be taking place on Thursday (tomorrow), and told me that she'd definitely be passing on our desire for his immediate return. I forgot to ask her if she'd be making her own personal recommendation, and, if so, what it would be. I told her that I couldn't understand why the CAS had so uncaringly delayed the meeting by six days. She talked about how all the people couldn't get together last Friday, and about how the process sometimes can be very slow. I told her that, if I were in charge of the case, I'd recognize the situation as an emergency, would call the company president if necessary, and would turn the process upside down in order to reach a speedy resolution. While she, several times, offered her usual "I hear ya", she, for the first time ever, didn't seem to have any fight left in her. Not once did she attempt to challenge my accusations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 23:33:36 -0500 (EST) Our social worker called us this morning to tell us that the CAS has decided to let our 2-year-old son come home. He'll be brought to church as usual on Sunday morning, and will then be allowed to remain with us. She, anticipating that I might ask her why he couldn't be brought home sooner, added that this would give his foster parents time to gather all of his things together so as to ensure that nothing is missing. I, not wanting to show any lack of appreciation for their decision, told her that we were happy with it. She and our son's social worker will be visiting us at home on Monday around 12:30 to give us, as she put it, information regarding his health and concerns regarding his behaviour. Not knowing what they are, but assuming that they're of a negative nature, I told her that I expected all of it to settle down once he's back with us. She said that she still felt that we should have the information. I, then realizing the implication of my previous statement, told her that we definitely wanted to know everything that they could possibly tell us. She also told me that there will only be one visit supervisor on Sunday, who will be leaving at 3pm (when our 4- and 5-year-old daughters will be picked up). We're now being trusted, in other words, to take the six older children back to church for evening worship (as if we wouldn't) and, more importantly, to see to it, on our own, that they're returned to their foster homes on schedule. I asked her if the visit supervisor had been informed that our 2-year-old son will be staying with us. She thanked me for having reminded her about that, and promised to do so right away. It's unlike her to neglect this sort of detail, so I guess the events of this week have hit her kind of hard. A note about her style when calling to give us this great news: If I'd made the call, I'd have excitedly began with something like "I'm calling to give you great news!". She, on the other hand, insisting on strict professionalism, without any emotion in her voice, began with "I'm calling to inform you of a decision made at a meeting this morning which I hope will make you happy.". Does her job, even when dealing with a joyous event, really require such personal detachment? If so, it's no wonder that those social workers have no empathy for the children in their care. Our lawyer's secretary phoned later in the afternoon to let us know that the CAS lawyer had called our lawyer to inform him of the decision. This, although I didn't distrust our social worker, makes it official. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 00:56:15 -0500 (EST) Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and 7- and 6-year-old sons arrived about fifteen minutes early for their visit yesterday afternoon. The foster father of the girls, the one who's been inviting our 2-year-old son over to visit his sisters on Wednesday afternoons, drove all of them here. I went out to give him the great news that our son would be coming home permanently on Sunday. This news appeared to thrill his heart. I also thanked him for having invited our son to his place on Wednesdays. He then told me how much he enjoyed him and would be missing him. A social worker named Michelle, whom I haven't heard of before, went to see our 10- and 8-year-old daughters at their school today. She took each of them, separately, out of class for about a half an hour to ask them lots of questions. Our 8-year-old daughter missed half of a phonics class, and remembered being asked basic questions, e.g. if she knew where each of her siblings, including the ones not in custody, were staying. Our 10-year-old daughter missed half of a French class, and remembered being asked questions about how her visits have gone, how each of her siblings behaves, and if we beat her up. She told me that, when asked what questions she'd like to ask, she simply said "when am I going home". After eating dinner: Our 6-year-old son played with cars on the floor. Our 7-year-old son brought me my Bible and asked me to read to him from the book of Job. Our 8-year-old daughter sang some psalms while being accompanied by her 18-year-old sister on her flute. Our 10-year-old daughter told us about the books she's having to read for school. The visit supervisor came about fifteen minutes before the end of the visit. Our children, remembering that he came near the end two weeks ago and near the beginning last week, told him that they expected him to come in the middle this time. He told them that it was important for him to be unpredictable so that we couldn't prepare for his arrival. The real reason that he came so close to the end became evident, though, when he went out to talk to our daughters' foster father when he came to pick them up. He wanted to tell him about the fact that our 2-year-old son, after Sunday morning, would no longer be requiring transportation. His statement that "the process has begun" was overheard by me with great pleasure. While the two of them talked, our children chatted with the family who came to drive our 18-year-old daughter and myself to AWANA. While the visit supervisor was here, our 8- and 18-year-old daughters, in their roles as psalm singer and flute player, gave him a short concert. His presence also caused our 7-year-old son to return to some of his departure delay antics. At one point, one of our daughters referred to him as "a children's aid". He said that he wasn't "the children's aid", although he did work for them. I then, with an obvious grin, said "guilt by association". He confirmed that there would only be one visit supervisor, who would be leaving at 3pm, on Sunday. I asked him to ensure that she knew that our 2-year-old son would be staying with us. He told us that he was sure that our social worker had already done that, but added that he'd make sure too. Our 6-year-old son wanted to take one of our toy cars back with him. We, not wanting to lose it, told him to leave it here. We also didn't want that particular toy to leave our home since it's our 2-year-old son's favourite toy. Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters will be staying with different foster parents this weekend since their official foster parents are taking a "relief weekend". They already know the other foster parents, and are looking forward to watching their pet iguana do whatever neat things iguanas do. The foster father of our 7- and 6-year-old sons, therefore, will be doing the driving on Sunday. I must make two observations, which have been nagging me lately, related to the fact that I've said some fairly harsh things about the conduct of the foster parents of our 6- and 7-year-old sons, and those of our 12- and 14-year-old daughters, within their homes. First, to set the record straight, I haven't done this to portray them as particularly rotten people, but, rather, to show that foster homes, contrary to the CAS's statements, are just as imperfect as ours. Second, these are the only two sets of foster parents who have made an effort to get to know us, who haven't tried to steal our children's affections, and who have taken an active interest in wanting to see our children returned home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 17:37:53 -0500 (EST) All our children were at church yesterday. Our 2-year-old son and 4- and 5-year-old daughters all stayed in the nursery with my wife. Later, when I asked our 5-year-old daughter why she went to the nursery rather than to the sanctuary, she said, in an "isn't it obvious" kind of tone, "because I wanted to play". She also, at one point, in a very pouty voice, repeatedly tried to beg me to give her some money. Whenever I asked "why?", the only answer she gave was "because". The foster father of our 6- and 7-year-old sons must have some sort of fascination with fire. Our 7-year-old son told me about how they, the day before, were being taught to play some sort of game with sparks. While, based on what he said, I'm sure it was being done safely, I still told him that fire, although it's a very useful tool, is very dangerous, and, therefore, isn't a toy and should never be played with just for fun. Our 4-year-old daughter wanted to show a lady in our congregation whom she likes very much the cookies which were given to her in her Sabbath School class. Our 2-year-old son, upon seeing them, seemed to want them for himself and started hitting them several times very forcefully. The lady quietly asked him to be more gentle. He said "no way", and, for the next few hours, on several different occasions, showed us that he had learned that phrase very well and knew exactly what it means. We only had one visit supervisor who, since she had all of our 2-year-old son's things packed up in the trunk of her car, drove to our house. We, therefore, walked home for lunch without supervision. Our 6-year-old son, while sitting on my shoulders as we walked, told me that I haven't been able to hold him for a long time. I asked him what he meant, reminding him that I was holding him "right now". He said "no", and then explained to me that he meant that I'm not able to hold him when he's at his foster home. Our 6-year-old son told me that there was something wrong with his left ankle brace. I, not immediately spotting the problem, didn't believe him. When we got home, however, I discovered, while taking his braces off, that he'd been right. The front pad of his left brace was upside down. This is now the second time in two weeks that a significant error has been made, by his foster parents, with respect to putting his braces on properly. Even though it was supposedly definite that the visit supervisor would be leaving at 3pm, the two visit supervisors arranged that the other one would phone around 1:30 in order for a final judgment call to be made. This was to confirm, as she explained it to me, that "the visit was going well". It bothered me to be told this since one would think that they ought to know by now that our visits always go well (excluding foster "care" induced problems). Perhaps, on the other hand, they were just allowing for the handling of an incident such as occurred last Sunday. She also told me, without any additional explanation, that they'd both be here again next Sunday. Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters expressed a great deal of frustration towards each other regarding their conducts within their foster home. Their foster mother has, apparently, even promoted them holding up a sign saying "put a sock in it" to "silently" tell each other to stop whatever the annoying behaviour is. Our 14-year-old daughter even gave the visit supervisor a long discourse on how poorly she felt her 12-year-old sister behaved. I ended up giving them a lecture on how wrong it is for anyone to continually look for faults in others, and on how important it is to work on ones own faults. This was the second such flare-up between them. About a month ago, when coming over for one of their unofficial after school visits, they were both crying and yelling at each other. In a moment of inspiration, without much data, I, at the time, somehow realized what the problem was. I explained to them that, while away from home, each was the only true friend that the other had. While people tend to put extra effort into self control when with others, they relax and, since it takes a lot of effort, give up on self control when only in the presence of those whom they trust. They should each, therefore, see each other as trusted friends rather than as antagonistic companions. They both left happy, and, for almost the next month, there weren't any significant problems. Our 7-year-old son had a couple of serious bouts of selfishness with his 2-year-old brother regarding the possession of toys. I ended up giving him a lecture on how our children never used to be that way, how selfishness can only ever be harmful, and how sharing toys is the only constructive way to behave. Our 10-year-old daughter asked me why people were being so selfish and getting on each others' nerves. I told her that this whole process has frustrated all of them. Our 8-year-old daughter, finding the new scale which my wife and I had just bought the day before, wanted to know everyone's weight. I told her that she was the official weight keeper, and asked her to write down the whole list for me. She excitedly took up the task, and even asked the visit supervisor to step onto the scale. At first, claiming that there was an age beyond which people no longer did such things, she refused. Eventually, however, she did give in. I missed the occasion, so I'm not sure how our daughter finally convinced her to do so. Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters left, without incident, at 3pm. Our 2-year-old son seemed to understand that he was staying. He gave absolutely no sign of being upset, matter-of-factly saying good-bye to them. Once the front door was closed, he and his 5-year-old sister looked at each other for a while through the window. The girls, earlier in the day, began again making statements indicating their desire to return home. Our 4-year-old daughter even told the visit supervisor that she would be staying too. Their 2-year-old brother's return seems to have renewed their hopes. Even though we don't fake it when she's here, it's still rather amazing how much more enjoyable it became, with all of our children still here, after she left. This, again, was a day on which members from our congregation went to sing psalms for the residents of a local elderly people's home. We, again, couldn't go. One of the people who did go, however, came by to visit us afterwards. His visit was very much appreciated by all, and added yet another degree of enjoyment to our late afternoon. I've been concerned, for some time, about how our 7-year-old son would take it when he learned that his two younger sisters would probably be returning home before him. Knowing only one way to handle such situations, i.e. dive right in and let happen what may, I explained to him, a few days ago, how the CAS seems to think that we don't know how to look after his 6-year-old brother, and how this is causing them to want to return him last. Initially, as expected, he was quite disappointed. During this visit, however, without me reminding him of the issue, he told me, in a cheerful voice, that it's okay now if he's the last one back. I thanked him for having thought it through, commended him for being so strong, reminded him of how well he's held up so far, and told him that I knew he'd do okay even if he had to stay away for yet another week. Our 2-year-old son wanted me to carry him as we returned to church for evening worship. This, of course, meant that I couldn't carry our 6-year-old son. What was the solution? His 18- and 14-year-old sisters each held one of his hands and, supported by the two of them, he walked all the way. Although he stumbled a few times, and although the walk took somewhat longer than usual, he was elated, and we were all proud of him, when we arrived. As we walked, we asked our 2-year-old son lots of questions with the intent of convincing him that he really has returned home. One of our questions was if it was the best day of his life since he'd be staying with us. He said "yes". Our 7-year-old son then added that it was the best day of his life too because his brother got to come home. He then told us how much he's looking forward to talking to his little brother during his phone calls to us each weekday morning just before school. The visit supervisor had separately instructed both my wife and myself, being as she wouldn't be there, to ensure that our children would be promptly ready to leave at 7pm. We promised that we'd take care of it, and then explained to our children, before returning to church, that it was essential, this time, that they simply get ready and leave when their drive arrives. All four of them promised, and kept it. The only almost glitch was that our 10-year-old daughter, looking at her watch when the driver showed up, correctly declared that she had five minutes left, and took her time. She complied, however, when we told her not to bother playing that sort of picky game. On the way home from church, after evening worship, we stopped off at our local store to introduce our 2-year-old son and 14- and 12-year-old daughters to its owner-operators, a very nice Vietnamese couple. They had met our daughters before, although they didn't know who they were, and were thrilled to meet our youngest child. My wife also showed them pictures of our other children. The lady commented, several times, that anyone seeing the way our children behave around us should realize that there's been no abuse. We, unfortunately, had to cut our visit short since our daughters had to be packed up and ready to go by 8pm. The lady gave our son a sucker as a gift as we left. When the foster mother of our 14- and 12-year-old daughters came to pick them up, she noticed that they were wearing the new winter coats which we'd bought them the day before. Without thinking, I then said something which, in retrospect, I regret, i.e. "now, if someone might want to give me some government money, ..." (I didn't finish the statement). She again mentioned their new coats a few minutes later, telling us that, during the cold weekend, she'd been thinking about them being so cold in their light coats, and was wanting to buy them warmer ones. She then thanked us for having already done that. A little later, we received a phone call. My wife answered it, heard a child crying, and handed me the phone. It was our 12-year-old daughter. It took me a couple of minutes to get her to calm down enough to begin to tell me what was wrong. I thank God that our children tend to tell us the truth, even when they've been wrong, since it makes things so much easier to deal with. Our 12-year-old daughter is somewhat annoyed with her foster family since, according to her, they claim to be Christian but don't act appropriately. She, on occasion, allows this to become a point of contention between her and them. As they were driving back, she told her foster mother's mother that she shouldn't work on Sunday. Her foster mother, not knowing what to do, banished her to her room upon their return. I told her that she wasn't her foster mother's mother's boss, that her foster mother wasn't even her own mother's boss, that her foster mother wanted her mother to like being around her family, and that her foster mother's mother might get fed up being around them if their foster children kept on harassing her. I also reminded her that there's no point in looking for sin in unbelievers, and that she should, rather, concern herself with seeking their salvation. She understood, handed the phone to her foster mother, and apologized for her behaviour. Her foster mother, not knowing what I'd told my daughter, in order to defend herself, then wanted to tell me her version. Anticipating this, and wanting to show her that I'm on her side when our children are wrong, I interrupted her and insisted that she listen to me first. I then told her what our daughter had told me, asked her to confirm that the details were correct, and told her what advice I'd given. Her self defensiveness disappeared. We talked a little more, our conversation ending on a very healthy note. Our daughter told me this morning that her foster mother, after hanging up, apologized to her for over reacting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 17:52:02 -0500 (EST) Our 2-year-old son still had a rough voice yesterday, although, during the day, he didn't cough. There were still no symptoms of any developing sickness, so I'm now leaning more and more towards my theory that he's been doing lots of screaming recently. Late in the evening, once the activity in our home settled down, he started to happily run everywhere, leaving no square foot uncovered. It was as though he was trying to finally claim full ownership of his new home. He reminded me of Joshua, who was told by God that Israel would own every place whereon he would set his foot. There's been an interesting change in his vocabulary. He used to refer to my wife and myself as "mommy" and "daddy". Once he finally realized that he really was being allowed to stay with us, he started referring to us as "my mommy" and "my daddy". He's also started referring to his siblings as "my brother ..." and "my sister ...". We couldn't get him to lie down and go to sleep until 11:30pm. Even though, to the best of my knowledge, his bed time in his foster home was a rather rigid 8:30, he just wanted to stay up, play, and talk with us. We tried lying down with him, and I tried what I used to always do with our children at bed time, i.e. read the Bible to them (Deuteronomy 1 and 2 this time), but nothing worked. I think that it was because of his excitement at finally being back home where he's wanted to be for so very long. With him lying between us, and with both of our arms around him, he finally went to sleep at about 11:30. His rest was short lived, though. Around 2:30 he woke up, screaming, and kicking and hitting us. It took both of us, sometimes separately, sometimes together, about an hour, carrying him around the house, talking gently to him, etc. to calm him down. Eventually, he began to laugh, and we lay back down with him. He then, fairly quickly, went back to sleep. I now believe that he'd only half woken up, and that he must have been having a terrible nightmare of some sort. While screaming, as he endured either the effects, or, perhaps, the after effects, of his nightmare, his deep coughing returned. This further convinces me that, certainly for the last week of his stay in his foster home, he's been screaming plenty. What an absolutely horrid thing for any human being, let alone a child of only 2, to have to endure! He was okay when he woke up this morning at about 6:30. He played for a while, ate breakfast with us, and talked with his 7-year-old brother on the phone. The first thing our 7-year-old son did when he called, as usual, at about 8:30am was to ask to speak with his little brother. It was really neat to listen to the two of them talk, the older boy patiently waiting through the younger boy's halting speech, and carefully interpreting his limited vocabulary. My wife took him to a play group this morning. He behaved very well there, even hugging a child who left before he did. His only bout of misbehaviour was when they, on their way home, stopped off at a McDonalds. My wife took him to the play land area to have some fun. As soon as she noticed a "not under four feet" sign, though, she told him that he couldn't go in. He insisted, she said "no", and he kicked up a super big fuss. By the time they came back home, however, he was happy again. Other than a couple more times when he hasn't responded very well to a "no", he's been fine right up until the time I'm writing this. One more point (before I neglect to document such things again): He has some strange pink spots on his lower abdomen and buttocks. We'll be having them checked out by our own family doctor shortly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 20:09:52 -0500 (EST) How much did our 2-year-old son suffer while in CAS custody? First, to document it all in one place, here's what we've observed: + Repeated, increasingly severe, facial bruising. The most severe of these incidents, observed two Sunday's ago, revealed a huge swollen bruise on the bridge of his nose, a cut under each eye, and blood in his nostrils. + Hand, foot and mouth disease twice, and a flu once. He's never had hand, foot and mouth disease before. The flu may not be relevant. + Uncontrolled screaming, pleading, clinging, kicking, struggling, etc. whenever he was removed from us (at home, at church, and at CAS offices). + A rough voice and an infrequent deep cough which I personally attribute to extended bouts of screaming while in his foster home. + As yet unexplained strange pink marks on his lower abdomen and buttocks observed upon his return home. + Waking up in the middle of the night in fear. This has now happened during each of the two nights he's been back home. He screams, hits, kicks, and struggles for nearly an hour until we're able to calm him down and reassure him that he's back home where it's safe. Now, here's what his social worker told us at our meeting yesterday: + She mentioned, for completeness, what they already told us about his hair having been shaved off since he was pulling it out by the clumps. It took me several attempts to get through to them that, even after it was shaved off so short that there was no physical way he could get ahold of it, he was still losing even more hair. They finally understood what I was telling them, and appeared to note it. + He had major extreme mood swings, e.g. playing happily one minute and screaming the next. This, to me, is a sign of severe depression ... but, then, what do I know? + He often didn't eat properly. Sometimes he didn't eat at all, and other times he ate so much that he'd vomit. + He ate his own feces out of his diaper at least twice. I wonder what the correlation is between this and the two times he had hand, foot and mouth disease. I'm told, but haven't yet verified, that this is a known behaviour associated with children who are traumatized. + He got into soap and shampoo in the bathroom a lot. This, of course, could just be part of what inquisitive little children do until they're taught not to. What I do know for sure is that he hasn't done this before his removal, during any visit, or since his return. He was seen by a psychiatrist at the Children's Hospital who diagnosed him as having "Attachment Disorder". I don't remember the precise description which we were given regarding this condition, but it essentially appears to mean suffering due to an interruption in the normal care received by an individual (am I surprised). The major symptom displayed by our son associated with this condition was that he wanted to leave with anyone who was leaving, apparently begging "me go with you". He never did this when with us (at home, at church, or at the CAS offices) when others were leaving. He'd always, rather, beg to stay unless he was being told that he was going to visit his siblings. He hasn't even done it since he's been back home, i.e. when siblings, friends, our real estate agent, or even the CAS social workers were leaving. My assumption, therefore, is that he only ever did so when someone was leaving his foster home. I personally believe, with no way to validate my guess, that his plea "me go with you" was his way of hoping that whoever was leaving his foster home might be able to take him back to his real home. How could he possibly imagine, after growing up in an environment of implicit trust, that his plaintive cries would only ever fall on deaf ears and hard hearts? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 22:21:14 -0500 (EST) Our social worker and our 2-year-old son's social worker came to our home for a meeting yesterday at 12:30pm. Our friend from work was also present, coming early so as not to be late. Our son's social worker came next, and chatted with our friend until her colleague arrived. Our social worker came last, at which point I informed both of them that my wife had still not returned from the play group. The door bell rang a couple of minutes later. We all wondered who was coming to interrupt our meeting, and I commented that it wouldn't be my wife since she'd just walk in. I was wrong, of course, discovering both my wife and our son standing there when I opened the door. I then realized what she had done, i.e. let our son ring the bell, and told our social worker. She seemed to approve. This little totally unstaged event gave her an opportunity to see two things: our son being happy with his mother, and my wife letting her child have some fun. Both social workers asked us how our son's behaviour had been. They asked specifically about how he was on his first day back home, how he was at the play group, and how he slept at night. I, in response to such direct questions, had to tell them about his awful nightmare experience. They told us that it would probably take him a while to get used to the change. I told them that that was nonsense, since he's been to our home several times now, and that it was obviously a symptom of how he'd been suffering while being forceably kept away from us. She reassured me that his foster home was a good one. I agreed with her, telling her that I held the CAS solely and wholly responsible. Our social worker told me that they couldn't stop us from suing them. I told them that I hated having to always use the law to try to impose change from the outside. I told them that I was hoping to encourage them to try to change their system from within, declaring that I was calling them to repentance. I then explained how repentance not only includes apologizing, adding that I haven't yet heard an apology, but also includes doing everything in ones power to turn away from the sin and ensure that it won't ever happen again. I explained how it's worth the trade-off, even though there's a negative impact, when a child is taken out of a bad home, but that taking a child out of a good home destroys him. I declared that their abuse of our son was a terrible sin, and, therefore, that their repentance is essential. I told them that I, therefore, want to see tangible evidence of steps being taken by the CAS to ensure that the possibility that it'll ever inflict such harm on a child again is minimized. I explained to them how, at work, we regularly have special meetings, called post mortems, at which we analyze how a task was done with the hope that we can pin-point flaws, eliminate them, and, in so doing, perform it much more smoothly and effectively the next time. They then launched into the real reason for the meeting (documented earlier and not repeated here), i.e. to raise with us their concerns regarding his health and behaviour while in foster "care". Although we kind of knew, we then finally found out just how tortured our youngest child has been for the last four months. If they still think I'm abusive, then they ought to be seriously wondering why I didn't lop off their heads after hearing what they had to say. If they still think my wife can get easily depressed, then, too, they ought to be seriously wondering why she, rather than plunging into despair upon hearing of her baby's tremendous suffering, was able to remain completely coherent. I asked why it took the CAS so long, especially given what they knew regarding his extreme suffering while in their "care", to return our son, and was told that they felt it necessary to check out every single detail before deeming it safe to return him. I told them that, as far as I could tell, no real effort had been made until the situation became so bad that there were many public witnesses to severe physical evidence of his suffering. They kept trying to assure me that this wasn't true, and that his return was part of an on-going process. We were told that one of the reasons for the long delay in our son's return was that the child protection people in the Children's Hospital wrote up some kind of a report which the CAS felt obligated to use as evidence against us because it made us look awful. How can they do this when we've never taken him there, and when they've made no effort to contact us? They only ever saw our son when he was brought there by his foster parents for whatever ailments he was suffering while in their home. They refused to tell us what is in that report (although I'm certain that it'll remain in the CAS files to be potentially held against us again at some later date). I kept trying, but they kept saying that medical reports should only ever be interpreted by medical people (so why are the social workers interpreting them), and that our doctor, therefore, would have to get it and reveal its content to us. They further explained that they just wanted us to know, in advance, the nature of the report so that we wouldn't be "lambasted with the information" when our doctor shared it with us. While talking with them about long process delays, they admitted that the in-take people just swoop in, take children, hand the case over to the on-going people, and get out of the picture. I asked why it took two whole months, then, before we were transferred from in-take to on-going. They responded with their standard answer, i.e. that there aren't enough workers to adequately handle the load. They then explained how the government has given them so much more work to do but hasn't kept its promise to give them more workers to do all of that work. Assuming, for the moment, that this is true, why then doesn't the CAS internally prioritize cases by perceived severity, and only intervene in as many cases as it can realistically handle? Without managing their own internal resources as effectively as possible, they, in their zeal to rescue every single child from any potential risk, are knowingly employing a process which risks destroying good homes. This makes the CAS no less than a profound and seasoned hypocrite, haphazardly charging everyone else with what it itself is guilty of. Our social worker told us that there was one more item which she would be adding to our supervision order, i.e. that our 4-year-old daughter, even though we don't believe that junior kindergarten is a good thing, attend school. She explained that she believes this should be imposed because our daughter is already attending school (against our express wishes) and, in the CAS's opinion, is "thriving". I told her that we might register her in the local school since it offers an afternoon joint junior/senior kindergarten class if our 4- and 5-year-old daughters could both be registered in that same class. This is yet another example of the CAS deliberately imposing its own value system simply because it believes it has the power to do so, and in spite of the fact that it has no legal right to do so. I mentioned that we were glad that our children were now to be registered in a school which is much better than their previous one. Our social worker, with a tone of amazement in her voice, told me that that was the first time she's ever heard me say that something good has come out of this. Our friend told her that she's heard me say good things before. I then added that we probably wouldn't have moved if this hadn't happened. Not wanting her to go too far astray, however, I told her that she should never begin to think that the end ever justifies the means, explaining that that would be like saying that sin is a good thing because it enables God to demonstrate his grace. She asked us if we'd contacted the local school yet. I told her that we would have except that we don't yet have a firm child return schedule. She insisted that we should contact the school anyway, especially since there are so many children, even though we don't know yet for sure when each child will be back. She pressed this point, perhaps still wanting to try to force us to register our 4-year-old daughter without having more time to think about it, by explaining that this is particularly necessary if we wanted to ensure that our two youngest daughters are registered in the same class. Perhaps she's right, but I hate asking people or organizations to make commitments with nothing firm to go on. When pressed for a tentative child return schedule, they proposed that the other eight children be returned, starting right after Thursday's settlement conference, two by two each two weeks. They also said that they foresaw all of our children being home before Christmas. They clearly didn't check the calendar since November 23 plus three times two weeks lands on January 4. I asked them why they were looking at a two week interval between the return of each pair, and was told that it was to allow for the resolution of any problems which might develop. Not expecting any more problems except, perhaps, with our 5- and 4-year-old daughters, I asked if any given two week interval could be shortened if there are no problems. They answered "yes", and said that it would be up to the parenting instructor since she's the "expert" who's routinely in our home. I asked if the schedule could be reworded to return the pairs in one week intervals, allowing for an added delay if a problem does develop. They seemed to accept this proposal. I told them that I'd be in complete agreement with them should such a change be made. They rightly believe that our 2-year-old son will require a lot of special care and, in light of that, were originally wanting to delay the return of the first pair, i.e. our 14- and 12-year-old daughters. I explained to them that those children are older, are helpful, and don't create the same attention demand conflicts as would, say, our 5- and 4-year-old daughters. They agreed, and finally said that they saw no problems with the older girls coming here on Friday, as they already do for their weekend visits, and then staying. I asked them about our placement on the provincial child abuse registry. They asked if we'd received any written confirmation of this yet. I said "no". They then gave us some more insight into the process. The in-take people sent a recommendation to the ministry. The ministry sent back a request to the CAS that an individual report be written up for each child. Since our case is now being handled by the on-going people, rather than by the in-take people, this request was directed to on-going. They, not wanting to do all of that work, sent it back to in-take, telling them that, since they originated it, they should do the work associated with it. That's all they knew. Seizing a potential opportunity, I asked them to check back with in-take and, if they haven't done the work yet, to try to put a stop to it. They told us that there's only one way to reverse the process, i.e. for a listed person himself to go through the expunction process. I asked if there really was no way for them to declare that they've erred, and was told "no". I told them I didn't believe that, and asked again if they'd try to ask in-take to cancel the process. They tried to avoid me by saying that that wasn't their job since in-take had initiated the process. I insisted. They said they'd look into it, but wouldn't give any guarantees. I told them that I was asking them to cancel the abuse registry process because I didn't need yet more work. She then said something, which I can't remember, indicating that she thought I was admitting to reaching my endurance limit. I assured her that I was in no danger of cracking, but, since the CAS has returned to us a damaged child, I wasn't looking for extras. She chuckled. I'm not sure why, but suspect it was because she was able to relate my statement to her, probably high, work load. I asked our social worker why our only problem, i.e. our letting the physical state of our house decline so extremely, warranted our being put on the abuse registry. She asked our son's social worker, whose job (foster care, not protection) wouldn't even require her to know such things, whether or not neglect of the family was considered an adequate reason. Our son's social worker, of course, had no answer. I then sternly reminded both of them that we are guilty of having neglected our house, but that we're not guilty of having neglected our family. This time, neither of them argued the point. Our social worker shed some more light on her repeated claim that we had no food in our house on the day that our children were apprehended. I challenged her on this point, telling her yet again that our fridge was empty but that our freezer was full. She asked me if I'd shown them that. I said "yes", explaining how I personally led them to our freezer and forced them to look into it. She finally acknowledged that she did have a picture of our full freezer, but then added that she also had pictures of our empty kitchen cupboards. I acknowledged this, explaining that we kept all of our food downstairs. After some further discussion, she finally gave me her reasoning for telling everyone, including judges, that we had no food in our house. Although she saw plenty of food which required preparation, she saw no snack foods. What a preposterous misrepresentation of the truth! Where, after all, does proper nourishment come from ... from snacks or from meals? The fact is that we probably didn't have a lot of snack foods because we don't stock up on junk food. It was the middle of the summer, and our children, especially during hot times, thrive on fruit and juice. We might even have been low on fruit since it was the last day of our bi-weekly grocery shopping period. This discussion led me to hold a lecture on how the in-take people had been very deceitful, and on how she was naively trusting their deceitful reports. I continued by recounting how the in-take people had said several deceitful things and made several deceitful claims that day. I continued, telling her how I'd confronted the in-take supervisor very directly about this, and about how that supervisor had responded by telling me that that's why we have a lawyer to refute their claims. I told her that I did feel sorry for her, since she really has no other way to do her job, and that I was only hoping to enlighten her regarding the type of work which they do so that she'll have more insight when dealing with the next family. At this point, my wife added that she overheard them planning to take weighted pictures. Our social worker asked her if she confronted them about it. My wife said "no". Our social worker said that she'd be upset if she heard that too. I told them that one of the big differences between them and myself is that I, when having a problem with someone, first go directly to that person in hopes of reaching a resolution. I explained that this, in fact, is the approach which Jesus has commanded, and that the CAS, which almost never does this but almost always talks behind people's backs, is, therefore, acting in direct disobedience to the God of the universe. Our social worker, clearly getting the point but missing its spiritual aspect, asked me if I meant that she held her cards closer to her heart than I do. I said "yes". She justified her position by saying that it was because she hates the legal process as much as I do. She seems to be missing the inconsistency, i.e. just why is it that we use diametrically opposed approaches to resolve the same problem. My wife told our 2-year-old son to stop throwing cars from the table to the floor. He responded rather extremely to this, running out of the living room, into the kitchen, throwing himself face down onto the floor, and crying. Our social worker, probably because she was so intently talking with me, seemed to have missed what actually happened. She, probably trying to extricate herself from our discussion, asked me if he was acting that way because of the intensity of our conversation. I, not being able to resist taking full advantage of the situation, calmly, quietly, and firmly told her that there was no need for our discussion to continue since I'd already told her everything she needed to hear. She, realizing her dilemma, just sat there quietly for about ten seconds and then began to talk about something else. While leaving, they asked us if it's okay or not for our children, when returning, to bring with them the things which they've acquired at their foster homes. I asked for clarification, and was told that they were referring to things like clothes and toys. We said "yes", adding that the only exception would be if there were some particular toy which we fundamentally disagreed with. I then asked why they would even ask such a question, wondering aloud if it was because some parents don't want any reminders of their children's foster homes. They didn't refute this, but, perhaps, in a unique moment of consideration for our Christianity, said that they were concerned that we might not want to import too much materialism. I told them that we were thankful for whatever our children have received, and that whatever is brought back will end up being shared by all anyway. As they left, even our 2-year-old son said "good-bye". There was no "me go with you". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 20:42:55 -0500 (EST) More about Monday's meeting with our and our 2-year-old son's social workers: In response to the social workers asking us why we hadn't contacted the school yet regarding our children's eventual registration, my wife reminded them that we've been ordered not to have any direct contact with school staff while our children are in custody. They lied, saying that they'd given us no such order, and citing the fact that we'd attended our 6-year-old son's doctor's appointment in September. We reminded them that that was the very occasion on which we were warned that we weren't to have contact with school staff unless CAS staff were present. They then, somewhat accusingly, asked us why, given such an order, did we attend our 12-year-old daughter's track meet in October. I told them that it was because I didn't care about orders like that, and had no intention of obeying them. Then, in one of their few moments of victory, they declared, without telling us how, that they'd found out about that. It's amazing how quickly they can recall, and how proud they are of, such small and insignificant details, yet how little they recall about big ones like what exactly it takes to be put on the abuse registry! Why is it that a law abiding Christian like myself would so openly disobey an order like that? The CAS's desire to retain control of ones children, and to isolate parents, through threats is not law, regardless of what it thinks. If it ever dared to tell a judge that we, against CAS wishes, talked with our children's teachers, I think that the judge would side with us for caring about our children, rather than with the CAS for imposing bureaucracy. I think the CAS's real fear is that the teachers, through us, just might end up finding out the truth. Our social worker told us that she had no problem with us wanting one hour notice of a supervision visit. She told us that she understood my wife's fear of the CAS, and added (what we had to tell her last time) that an hour isn't enough time to correct a problem serious enough to warrant concern. I, deciding that a bit of humour wouldn't hurt 'round about then, added that she'd know what to think if, upon her arrival, she found us profoundly out of breath. Both social workers actually had a good laugh at that one. While discussing our child return schedule, I commented that I didn't expect any problems with respect to our children's reintroduction to our home. Our social worker told me that I should at least give some credit to the CAS for this, citing our all day Sunday visits and uninterrupted church attendance. I didn't, but perhaps should have, let her have that one. In retrospect, I suspect that she's unaware that, during our very first hearing, our lawyer asked for it and the judge ordered it. We must never forget, after all, that at least two CAS people, each Sunday, have given up their time so that we could enjoy ours. I told them that I resented their insistence on involving themselves in our 6-year-old son's care since it implies that they believe we don't know how to look after him properly. They told me that they could perhaps fulfill an advocacy role for him. Talk about a non-answer. They clearly have no real reason, and are just taking advantage of our son's condition in an attempt to find a way to keep their hooks deeply dug into our family. I'm probably going to hate our upcoming meetings regarding his care, with those CAS people ever present, because they'll degenerate to expert advice giving rather than constructive discussion between equally and deeply concerned people. I'm already getting a bit of that sort of treatment from his school principal. She spoke very formally with me, as opposed to her former friendliness, when she called to tell us about next Monday's meeting regarding their goals for our son. I truly hope I'm wrong, but, unless my memory is failing me in a big way, I believe that she also said, in response to my concern that the CAS seems to believe that we don't know how to look after our son properly, that that can't help but affect what she thinks. I told them that we've scheduled an appointment for Friday morning so that our family doctor can assess our 2-year-old son's condition. I then asked for a list of the doctors whom he's seen while in custody so that our doctor can work with a complete set of data. I tried to impress upon them the need for being given this list as soon as possible so that our doctor can have enough time to get the data before Friday, suggesting that that afternoon would be a good time. It's now Wednesday evening and, even though our social worker promised, we still haven't been given the list. They told us that an in-take social worker would be investigating our 2-year-old son's facial bruising. This tells me two things, i.e. that they're trying to deny that it's a symptom of behaviour and/or a weakening metabolism related to extreme stress caused by his unnecessarily prolonged captivity, and that they're now trying to protect themselves by trying to blame the foster parents. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 20:56:55 -0500 (EST) We have an appointment with our family doctor on Friday morning in order to check out our 2-year-old son's physical condition. The psychologist who assessed my wife and me during the last two months will be checking him out too a little later this week. The psychiatrist who saw him at the Children's Hospital is Dr. Gray. The term "separation anxiety" was also used by the social workers when discussing their understanding of his condition. In spite of the fact that he seems to want to be near both my wife and myself most of the time, we have no choice but to both leave him tomorrow due to the settlement conference. Our 18-year-old daughter told us that she'll stay home from school in the afternoon so that he'll be with a member of his immediate family. A friend of ours has offered to come over a little before we have to leave, and to take both of them out for a drive and some fun so that he won't see us leaving. Even if he eventually does get upset that neither of us is with him, our daughter will have someone else to help her out, to talk with, and to offer constructive suggestions regarding what to do. Monday: My wife and I brought him to our local department store to buy him new, properly fitting shoes and winter boots. My wife very quickly spotted a pair of shoes which she knew he'd like. We put them on him, and there they stayed. He refused to let us take even one of them off in order to try a boot. We eventually gave up trying, and then quickly discovered that the trial was not over. We arrived at the cash, only to be told that the product code was on the inside of the right shoe. I don't know how we succeeded, but we somehow convinced him that the lady needed to look at his shoe for a moment so that the store would let him keep it. He then took off his other shoe and wanted her to have a look at it too. When she was finished, we put them back on him. When we went back to look for boots again, however, he, once more, refused to let us temporarily take off even one of his brand new shoes. His second night at home was interrupted, just like the first one, by about an hour of fearful behaviour. He, again, demonstrated this by lengthy crying episodes, struggling, and refusing to lie back down. We waited him out, carrying him around our home, sitting with him in different rooms, talking to him, etc., until he calmed down. Tuesday: When he talked with his 7-year-old brother on the phone the following morning, he repeatedly said "me want you come home". We had to go to the parenting course, and took him along. He allowed our driver to place him in the middle of the back seat, and then my wife and I sat on either side of him. As we drove, however, he began to fight his seat belt. He screamed as he struggled, pulling so hard that I wondered if he'd hurt himself. We put our arms around him, partly to comfort him and partly to protect him from himself, and waited for the trip to end. He calmed down immediately after we got out of the car. We began with me, upstairs, attending the course and my wife going with him to the basement child care area. After almost an hour, he began to kick up a fuss, insisting on wanting to see me. She brought him upstairs where he ran to me and jumped up into my lap. I then went downstairs with him while my wife attended the course. A few minutes later he kicked up another fuss, this time wanting to see his mother. She heard, and came back down for a few minutes until he calmed down. She then quietly went back upstairs while I remained with him. He remained reasonably calm for the rest of the time, occasionally wanting to see his mother and crying a bit. He cheered up when my wife finally came down. As soon as we started to put his coat on, however, he began screaming and kicking just the way he used to do when being prepared to leave us at the end of a visit. This time, he became totally passive, looking almost as though he were asleep, as he was placed in his car seat, and remained that way for the entire trip. He cheered up, becoming his normal, active self, once he realized that he was at home. He was somewhat moody between when we got back home (just before 1pm) and about 3pm when his 14- and 12-year-old sisters, each bringing a friend, came home for their three hour Tuesday afternoon visit. At that point, he became extremely happy, spending a lot of time with each of them. His happiness continued after they left. He seemed to laugh almost ceaselessly as he helped his 18-year-old sister sweep the floors, and as he splashed water at my wife while having a bath. He went to bed around 9pm, slept peacefully without interruption, and woke up with us, in response to me waking our older children for school, around 6:30am. He sat up, looked around for a while, and then slowly began to get up and to talk. Wednesday: My wife took him with her to a Bible study in the morning. He was okay there, but only when she was with him. She ended up staying with him in the nursery. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 22:05:40 -0500 (EST) The parenting instructor arrived about ten minute early for today's visit. She spent the time watching, and talking to, our 2-year-old son, and talking with us. When our 4- and 5-year-old daughters arrived, they first excitedly greeted their mother and their 2-year-old brother. After a few minutes, our 5-year-old daughter came running over to me, asking me to pick her up. Seeing this, our 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son also did the same thing. I waited a few seconds, to encourage their patience and to not just dump their older sister, and then spent about a half minute gently explaining to our 5-year-old daughter that it was time for me to put her down and to give the others a chance. Next, I had to make another potentially volatile decision. Knowing that our 4-year-old daughter doesn't get to see us very often, I, risking the anger of our 2-year-old son, picked her up next. This time, even though he didn't get what he wanted, he didn't get angry. He, eventually, did get his turn. We then all went to the living room, and all of the children gathered around their mother as she opened a parcel which had just arrived from one of their aunts. The parcel, among other things, contained a few toys which they played with for a while. We then went to the kitchen where the children ate some yoghurt. My wife then did some crafts with them which involved painting and gluing. Our 2-year-old son tried to take craft materials away from his 4-year-old sister a couple of times. We told him that what he was doing was wrong, but, at the same time, encouraged her to let him keep them and to use replacement materials. She did both. As soon as our 18-year-old daughter came home from school, accompanied by a friend, our 5-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son, paint, glue and all, ran to greet her. Our 4-year-old daughter, who was a bit slower in getting up, heard us call them back since we didn't want a mess inadvertently spread throughout the house. She understood and joined us in calling them back. All four came, our 18-year-old daughter introduced her friend, and we talked with them for a few minutes. Eventually, the two older girls went upstairs. All three little children ran after them, and weren't with us for the rest of the visit. We didn't mind, because it's equally important for them to visit their other siblings, and spent the remainder of the time talking with the parenting instructor. We adults lost track of time, and were alerted to the end of the visit by our 4- and 5-year-old daughters coming to tell us that they'd seen their foster mother's car from the window. As the parenting instructor was trying to get them ready to go, our daughters kept running back to collect individual craft products and snack components. We're not sure, but it appeared to be a departure delay tactic. Our 2-year-old son wasn't upset when they left. He just said "good-bye". Their foster mother, through the parenting instructor, asked us if, upon our daughters' return, we'd like to have the bed sheets and things which she's bought for them, or if she should give them away to a charitable organization. We answered that we'd appreciate having them. While the parenting instructor was still here, our 18-year-old daughter prepared to walk with her friend to the bus stop. Our 2-year-old son didn't want them to leave. He began by closing her bedroom door, holding it shut, and commanding her to stay. Eventually she escaped, and his next attempt was to order her "you go upstairs". We eventually suggested that she get him ready and take him with her for the walk. She did, and he left and returned happily. When our daughters arrived for their visit, my wife noticed that our 4-year-old daughter had a long scratch on her cheek. Her foster mother's explanation, which we accept, is that a rabbit did it. I only mention this as further proof that, even in foster homes, children, through normal and healthy activity, get hurt. We love animals, and know how hard and unpredictably a rabbit can kick, and how hard it is for a small child to hold one. We could easily be guilty of allowing the same injury to occur. A fascinating observation: Our 2-year-old son, in sharp contrast to the way he has treated CAS staff, warmly welcomes his siblings' friends. He, for example, patiently waited for our 18-year-old daughter's friend to take off her boots, and then took her by the hand and, with a peaceful expression on his face, led her to the kitchen to meet us. Even her very dark colour (she's Somalian) didn't frighten him. He was equally welcoming of his 14- and 12-year-old sisters' friends yesterday. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 20:09:23 -0500 (EST) We went to the courthouse for our settlement conference this afternoon. When we arrived, we went to the information desk to find out which courtroom it would be in. After giving her our last name, she asked "verses whom ... same last name?". What a sad commentary this response was. She effectively told us that most of the cases there are probably related to divorce. I answered, "the children's aid society ... the children's destruction society ... or whatever you want to call it". My wife got a bit scared at this, telling me that I shouldn't say things like that around there. When we entered the courtroom we noted that there was no judge on the bench. There was, instead, a court clerk supervising the signing of some documents (I don't know what they were). During this part of the process, our lawyer quickly reviewed the CAS's list of supervision conditions which he was given at the very last minute (just as he predicted weeks ago). While looking at one of the conditions related to follow-up for our 2-year-old son, he commented to the children's lawyer "they're the ones who wrecked him". Even though she was sitting right beside him, he said this so loudly that the CAS people couldn't help but overhear it. After the judge entered, the court clerk told him who was present. When our lawyer was introduced, he forgot, and was reminded, to say "good afternoon, your honour". I don't quite understand this one because neither the children's lawyer nor the CAS lawyer seemed to give the judge any such greeting. I forgot to ask him about it later. The court clerk then read out the names of the nine children whom the CAS took away from us. The judge, upon hearing this lengthy list of names, had an expression of amazement on his face. We, of course, can't be sure what motivated it. Was it that the CAS had broken up such a large family? Was it that he couldn't imagine a family that large? We just don't know. The CAS lawyer began by telling the judge that the CAS no longer needed a "settlement conference", and then asked for the scheduling of a "to be spoken to" hearing. This means that the CAS now wants to settle out of court, and to use court time simply to formalize the settlement. Perhaps it's now scared of what our lawyer and/or I might say in a courtroom? Whatever the case, my wife has now been spared the agony of having to speak. The "to be spoken to" hearing has been scheduled for 9:30am on December 7. The CAS lawyer told the judge something that I thought I'd never ever hear out of a CAS mouth. Just what was that "unspeakable" declaration? She said, "We now believe that it's in the best interests of the children to be returned home."! When asked if the court delay until December 7 would delay our children's return, the CAS lawyer said "no". The judge echoed this in his final ruling, ordering that the returning of our children begin immediately. I couldn't help smiling and nodding. It's now official, therefore, that our 14- and 12-year-old daughters will be returning home tomorrow morning! Our social worker, after we'd left the courtroom, told us that the in-take people have officially cleared our 2-year-old son's foster parents of any wrong doing, but that there was still one incident which required an explanation. Apparently, upon his return from the Sunday visit of October 8, his foster mother noticed blood in his diaper and traced it to a 3cm long laceration on his penis. Although we're not sure, this is probably the awful information contained within that CHEO report. Since his foster mother made it look as though it happened during a visit, CHEO probably jumped to the conclusion that we caused it. Our social worker, right in front of our lawyer, acknowledged that all of the visit supervision reports have given no indication that we would be guilty of causing such an injury. She pressed us, however, to try to remember what might have caused it. Our lawyer told her that, since there's no evidence that we would do such a thing but that there's plenty of evidence that our child has sustained injuries while in his foster home, her time would be best spent looking in that direction. He also told her that it was ridiculous to ask us, on the spot, to accurately remember all of the events which occurred on a specific day a month and a half ago. He promised to give her an answer in a few days. As her final attempt to get us to tell her something, she told us that she's assuming that it must have been some kind of accident, and that she no longer suspected that we've ever abused our children. I think that she, after causing our family so much grief, was trying to get us to help her get her organization off the hook. We told her nothing. I'm glad I've been recording our visits, and shall check my report for any relevant data. While discussing our 2-year-old son's facial bruising, our social worker mentioned that different people have said that our son has said conflicting things regarding what has happened to him. I, having learned a bit about how to deal with the CAS, answered this statement by saying that another possibility was that he may have been referring to several different incidents. She reluctantly admitted that what I said could be true. I asked our social worker if our 5- and 4-year-old daughters' visit, currently being supervised by the parenting instructor, could become unsupervised so that, as the CAS wants, she could begin coming at an after school time so as to get to know our other children. She said that she has no problem with this request. Our social worker told us that she believes that, just like last Sunday, next Sunday's visit will only be monitored by one supervisor who will leave at 3pm. The children's lawyer asked us if she could drop by some time to see our children. We said "yes". She asked us what time would be convenient. We told her that, since they were her clients, we'd let her decide what time was best. She suggested that some time just after school in a couple of weeks would probably be most appropriate. This discussion took place right in front of our social worker, who was well able to observe how willing we were to have the children's lawyer visit our home. If I had to summarize the attitude of all of the CAS people today, it'd be with adjectives like subdued, humbled, and cautious. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 23:37:30 -0500 (EST) Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and 7- and 6-year-old sons came to visit us at home this afternoon. They were driven here by the foster father of the girls. As soon as he got here, he wanted to know how our 2-year-old son was doing. I told him that he's doing much better, and invited him in to see for himself. He came in for a couple of minutes, and was clearly moved as our son eagerly came to greet him. Our son hasn't forgotten that this man was the one who made the effort to invite him over to be, if only for a few hours, with a couple of his older sisters. All four children, immediately upon entering our house, gathered around their 2-year-old brother and told him how happy they were that he was home. I then told them that the CAS, at today's hearing, had formally declared that they were all coming home. Our children, upon hearing this, filled our home with the most joyous cheering that I've heard in a long time. I explained to them that their 14- and 12-year-old sisters will be home as of tomorrow morning, and that, over the next few weeks, more and more of them will be coming home. They asked why they couldn't all come home right away. I explained that I actually agree with this plan because of the possibility that we'll have to resolve problems which have developed as a result of our children having been in other people's homes for an extended period of time. I told them that we'd rather deal with one problem at a time, than with all of the problems at once. They understood. I encouraged them that it'll now only be a little bit longer. We discussed with them whether they'd like to attend the public school, which is only five minutes away and wherein some of their classmates will be from our neighbourhood, or the Christian school, which is ten minutes away and wherein their classmates would be believers. The consensus seems to be that we'll register them in the Christian school. Our 7-year-old son even added that it's better that it's a little farther away since that means that they'll get more exercise walking to and from it. Now we'll have to find out if it can accommodate six more children, and to determine whether we can, after all of our recent expenses, afford it. My basic feeling on this latter point is that God moved us here so that our children could attend it, and that He, therefore, will see to it that we can afford it. Our 10-year-old daughter told me that the people she's living with (she still doesn't call them foster parents) are taking away her taste for the kind of food which we eat. I asked her what she meant, and she clarified herself by explaining that they serve different kinds of food which she's now beginning to prefer. I told her that it's normal for the human body to adapt to whatever is most commonly being eaten, and that, soon after her return home, she'd be used to our kinds of food again. I hadn't thought of this before, but it may well be the reason that our children seem to be eating less lately. Our children found the disposable camera which my wife had bought during our 2-year-old son's first evening back. They proceeded to use up all of the remaining film by taking pictures of various combinations of each other. For the last picture, they insisted on a full family photo with all of us either sitting or standing on the stairs. Unfortunately, the person taking the picture was necessarily left out. One of our children wished that the visit supervisor was here so that he could take the picture so that none of us would be left out. He never did come. The entire visit was unsupervised. Our 8-year-old daughter weighed all of us again. This time her measurements were more accurate since I showed her how to ensure that the scale is properly zeroed first. After that, she sat down on the floor and read a few short story books to her 6- and 2-year-old brothers. Our 6-year-old son then practiced counting, and saying all of the months in the correct order. Our 18-year-old daughter and I both commented on how fast the time seemed to be passing because everyone was so happy. We told our 6-year-old son that we'd be attending a meeting at his school on Monday morning, and that we'd try to drop in on his class either just before or just after it. He told us that he was excited about this. I'm now going to have to see if the CAS will let us do this. They should since, apart from the actual return schedule, he's effectively back home already. May it be that they'll understand this reasoning. Our 7- and 2-year-old sons gave each other great big hugs. I told our 2-year-old son that that was the brother who called and talked to him on the phone each morning. Our 7-year-old son then carried him around the house for a while. When it was time for them to leave, my wife gave each of them apples and oranges to take back. Their delay tactics this time consisted of giving their 2-year-old brother lots and lots of hugs. I'm sure that their driver, again the foster father of the girls, didn't mind at all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 00:07:43 -0500 (EST) To the principal of our 6-year-old son's school: The CAS, today, told the judge that they finally have realized that it's in the best interests of our children to be returned home. They have, at least officially, dropped all of their abuse allegations since they finally seem to have figured out that they've been wrong all along. Unless I misunderstood you, You, during our recent phone conversation, told me that you couldn't help but be affected with respect to your assessment of us due to the CAS's having removed our son from our home. I truly hope you didn't mean what I thought I heard you say, and that our relationship hasn't been impaired by the CAS's wrongful action. Because the CAS kidnapped so many children, they insist on, and I agree with, our children being returned a couple at a time. This will enable us to "fix", one at a time, any problems which may have developed due to their having been in other people's homes, away from their parents, separated from one another, and subject to different value systems, for an extended period of time. Our son will probably not be returning home, therefore, until around mid-December. The order for his return, however, has already been issued. We would like to resume our practices of such things as talking with his teacher and therapists, dropping in on his class, taking him to his medical appointments, etc., without supervision. Even though he isn't quite home yet, will you allow this, and let your staff know that it is being allowed? I hope that the formal way with which you've spoken to us of late will revert to your former friendliness. It's a tragedy that a severe misjudgment as has been applied to us can so damage ones reputation. See you Monday. We also hope to see our son without an entourage. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 15:13:11 -0500 (EST) After this week's hearing, on Thursday afternoon, our social worker tried to get us to give her data which might help the CAS get off the hook. She told us that our 2-year-old son's foster mother reported bllod in his diaper upon his return from our Sunday visit of October 8, and traced it to a 3cm laceration on his penis. She insisted that she wasn't suspecting us of abuse that day, acknowledging that none of our visit reports indicate irresponsible or inappropriate diaper changes. She was just hoping that we might remember something, even an accident, which might explain it. Our lawyer told her that she shoudn't realistically expect us to remember specific details from a specific day over a month ago, but promised to discuss it with us and give her an answer in a few days. He also told her, however, that she'd be better off to more thoroughly check out the foster home. Privately, I told our lawyer that I'd check out my own report. When I did, I found no indication of blood in our son's diaper, but I did find one very interesting paragraph which seems, in retrospect, to indicate that our son must have been desperately afraid to return to his foster home that day. It says: >When it was time for the younger children to leave, our 2-year-old son started >crying and climbed up onto my shoulders. My wife tried her best to get his >coat on, but he threw it off. He then started screaming as he was carried out >of the door and up the stairs. This must have been one of my weaker moments >as, for the next couple of hours, the joy of the visit was lost. I just sat >quietly in the kitchen, wondering how an organization with the goal of >protecting children could itself so blindly inflict such great emotional >abuse. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 01:25:06 -0500 (EST) All of our children were in church yesterday. Our 2-year-old son and 14- and 12-year-old daughters, all of whom are now home, came with us. Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and 7- and 6-year-old sons were there when we arrived. Our 5- and 4-year-old daughters arrived about a half a minute after we did. They were brought by a new driver who didn't seem to want to leave until he met someone, presumably the visit supervisor. He kept asking me if there wasn't supposed to be another person there. I just ignored him and held our little daughters. Eventually, he gave up waiting and left. Our 2-year-old son and 4- and 5-year-old daughters were incredibly restless during the first half of our morning worship service. The girls wanted to be hugged a lot more than usual. Our 4-year-old daughter started to blow up a balloon. Our pastor noticed it, and motioned to our 18-year-old daughter who took it away from her. All three, plus our 6-year-old son, ended up either going or being taken to the nursery where my wife stayed with them during the second half of the worship service. After Sabbath School, I told our 5-year-old daughter that, even though it may still be a few more weeks, she'll definitely be coming home. She immediately grabbed onto both of my arms, started leaping way up into the air, and exclaimed "Yay! Yay! Yay!". Our 18-year-old daughter told her 8-year-old sister that she'd probably be coming home by the end of the week, and immediately received several large hugs. We were driven home by the visit supervisor and two people from our congregation since we had a lot of freezing rain in the morning which would have made the walk home very dangerous. They all noticed our latest home modification, i.e. a half wall between our dining room and my office which keeps people from getting food onto the carpet and into the equipment while enabling me, when working, to easily know what they're doing. Its appearance got a 100% approval rating, so the guy I hired to build it must have done a good job. One of the people from our congregation who drove us home stayed for lunch, and then played a few games of checkers with our 7-year-old son. A couple of our children told me later that he'd said that he guessed the children's aid won. They were surprised to hear this, but didn't bother asking for clarification. They just contented themselves to believe that most of the people in our congregation probably don't know the whole story. They're probably right. I'll probably content myself to leave it that way, letting people think whatever they want, since I don't think it's right to whine to everyone just because we've been so seriously misjudged. It's a shame, though, that those self-proclaimed experts can so easily falsely tarnish a person's reputation. We'll surely have to face this in the schools and hospitals as well. Our 5-year-old daughter, during the few minutes before lunch was ready, wanted me to spin her around really fast on one of my office chairs. I also returned our 7-year-old son's watch to him. He'd given it to me on Thursday, asking me, rather than his foster father, to have its missing pin replaced. Lunch time was a very noisy affair, with lots of concurrent, lively conversations. It was definitely one of our happier times. Perhaps our children's knowledge that their return home is now imminent injected their spirits with new energy. One of those conversations was our 6-year-old son telling me, once again, that he didn't like the CAS because they took him away. This time, however, due to the "confusion", I don't think the visit supervisor, who was sitting at the far end of the table from him, heard what he'd said. Our 5-year-old daughter, whose foster home is on a farm, wanted me to be her horse. This turned out to be lots of fun. I walked around on all fours, and she gently led me around from room to room. She eventually led me into a largely empty closet, told me to stay there for the night, gave me a teddy bear so I wouldn't be lonely, and closed the door. I neighed until she opened the door, and then tried to escape. She very gently held me back, saying "stay there horsey". Wild horse that I was, though, I found an opportunity and took off. She then chased me all over the place in an attempt to recapture me. I then gave rides to her, our 4-year-old daughter, and 2- and 6-year-old sons. One of the sad parts of my experience as a horse was when our 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter wanted to ride me at the same time. Since, due to the shortness of his legs and the width of my back, he couldn't sit up properly, I couldn't easily carry both of them at once. Even though I knew, given his current state, that he'd interpret my refusal as rejection, I also had to make as much as I could of the precious little time we have with our little daughters. I told him, therefore, that he'd have to wait since she only had fifteen minutes left. As predicted, he got very upset. I felt bad, hoping that I hadn't undone some of his past week's healing, but I wouldn't have had time later to make it up to her. Our 4-year-old daughter was having fun leaping from a top bunk to a near by single bed when the visit supervisor came to tell her it was time to get ready to leave. She delayed by repeatedly asking the visit supervisor to watch her as she made several more jumps. She seemed to delight in the fact that the visit supervisor was scared to watch her do it. Our 5-year-old daughter's delay tactic was to run into her 18-year-old sister's closet and take yet more looks at her older sister's summer camp pictures. She stayed in there, telling the visit supervisor that she had to look at the pictures some more. I hadn't realized how many of our last-half-of-the-year birthdays are all on the same day. First, it was our 20-year-old son's birthday. Then, it was my wife's birthday. Now, it was my mother's birthday. This year, they've all been on Sundays when all our children have been together. It's just too much to be a coincidence. I believe that God, knowing full well what would happen, fore-ordained it this way. We called my mother, some of our children took turns talking to her, and all of them sang happy birthday to her. I also, with the visit supervisor having left, was able to openly speak with her about our current situation. Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters and 7- and 6-year-old sons told us how they were made to go to the Santa Claus parade on Saturday evening. They, knowing that we disapprove of him since parents lie over-time in an attempt to force their children to believe in him, and that we believe him to be a Christ substitute (giver of every good and perfect gift, judge of good and bad behaviour, omnipresent, omniscient, etc.) told us that they thought their foster parents were stupid for believing in that kind of stuff. They've even figured out that unscrambling his name yields "Satan Claus", so that's what we call him. They told us that they asked that they not have to go, but were told that they had to. Our 8-year-old daughter even suggested that they just drop them off at our place, leave them here forever, and then go to the parade without them. Her suggestion was, of course, rejected out of hand. Our 6-year-old son asked us again if we were really going to his school the next day. We confirmed that we were, and he expressed a great deal of excitement. May it be that the evil shadow cast upon us by the CAS won't prevent us from sharing some informal, unescorted moments with him while we're there. May it also be that his foster father won't be there and try to "steal the show". Our 8-year-old daughter had brought along all of the pennies which she had, and asked if she could put them into our AWANA penny collection (which, each year, goes to the AWANA missionary). I, of course, said yes. As we walked back to church for evening worship, I told our children that the man who usually records our pastor's messages will probably die within the next couple of days. Later, during evening worship, our 6-year-old son disappeared. I didn't worry about it too much, and only went to look for him after the service was over. He had gone into the sound equipment area to sit beside where his elderly friend used to maintain his post. We were rather touched. We've walked through cemeteries before, explaining to our children the awful eternal destiny which awaits most of the people buried there. What a joy it was, this time, to discuss the glory which awaits this man. Our children, after evening worship, were fairly good about leaving after having been reminded that, with no visit supervisor present, it was important that we cooperate as much as possible. Our 8-year-old daughter stalled a bit by saying good-bye to as many people as she could. Our 7-year-old son stalled a bit by skating on his shoes all around the ice-covered parking lot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 09:08:04 -0500 (EST) We went to a meeting at our 6-year-old son's school, yesterday morning, at which we were brought up-to-date regarding their goals for his development. We brought our 2-year-old son along. Our social worker, our 6-year-old son's social worker, and the parenting instructor were also there. The principal, who ran the meeting, was sensitive to the fact that there are bad feelings between ourselves and the CAS people and prearranged that we would sit together on one side of the table while they would sit together on the other side. We were initially somewhat apprehensive about attending this meeting with the CAS people there since we feared that they would inhibit free and open discussion. In retrospect, however, I'm glad it took place. The CAS people got to see how well we do understand how to properly care for our 6-year-old son, and how closely and cooperatively we and the school staff have been, and, upon his return, will continue to be, working together, and how much we appreciate one another's efforts. The principal even made it very clear that, in her opinion, our son, were it not for our efforts, wouldn't be now doing anywhere near as well as he is. They also got to see another side of us, i.e. our "nice" side rather than our "antagonistic" side. During a discussion about our son's braces, my wife brought up the fact that his foster parents have put them on wrong several times. I then gave the technical details regarding the various ways in which they'd been put on wrong. The school people, not making an accusation, told us that they check his braces every morning to ensure that they are on right, and talked about how the children themselves know, and let others know, when something isn't right. We confirmed that this, too, is how we knew that there were problems. My wife also raised our concern that his left arm and hand seem now to be much stiffer than before. I then gave the technical details about this problem as well, and explained our theory that it's because we used to implicitly remind him to use his left hand for things but that no one is making that special effort these days. His occupational therapist told us that she hasn't seen too much of this, but offered another theory. She explained that children with cerebral palsy, when very excited, tend to significantly tighten up their muscles, and surmised that our son was undoubtedly very excited whenever he was able to be with us. We were told that our son, due to growth, would soon be needing a new, larger walker. A discussion regarding perhaps getting him a wheelchair to more easily facilitate long trips also took place. Both of these led to a discussion regarding possible avenues of financial support for the purchase of special equipment. I asked where we could get the necessary forms to apply for such funding. The principal told us that we could get them either through the "centre" (the Ottawa Children's Treatment Centre, of which the school is a part) or through the "agency" (the CAS). Our son's social worker asked us which method we'd prefer. We told her that we were much more comfortable dealing with the centre. She said, "that's what I thought". Early last Friday morning I sent the principal an e-mail asking her, now that our son was to be returned home, to let her staff know that we could freely converse with them, and also left our son's social worker voice mail ordering her to let the principal know that this is okay. The principal mentioned my e-mail, and told us that we were welcome to talk with her staff once again. Our son's social worker confirmed that it was okay with her for us to do so. I sternly told her that one very important thing was being left out from this permission granting, i.e. the phrase "without you". She said, "yes, without us". Our 2-year-old son was very well-behaved during most of the meeting. We kept him with us because of his current fear of being left with others even if we say they're okay. He brought along his favourite toy car and, for a while, had fun rolling it across the table to his brother's teacher who, quietly, rolled it back to him. Sometimes he rolled it so that it'd fall off the end of the table and then want me to pick it up. Sometimes he'd do the same thing but want to go around and get it himself. He got upset, for no apparent reason, only once somewhat after the middle of the meeting. My wife, ignoring the meeting, held and quietly talked to him until he settled down. Later, during a phone conversation with our social worker, she told me that she felt that my wife had handled the situation very well. She tried to attribute the incident to our son's 2-year-old age. I wouldn't let her get away with that, however, insisting that it was a symptom of his having been taken away, and proving my point by telling her that it's happening less and less these days now that he's back home. As our social worker was leaving, she asked us if we had a way back. I wondered if she was offering us a drive, but, without hinting at that suspicion, knowing that it would make my wife feel very uncomfortable, and knowing that we wanted to visit our 6-year-old son in his class, I told her that we'd probably take the bus. She then asked how we got there. I told her that, although it was a bit pricy (about $25), we took a taxi because that was the only way we could stay home late enough not to miss our 7-year-old son's daily morning phone call. As soon as the CAS people were all gone, our 6-year-old son's teacher dropped all pretenses of formality and talked with us like a close and caring friend. We let her know that we wanted to visit our son, and she immediately took us to his class. The principal stopped her momentarily to ask if we'd be interrupting anything critical. She said "no", and, right in the middle of a lesson on fruit and vegetable recognition, brought us into her classroom. Although he remained quiet and attentive to the lesson, our son's face lit up immediately as we walked in. He realized that we were able to keep our promise to come and see him. This one event, perhaps more than anything else, should help him understand that he really will soon be back home. During a short break wherein the supply teacher was getting ready to have the children cut out pictures of various fruit, all three of us (our 2-year-old son, my wife, and myself) had a few minutes to talk with him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 10:32:23 -0500 (EST) On the way home from the meeting at our 6-year-old son's school yesterday, we stopped off to vote in the federal election. While at the polling station, our 20-year-old son paged me to let us know that the Molly Maid people had just come for the first time. We knew they'd be coming, but, not knowing when, and not wanting to miss the meeting, we went out anyway. I'm glad they came after our 20-year-old son was back from his morning class. I returned his call, which turned out to be necessary because the ladies needed formal permission to start working for the first time. They're now scheduled to be here each Monday morning at 10am. Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters, immediately after school, phoned us to give us their great news, i.e. they'd just been told that they'll be coming home to stay on Thursday afternoon. They'll be coming for their visit, as usual, but not leaving. This means, which also excited them, that they'll be able to return to AWANA this week. They also, having just received their first report cards, read them to us. Our 10-year-old daughter explained that a couple of her marks were a bit low because, due to what the CAS did, she didn't feel like doing her school work at the outset. Their foster father talked to me for a moment, and, among other things, said that he'd be giving us the original copies of their report cards. Our social worker called, shortly thereafter, telling me that she wanted to discuss a few things. She wanted to be sure that we knew the official explanation for our 4-year-old daughter's facial scratches which we observed during last week's Wednesday visit. She told me that our daughter had been feeding a rabbit, and that, as she bent down to do so, she scratched her face on the wire enclosure. She explained that this had happened on Tuesday, and that her scratches didn't look that bad that day, but that, by Wednesday, they did look particularly awful. She confirmed that our 10- and 8-year-old daughters will be returning home on Thursday afternoon. She told me that the CAS had originally proposed Friday, but that our daughters, being as Friday isn't a school day this week (first report card parent teacher interviews), wanted to come home a day earlier. They must have been very adamant because she gave, as her main reason for the change, the fact that that's what was in our daughters' minds. We then learned something new about the child return process which didn't occur when our 14- and 12-year-old daughters were returned (probably because the CAS knew that we had a very good working relationship with their foster parents). The children's social worker will drop by shortly after they're back (about a half an hour) to ensure that all of their things have been returned. I don't know if this is a normal practice, and didn't ask, but suspect that it is because some parents may get upset if something is missing. I told her that this would interfere with the visit of our 7- and 6-year-old sons, with dinner, and with getting ready for AWANA, and that it wouldn't be necessary. She promised that it'll only be for a few minutes. She then gave us her tentative schedule for the return of the remaining four children. Our 5- and 4-year-old daughters should be returning on Friday, December 8. Our 7- and 6-year-old sons should be returning on Monday, December 18. I asked her why our sons weren't scheduled to return on Friday, December 15. She explained that it was because their social worker won't be available then to make her quick post-return visit. I told her that I didn't care, that it would be better for the children to have the whole weekend to settle in, and, when given the opportunity, that it didn't make sense to interrupt a school week. Although she didn't answer this concern, our lawyer thinks that he can properly address it. She asked how our 2-year-old son has been doing. I told her that his first two nights were bad, and that, during one more night, he woke up for a couple of minutes, cried a bit, and then went back to sleep. She asked if he slept in his own bed or with us. I answered that it was a bit of both, but that he spent most nights with us since his room currently has no other occupants. I told her that he'll probably want to start sleeping in his own bed once his 7- and 6-year-old brothers are home. I told her that we'll have a similar situation, this Thursday, when our 8-year-old daughter comes home because she'll be sharing her room with her 5- and 4-year-old sisters (who won't be home for another week). I told her that who sleeps where will probably change, perhaps even from night to night, until all of our children are back together. She wanted to know whether we'll be telling our children where to be or whether we'll let them decide for themselves, and seemed to approve of our willingness to let them decide for themselves. I reminded her that she'd been able to see for herself how our 2-year-old son is doing during the meeting, earlier that morning, at our 6-year-old son's school. I pointed out how he'd done very well except for one incident wherein he started getting rather fussy. She acknowledged this incident, adding that she felt that my wife had handled it rather well. She then tried to pass it off as being normal behaviour for a child his age. I told her that it must be a symptom of how he's been treated while away from home since such incidents are occurring less and less often the longer he's back. Our lawyer came by in the evening to discuss the CAS's proposed list of supervision conditions. I'll log them, without commentary, in a subsequent entry. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 10:54:55 -0500 (EST) Here, with the only modification being the replacement of our children's names with age/gender references, is the CAS's proposed list of supervision conditions. These will likely change somewhat, and I'll document their final version, after the lawyers negotiate. Although it's not written here, the CAS is asking for the right to impose them, and themselves, on us for the next twelve months. (A) Conditions applicable to all of the children: 1.) The parents not exercise any form of physical discipline. 2.) The parents continue to receive the services of Sharon Doucette, Behaviour Management Consultant. 3.) The parents continue to attend the bi-monthly parenting group, offered through Behaviour Management. 4.) David Mielke not be left completely alone to care for the children. There must be another adult present. 5.) The parents work co-operatively with the Society. 6.) The parents allow the Society to have access to the children individually and independently of the parents. 7.) The parents sign consents to allow the Society to speak with the children's schools and any other involved professionals. 8.) The parents follow through with any recommendations made by the school board personnel or other professionals. 9.) The parents maintain a clean, healthy, and safe environment for their children. 10.) The mother, Ruby Mielke, follow up with individual counselling, to ensure there is no relapse in her mental, emotional or physical state. (B) Specific conditions in relation to their 2-year-old son: 1.) The mother continue to regularly attend the Crescendo play group. 2.) The parents sign consents to allow the Society to speak with the play group leaders. 3.) The parents consent to a referral to "First Words", to provide a language assessment and any treatment recommendations. 4.) The parents take their son to his family doctor, initially on a monthly basis, and at intervals deemed appropriate by the physician. 5.) The parents sign consents to allow the Society to speak with the physician. 6.) The parents follow up with any appointments for their son at CHEO, as determined by the Child Protection Team, at CHEO. Specific conditions in relation to their 14- and 12-year-old daughters: 1.) The conditions from 1 to 10 (A) apply. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 23:55:50 -0500 (EST) Our 5- and 4-year-old daughters came to visit us yesterday. They arrived right on time, but their foster mother didn't let them out of her van until the parenting instructor, who was several minutes late, got here. When she finally did, she let them come in by themselves while she stayed outside to talk with their foster mother for a while. Near the end of the visit, while our daughters were spending time with their 18-year-old sister, we found out what they were talking about. Their foster mother wanted to know how close of a relationship we'd let her continue to maintain with our daughters after they're back home. The parenting instructor asked us if, for example, we'd mind her sending them cards. We said "no", but I added that we are disappointed with her. We gave, as reasons for this disappointment, her having stopped helping them phone home as of about the beginning of September, and her having not taken them to church in North Carolina even though we'd found a church and given them directions, and even though she self-admittedly was on vacation and had no personal commitments. Our 5-year-old daughter, after greeting us, went to play, in a very sharing and cooperative way, with her 2-year-old brother. Our 4-year-old daughter showed the parenting instructor her room, and then gave her a tour of all of the bedrooms. Once the parenting instructor came back downstairs, our 2-year-old son eagerly showed her his brand new winter coat and snow pants. Our 5-year-old daughter, throughout the visit, was very good about playing and sharing things with her 2-year-old brother, whereas our 4-year-old daughter tended to play much more selfishly and carelessly. At one point, for example, she grabbed his wagon from him, emptied it of its contents (a bunch of cars), and ran around the house while pulling it behind her and ordering him to follow. This drew a rather negative reaction from him which didn't seem to bother her. Eventually, I gave her a lecture on how she mustn't always interfere with what he's doing, and on how she really should allow him to make some decisions regarding what to do. At one point, all three children wanted to be together around me. Our 5-year-old daughter sat close beside me while our 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son vied for full possession of my lap. Eventually, I got them to sit side by side, one on each leg. After a few minutes, they all got up, went over to my wife, and started to simultaneously climb all over her. The parenting instructor noticed our 2-year-old son insisting on drinking from a bottle, and asked us if this is still normal for him. We told her that it's not, that he usually only still wants a bottle at bed time, and that, were he still here, he'd probably not be using one at all since we were insisting that he use a cup before he was taken away. We told her that, while away, he often didn't want to eat, and added that we had no idea regarding what techniques his foster mother used in her attempts to feed him. We also explained to her that getting him to stop wanting a bottle isn't among our priority issues right now since resolving other problems, e.g. reestablishing his trust and security, are far more important. Our 5- and 4-year-old daughters were running up and down the stairs, albeit fairly safely, a lot. The parenting instructor asked us why we didn't stop them. We explained to her that, under normal circumstances, we would, but that there are a number of things which we don't bother enforcing these days so that the little visit times we have don't get wrecked. She asked us if, after allowing them to behave that way during visit after visit, it wouldn't become extremely hard to put an end to such behaviour once they're back home and the rules suddenly change. I told her that I didn't expect so because I'd just be entirely honest with them about why I'd allowed it before, and that, now that they're back, it's time to begin behaving more responsibly. She said "well ... if you're able to do that". When our 18-year-old daughter came home from school, our 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son went upstairs to play with her while our 5-year-old daughter stayed downstairs with us to have a snack. When she finished it, she went up to play with her sisters and our 2-year-old son came down to be with us. The girls came down and prepared to leave as soon as they saw their foster mother from the window. Our 2-year-old son began to cry as they were leaving, and, for the next couple of hours, he wasn't feeling too well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 02:04:09 -0500 (EST) Our social worker has been trying to phone either my wife or myself for the last couple of days. She's had no success since both of us have been out a lot. She finally left voice mail detailing the reason for her efforts. In a near monotone, without any discernable emotion, her voice mail asked the question (names changed to age/gender references) "Is it okay if your 5- and 4-year-old daughters sleep over on Saturday night?". If it were me, I'd have excitedly announced "we've decided to let your daughters sleep over on Saturday night ... please let me know if there are any problems with this". Her voice mail also told us that she'd be leaving shortly, and that we should call our daughters' social worker to discuss the issue. I did, and found out that our daughters will be dropped off here on Saturday around 3pm, and that they will be picked up, as usual, on Sunday at 3pm. She, during our conversation, raised her concern that our daughters and their foster parents had formed a very close relationship, and that she hoped we wouldn't do anything to interfere with that once they were back home. What a hypocritical concern? The CAS didn't seem to have even the slightest concern, when taking our children away, that they and we had a very close relationship which was potentially being shattered. I talked to her about my concern regarding our 7- and 6-year-old sons' tentative return date, telling her that I'd prefer it to be Friday, December 15, rather than Monday, December 18, since it made more sense to give them the weekend, rather than a school afternoon, to settle in. I explained to her that my understanding is that the CAS had made its decision based on the fact that our sons' social worker wouldn't be available on the Friday. She understood my concern, and told me that she'd be willing to do the visit so long as that was agreeable to her colleagues. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 02:06:52 -0500 (EST) Our 7- and 6-year-old sons came to visit us yesterday afternoon, and our 10- and 8-year-old daughters came home to stay. They were about a half an hour late, arriving at about 5:30, because it took extra time for our daughters to load all of their things into the van. Their driver, the foster father of the boys, asked if he should pick our sons up at 7, instead of at 6:30, since they were so late. I suggested 6:45 instead, explaining that we were being picked up to go to AWANA which starts at 7. While our 7-year-old son appears to understand quite well, and to accept, that it'll still be another couple of weeks before he's back, our 6-year-old son does not. Upon seeing his sisters bringing their things into the house, he asked, in a longing kind of voice, when it'll be his turn to come home. As promised, our daughters brought us their report cards. I'd asked our 7-year-old son, during his morning phone call, to bring us his report card too. He did. They told us that their foster parents made copies of their report cards since the CAS wanted to keep them in their files. Our daughters' social worker arrived, as predicted, right while we were eating dinner. She's always treated us very formally in the past. This time, however, she seemed to be genuinely cheerful. She also freely noted how happy our daughters looked to finally be back home, and how noisy and content all of our children were. My guess is that, some time ago, she came to the conclusion that our children should be returned home, but that she resorted to cold professionalism to hide her feelings because the protection people, with whom she must cooperate, superintend the process. While she did ask our daughters if they'd brought all their things, she also revealed the real reason that she was there. It's an essential part of the CAS child return process that the children be physically seen, by a CAS person, to have returned. She insisted on looking right at each of them in order to confirm their presence. This, therefore, must be the official hand-over point at which the foster parents relinquish responsibility and we assume it. I discussed our sons' return date with her, i.e. how the CAS wants to return them on Monday, December 18, whereas I think they should be returned on Friday, December 15. She acknowledged that my reasoning, i.e. that it was better to give them the weekend to settle in rather than to consume a school day afternoon, was good. She also acknowledged that the reason for the Monday having been selected was her unavailability on the Friday, and suggested that she'd try to find another worker who could come by on the Friday. I told her that I'd already discussed it with our other foster care social worker, and that she offered to do it. She said that she'd discuss it with her and let us know. Although, upon her arrival, she insisted that she'd only be here for a couple of minutes, she accepted our children's invitation to see their rooms. She seemed a bit embarrassed, however, when they insisted on showing her our room, saying "I don't need to see your parents' room". Our 14-year-old daughter then engaged her in a short discussion about Shakespearian plays since her English class has just begun to study one of them this week. We resumed our dinner after she left. Our children then all went off in different directions to play. Our 7-year-old son, as usual, played rather roughly. Among other things, he did exactly what his 4-year-old sister did on Sunday, i.e. jump from the top bunk to the single bed in his younger sisters' room. Our 6-year-old son, sometimes accompanied by his 8-year-old sister, had fun singing songs naming the letters of the alphabet (he kept skipping T,U,V) and the names of the months. Our friend who drives us to AWANA came several minutes before our sons' foster father came to pick them up. Our 7-year-old son went out and waited in his van until it was time for him to leave. He then, while his foster father waited, declaring that he'd forgotten something, ran back into the house for a few minutes. The visit supervisor didn't stop by. When we got to AWANA, our 8-year-old daughter was so glad to be back that she yelled out "hi everyone", and then went around hugging everyone. After returning home, she and her 10-year-old sister, with assistance from others, started putting their things away. Upon noticing that a leg of one of her dolls was missing, she phoned her foster father to ask him to bring it to her. He said that he would, but that she'd have to wait a couple of days. He then asked her if it was in her room. She answered, "it's not my room". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 07:56:05 -0500 (EST) Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters arrived, as promised, on Saturday at 3pm. Their driver hadn't been informed that they'd be staying overnight, and that there'd be no supervisor. He wouldn't let them come to us, therefore, for several minutes. It was only when they started talking about staying overnight that he finally caught on. Then, without phoning for confirmation, he let them come, and left. Life went on, just about like it used to, with our daughters back home for an extended, unsupervised period of time. Our 5-year-old daughter's foster home developed emotional poutiness to get her way, and our 4-year-old daughter's foster home increased selfishness, continued, although both were to a lesser degree than is normally apparent during their regular visits. Other than that, the absence of our 6- and 7-year-old sons, and the slightly increased level of insubordination in some of our children, it was great. Our daughters told us, several times, that they wanted to stay, that they didn't want to go back to their foster home, etc. They said absolutely nothing about wanting to maintain a relationship with, or about missing, either of their foster parents. This means that the social workers' remarks about us not interfering with such a developed relationship are either nonsense or a figment of the foster parents' imagination. The most likely possibility, in my opinion, is that their foster parents have developed an affection for our little girls, are wishfully assuming that it's reciprocated, aren't looking forward to the intense sense of loss which they're about to feel, and, based on their inaccurate assessment of, and inability to manage, their own feelings, have pleaded with the social workers to force us to allow our children to be used as tools to get them through this emotional trial. Why are the social workers so zealous to protect the ever-so-sensitive feelings of foster parents when they couldn't care less about those of real parents? Why are they so zealous to force children to hang onto memories about the rotten time in their lives which they themselves have so heartlessly imposed upon them? I don't think that it'd be right for us to allow our children to be abused in this way. I better say nothing about this to the CAS, however, until they're all safely back home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 19:47:39 -0500 (EST) It was almost life like usual, yesterday morning, as all but two of us, our 7- and 6-year-old sons, went to church together. The two boys came close, though, as they were driven passed us while we were walking along Carling Avenue (just before turning into the parking lot in front of the stores). They beat us, of course, but we all got to church at just about the same time. Our younger children, as is usual nowadays, were very restless. Our 2-year-old son and 4- and 5-year-old daughters stayed, with their mother, in the nursery during morning worship. Our 7-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter made a number of trips back and forth, explaining later that they wanted to see their younger siblings. While preparing to go home for lunch, I came upon the tail end of a conversation between a couple of members of our congregation regarding spanking. I wish I'd been there to hear the whole thing since it took place just a couple of feet away from the visit supervisor. All I heard were a couple of points which I agree with, i.e. that even non-Christians are beginning to acknowledge that it's sometimes necessary, and that it should not be done in public since that would achieve humiliation rather than discipline. Our 7-year-old son and 14, 10- and 5-year-old daughters accepted a drive from the visit supervisor on the way home for lunch. Our 6-year-old son, with my wife and I holding his hands, walked all the way. I carried our 2-year-old son on my shoulders, and we let the rest of our children, younger ones holding the hands of older ones, go on ahead. We, of course, arrived several minutes later than the others. Our 6-year-old son doesn't walk too fast yet, and, in order to allow him to truly walk all the way, we had to wait for two full light changes to cross Carling Avenue (one to cross to the traffic island and one to cross to the far curb). As soon as we were home, our son, even before asking to have his shoes and braces taken off, excitedly yelled out to everyone that he'd walked the whole way. Our 8-year-old daughter, while we ate lunch, told the visit supervisor that she is "a CAS". She answered no, but that she worked for the CAS. Our 8-year-old daughter insisted, so her 14-year-old sister explained that "CAS" means "children's aid society", that the visit supervisor worked for the CAS, and that she is a "CYC" which means "child and youth counsellor". Our 8-year-old daughter continued to insist that the visit supervisor is "a CAS", declaring that it stood for "children's aid spy". Our 16-year-old son told the visit supervisor about the mock trial which his law class will be holding this week, and about how he's been given the job of defense lawyer. He then read to her the statements of the accused and of his main witness. She questioned him about a few, less than honourable, phrases which he uttered, only to be shown that that really was the way his assignment had been written by the public education people. I then explained to her why I believe, based on the two defense statements themselves, that the guy really is guilty. This led to a discussion regarding the right of a guilty person to a good defense, and regarding the difference between being innocent until proven guilty and being guilty until proven innocent. Our 7-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter went outside into the backyard to play. After a while, although they should have known better, they ran around the house to the front yard. This resulted in us immediately calling them back inside, reminding them that they should have remembered our rule to stay in the backyard where they can be seen, and not letting them go back outside for a while. They responded well to this. I hope that the visit supervisor did too. While they were outside, our 6-year-old son, desiring to join them, repeatedly said "I want to go out". I, equally often, repeatedly answered that he'd have to wait for a few minutes and then ask politely. After a few iterations, he tried "I can't wait". I told him that that's the proof that I'm doing the right thing, and that he'd have to learn to wait. I don't know how much she overheard, but, eventually, when the visit supervisor told me that he had a very sad face, I told her what was going on. He eventually asked properly, and went outside to play with his favourite toy, i.e. a large car which he can sit in and, by moving his feet on the ground, drive around in. To his dismay, however, he discovered that he's now too big for it as his feet no longer have enough room to move very much. He couldn't move it at all on the grass, and only very little on the deck. His 18-year-old sister pushed him around for a while. The visit supervisor told us that her colleague would be replacing her at 3pm. I asked her if this was because we'd failed some test or other, since we'd been left on our own after 3pm on the previous two Sundays. She said no, explaining that it was just because she and the other visit supervisor couldn't get their schedules organized for a few weeks. She added that the other visit supervisor might decide not to come anyway since her son is sick. The other visit supervisor did come (a little before 3pm). After the first visit supervisor left, I asked her the same question. She gave me the same answer, i.e. that they'd had trouble coordinating their schedules, for the last couple of weeks, but that things were now back to normal. She added that she'd told "them" that she didn't think she needed to come, but that "they" asked her to come anyway. This business of resuming the supervision of our Sunday visit after 3pm doesn't make much sense to me, especially since our own social worker has been making favourable statements about our Sunday visits now only being supervised until our 4- and 5-year-old daughters leave. I do have one theory. Since our 10- and 8-year-old daughters are now home, the foster father of our 7- and 6-year-old sons is doing the driving. He doesn't seem to like us very much, as deduced from the very formal and terse way he speaks with us whenever we encounter one another. He, therefore, may have requested that a CAS person, rather than we, deliver our sons to him at the end of the visit. Why doesn't he seem to like us very much? I have a guess for this too. It's fairly clear to me, as deduced from, among other things, his conduct during our 6-year-old son's doctor's appointment in September, that he's been engaging in what I call "affection stealing". Our presence poses a threat to this endeavour since our children, contrary to his desires, gravitate towards us. Again, the CAS, while it doesn't mind doing all that it can to disintegrate real families, seems to be willing to do all that it can to maintain the integrity of foster families, and to babysit the tender emotions of its adult members (the foster parents). Our 8-year-old daughter was playing with an electronic toy which my sister sent to us in Wednesday's parcel. One of the things it does is play the tunes of a number of popular nursery rhymes. She sang the words to one of them, which recounted how a farmer's wife cut off the tails of three blind mice with a carving knife. I told the visit supervisor that this song described a most abusive situation, and that those poor little mice should be sent to the mice abuse society. Our 2-year-old son asked me to go outside with him so that he could drive around in his 6-year-old brother's car. I did, but, when my hands started getting too cold, I told him that we'd have to go back inside. He made quite a fuss in resistance to this demand. The visit supervisor saw this, and offered to watch him for me while she came out to smoke a cigarette. I thanked her, but ended up staying outside to talk with her anyway. I told her how we used to eat after evening worship, since that left a much more reasonable amount of time between lunch and supper, but that the CAS has, for the time being, made it necessary for us to cram the two meals too close together. I told her my theory regarding why our younger children were being picked up at 3pm, rather than at 7pm, i.e. that, by claiming that they were too tired, the social workers invented a clever way to avoid our congregation seeing the fuss our children made when being taken away. I told her about how the social workers were so desperate to know how our 2-year-old son is doing, since they're hoping that he'll recover and we won't sue, but that, when given data, they'd quickly disclaim it as being normal behaviour for a child his age. Our 7-year-old son was acting extra tough both in word and in deed. When one of our other children asked him why he was doing this, I commented that it was because it bothered him that he'll be in the last pair of children back. He told me that I wasn't supposed to tell anyone because it was a secret. The visit supervisor tried to reassure him by telling him that at least he'll be coming home. Our 7-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter accepted a drive back to church for evening worship by the visit supervisor. Our 2-year-old son wanted to join them, probably because he saw his brother and sister in her van, but she reluctantly refused since she didn't have a car seat. I told her that it was unfortunate that, on her one chance to make it up to him, she couldn't. I then carried him on my shoulders, our 6-year-old son walked between my wife and myself, and the rest of our children walked in varying combinations behind, beside, and ahead of us. Our 2-year-old son fell asleep as we walked. The visit supervisor, upon our arrival at church, saw him sleeping as he sat on my shoulders, and did what most people do when seeing this for the first time, i.e. got somewhat scared. I told her that I've been doing this for the last 21 years, and that I haven't yet had an accident. I explained how our children have all learned to sit properly, i.e. with their centre of gravity slightly forward, and how I'm always conscious of how well they're balanced. I then told her how people routinely get rather frightened when they see me carry a child on my shoulders, even if he's awake, when walking along an overpass. Our 7-year-old son played outside while waiting for evening worship to begin. I'm not sure why, but, while doing so, he slipped, scraping his left knee and right palm. We, with the help of a lady in our congregation who went to get things from the first aid kit, comforted him and got his minor injuries all cleaned up. While his accident was probably nothing special, his subsequent insistence that his foster father not find out about it interests me. Since I don't think that his foster father is mean, his desire must have been motivated by pride. Since I've seen no other evidence that he tries to impress his foster father, my guess is that it's just part of his current, tougher than usual, facade which he's using in an attempt to sustain himself until his return home. Our 2-year-old son stayed with his mother in the nursery during evening worship. Our 7-year-old son went down to see him just before having to leave. His little brother woke up just about then, and told him that he wanted him to stay. He then came back upstairs to tell me that his little brother was sad, and that I should go and talk to him. I know that our 7-year-old son really desperately wants to come home. He told me that he's hoping to be allowed to sleep over next weekend in the same way that his sisters got to do this weekend. He was also thrilled to see all of his brothers and sisters, himself included, listed in the latest copy of our congregation's directory as living at our new address. May God grant him the strength to endure the next two long weeks. It'll have been nearly an entire month, by the time he'll get to come home, since his hopes were first raised as he saw his first sibling return. It's a lot to ask him to bear. His faithfulness in calling us almost every weekday morning before leaving for school for about the last month and a half, without any explanation, says quite a lot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 18:58:29 -0500 (EST) Once we had reasonably firm dates for our children's return, i.e. the day after our November 23rd hearing, we phoned the Christian school. We explained our situation to them, and, even this late in the school year, they were very helpful. Even though the board meeting to formally approve us as members won't take place until December 12, Each of our children will begin class as soon as he/she returns home. Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters, for example, already started class this past Monday. The principal understood, and was happy to accommodate, our request that she, or some other staff member, sit in as a monitor whenever the social workers drop by the school to "chat" with our children. While the school has a policy that all of ones children from kindergarten through grade 8 should attend the same school, two exceptions have been made for us. First, they obviously have no problem understanding that our 6-year-old son needs to attend the Ottawa Children's Treatment Centre School. Second, they understand that the best we could do at the time was get the CAS to register our 12-year-old daughter in the local public school, and that it's probably better to not obligate her, mid-year, to change again. One item immediately caught my attention when reading through all of the school's introductory and explanatory literature. Therein is a paragraph describing how the family, the state, the church, business, and the school each has its own specific duties to fulfill. A few examples are listed to illustrate exactly how this is to be understood. The example which grabbed my attention is "nor does the state have the right to break up families unless there is an extreme circumstance that merits such action". Coupled with the rest of the documentation, which outlines a lot of very good educational principles, I immediately had a renewed sense of what it means to trust in the Lord and to then be hidden under the shadow of His wings. While telling our younger children about how the staff of their new school would help protect them from, and comfort them in the presence of, the social workers, our 14- and 12-year-old daughters, who are still in public schools, wondered what kind of similar protection they could receive. First, I told them that I know, and that they've already proven, that they're well able to handle themselves. I did give them a couple of suggestions, though. One was to insist that their lawyer be present at each interview. The other was to instruct the social workers to direct any questions to their lawyer who'd then respond, on their behalf, as necessary. Our 14-year-old daughter told us that, last Friday when one of her teachers asked her why her homework wasn't done, she answered that it was hard for her to concentrate on it since she was so happy that two of her sisters had just come back home. Her teacher then asked if that's why she was all dressed up. Her answer to this question was no, she's just now able to dress the way she used to. I now know what the CAS does with a child's health card. The number stays the same. All they do is change the child's address to that of the CAS main office building. Even a change like this, however, makes the old card unusable because a new two-letter version code is assigned. Since new health cards display the holder's address, we, therefore, for the next few months (until we can get all nine cards updated), will be marked parents whenever, should the need arise, we bring our children to any local hospital for routine care. I've now been told, by all three social workers during separate phone calls yesterday afternoon, that the CAS now understands the reasonableness of my request, and, therefore, that our 7- and 6-year-old sons are now scheduled to return home on Friday, December 15, rather than on Monday, December 18. Since their social worker will be away that day, the other foster care social worker will be picking them up and bringing them home. The approach of talking to each of them, separately and privately, so that they're all in agreement when they get together seems to be effective. Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters are scheduled to return home at 1pm this Friday (December 8). Our 6- and 7-year-old sons are scheduled to return home at 6pm next Friday (December 15). Their social worker asked, and I consented, that their Thursday visit next week be canceled so that they'll have time to pack. This won't make a lot of difference anyway since they'll be home to stay the very next day. I told our 7-year-old son this during his phone call this morning, and he has no problem with it. He's just happy to know that he'll be home three days earlier than before. Our 5- and 4-year-old daughters' social worker asked me how the children who are home so far have been doing. I told her that they're all doing fine except for some residual problems left over from their having been in foster homes. I didn't feel like giving her any specifics, since that really isn't the issue anyway and since I don't feel like inadvertently giving the CAS some ammunition, and just made general statements about how children develop bad habits when placed in homes with lower standards for an extended period of time. She first tried to tell me that it should be as simple as sitting them all down for a family discussion at which we tell them what our expectations are. When I responded to this by saying that it can't be that simple because children are people, she tried to accuse me of having standards which are too high. Our social worker, without giving a reason, asked if she can come by just before 5pm this Friday. She, without being reminded, acknowledged that this would be right before our sons' visit and that we also need time to get ready for AWANA that evening, and promised that she wouldn't be staying long. I'm assuming, at this point, that this will be the first of her routine supervision visits. If it is, then I see the fact that she's given us a two day, rather than a one hour, notice as a healthy sign. Our 2-year-old son seems to have essentially recovered from the major symptoms of the emotional abuse which the CAS inflicted upon him. He's now totally relaxed, rather than somewhat tense, whenever we hold him or he holds onto us. He no longer fights when we get him ready to go out. He no longer gets upset in the middle of the night. He talks more and more, and clearer and clearer, as each day passes. He's still not sleeping at regular times, but, one resolution at a time, we'll get there. Right now we're working on getting him to take no for an answer, and on sharing rather than being selfish. Our bi-weekly excursion to the parenting course, yesterday morning, was a good test. He sat peacefully in the car seat, both ways, happily playing with a couple of toys and talking with us and our driver. My wife and I both went with him down to the child care room. Although he asked us to say, we were both able to quietly go back up to the course while the child care ladies entertained him with some toy cars. He then remained content for the whole two hours, only starting to call for us once he became the only child left. Even then, rather than crying and coming upstairs, he called for both of us to join him downstairs. One of the instructors told us that, when she was down there for a moment, he asked if we were still upstairs, and was content to receive the answer "yes". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 20:54:33 -0500 (EST) Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters came to visit us this afternoon. A friend of ours, who came to help us get rid of all of our moving and purchased furniture boxes, was here when they arrived. While they waited in their foster mother's van for the parenting instructor to arrive, they watched their 20-year-old brother flattening the boxes and our friend loading them into his truck. He came back in before they were released. When they were finally permitted to come in, they both excitedly ran to, and greeted him. They then insisted on giving him a tour of all of the bedrooms, majoring, of course, on their own room, and especially on their own beds. The parenting instructor was the first to notice our 2-year-old son run out of the kitchen with a cup of whatever he was drinking (I didn't check). She stopped him, and quietly talked to him for quite a while about how he should really go back to the table. Our friend, coming back downstairs at that moment, saw what was going on and told her that, were it him, he'd take the cup away from him. She said that she agreed, but that it's really the parents responsibility to do such things. Although I overheard the whole thing from our living room, I did nothing. Later, when our son wasn't around, I told her that this was an occasion wherein she, in my opinion, acted incorrectly. I explained to her that she had violated a very important rule of our home, i.e. the one who starts a battle is also the one who must finish it. It's the only way to ensure that each person who holds authority retains his/her authority, and it's also a good built-in way to protect against starting a stupid battle. I told her that, if she really wanted one of us to handle the situation, she should have just quietly told one of us what she'd seen. She agreed to use this approach next time. I spent a lot of time trying to untie a couple of yoyo strings for our 5-year-old daughter while she tried to repair a paper chain which her 2-year-old brother had made earlier at a play group. Eventually, she went off to do something else and her 4-year-old sister took over the paper chain repair work. When our 18-year-old daughter came home from school, all three little children went upstairs to play with her and my wife took over. My string untangling effort, by the way, for one of the few times in my life, was thwarted by a knot which was just to tight for me to loosen without damaging the string. Our 4-year-old daughter told her 18-year-old sister, a number of times, that she wanted to stay with us rather than to leave. She was punching holes in pieces of paper when it was time for her to leave, and kept telling the parenting instructor that she wasn't finished yet. Both girls stalled a bit longer by repeatedly coming back and asking for another piece of chocolate. When they finally did leave, their 2-year-old brother watched them from the window. While our children were playing upstairs, the parenting instructor told me that I'd conducted myself inappropriately during yesterday's course session. I, fully expecting the issue to come up, had already started to raise it. She, not knowing what I was starting to discuss, and desiring to deal with the issue while our children were elsewhere, interrupted me. Eventually, we both realized that we were wanting to discuss the same issue. What had I so inappropriately done? The purpose of that particular session was to teach that it's important to maintain a consistent set of household routines in order to instill a sense of stability into the children. While I'd never argue against a reasonable set of household routines, I vehemently disagree that it's they which should be the basis of the children's sense of stability. This is just another "manage the externals so that you can get away with ignoring the internals" worldly way of handling life. One of our tasks was to split up into small groups and document our household routines. While doing this, one lady in my group said that she had a great routine schedule but that her x-husband kept messing it up by showing up at inconvenient times. In addition to my displeasure at being expected to agree with something which I believe to be wrong, I also hate it when marriage is taken lightly, and when people, even after a divorce, think they can get away with looking like heroes by speaking negatively about their spouses, especially when those spouses aren't there to defend themselves. I, therefore, responded to this lady by boldly asking her why she didn't then solve the problem by providing a stable environment and a happy home for her children by remarrying her husband. The instructor who led the group I was in told me that I shouldn't expect everyone to be able to make their marriage work. I said that I can so, that adults should stop acting like babies, should stop expecting their children to behave more perfectly than they themselves do, should put their petty squabbles aside, and should begin to care, if nothing else, for what really is best for their children. I must have been visibly angry because, when the groups were disbanded so that we could have a snack break, my wife asked me what was wrong. Now ... back to my discussion with the parenting instructor during today's visit. She told me that I clearly have a different set of values than the others, and that I shouldn't expect them to live by mine. I told her that she wasn't being fair because, although my wife and I firmly believe that parents, rather than the state, should raise their own children, we, with no recourse, had to sit there, session after session, listening to others glorify day care. She, not directly answering this charge, said that, for many of those families, day care really is the best alternative because it's the only time those children ever learn anything. I told her that, although she may well be right, such a state of affairs is a tragedy. She explained that one of the purposes of the course is to teach those parents the skills which they'll need in order to correct the problem. I told her that tackling symptoms is a necessary thing, but, if that's all that's ever done, then all that'll be accomplished is sin management. I told her that a far better approach would be to seek a cure for the problem so that it won't happen again, and that that can only be done by teaching a proper set of values. The parenting instructor, in what I believe to have been a reference to those attending her course who admit to doing some rather questionable things, explained that even she has to work with people while not necessarily agreeing with them. My wife observed that she supposed some people can be rather difficult. I then said that I know I can be fairly difficult too since I have very well-formed opinions. The parenting instructor concluded the discussion with the rather vague response that she also has very well-formed opinions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 16:16:04 -0500 (EST) Our social worker came by, as promised, a few minutes before 5pm yesterday. Our children asked her why she was here. Her answer was "to get to know you". As it turns out, that's what she did, and that's all she did. Although she was here for about a half an hour, she didn't get further than our entrance way and my work area. Although I'm sure she must have looked around at whatever she could see from where she was, she made no effort to check out the rest of our home. My wife, who was in the kitchen preparing supper, had a convenient reason to avoid her for most of the time. She did, however, offer her a plate of food (which was politely refused). One of our children must have looked at her rather inquisitively because she said, in as gentle and child-friendly a voice as she's probably capable of, "I'm Nancy, you don't know me, I'm a stranger". In response to this, our 12-year-old daughter told her about a manipulative social worker who, while visiting us in February, 1999, tried to coerce our children into giving him the answers he wanted to hear by telling them, among other things, "I'm your friend". She then commended her for having been honest in that she didn't claim to be the children's friend. Our social worker told her that it's correct that social workers shouldn't say that they're your friends if they don't know you (I guess she hasn't yet taken in-take procedures 101), and that they should just introduce themselves with their names. Our daughter continued, "Right now I don't know you, so you're not my friend. After a while, when I get to know you, I'll make my decision." Our children asked our social worker if she smokes. She said "sometimes". They told her that she was bad. Our children, in response to their having been taken away from us due to our former dirty old house (although I'm not sure she understood this), gave her a hard time about her car (which must have appeared to be in somewhat poor shape). She explained that she's had it for several years, that it was second hand when she got it, and that she'll hang onto it as long as it lasts and then get rid of it. They then specifically harassed her about it being so dirty. She explained that she hasn't had it washed for months. Would that she could see the hypocrisy, at least from their perspective, that she was demonstrating. Our 16-year-old son then looked out the window to inspect her car, and accused her of being illegal since her back license plate was covered over with snow. Our 8-year-old daughter then went outside, cleaned it off, came back in, and told her what she'd done and that she was now owed some money. She then went back out to slide around in the snow for a while. I, knowing that she, with her mittens on, would have a hard time opening the door, didn't quite close it all the way. Our social worker, noticing the state of the door, but neither knowing my reasoning nor realizing my watchfulness, fully closed it. Hopefully, she won't log this as some form of carelessness. When our daughter came back in, our social worker asked her what she'd been doing. Upon being told that she'd been playing in the snow, she asked her why she wasn't wearing snow pants. Our daughter told her that that didn't matter, and then showed her that she was wearing three pairs of pants. Our social worker then commented that that would make it necessary to do more laundry. I suppose, when looking at it strictly quantitatively, she might be right. In reality, however, it's a lot more cumbersome to put one pair of fluffy snow pants, as opposed to three pairs of normal pants, into a washer or drier. Our children asked her how old she was. She refused to answer, so they began asking her all kinds of questions in an attempt to trick her into giving away enough hints so that they could calculate her age. They asked her, for example, what year she was born in, how long she's been married, what year she was married in, when she graduated, how long it's been since she graduated, how old her children were, how old she was when each of them was born, how long she'd been married when each of them was born, etc. She eventually asked them who was feeding them all of those clever questions. Our 10-year-old daughter even asked to see her birth certificate. When she refused to show it to her, our 12-year-old daughter asked to see her health card. She, pointing out that it didn't contain any clues, actually gave it to her. Our daughter then told her that she could have it back as soon as she told us how old she was. She taunted her like this for a couple of minutes, but, of course, eventually did return it to her. So ... how much did they find out about her? She's 42. Her birthday is in April. After graduating from high school, she spent four years getting a bachelors degree and two years getting a masters degree (she told them what the degrees were for but I don't remember). She's been married for eighteen years, and has a 16-year-old son who's attending a school for special needs children. He's in grade 10, and, in the evenings, she spends a lot of time helping him with his homework. Our 16-year-old son told our social worker about the independent study he's working on for his law class. After explaining it to her, he subjected her to several paragraphs from section 25 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (which deals with aboriginal land claims). Our 2-year-old son was asleep upstairs when our social worker arrived. He woke up while she was here, and started to cry when he noticed that he was all alone. I went up to get him, brought him down, and held him near where our social worker was standing. Since he was only wearing a diaper, I, after a couple of minutes, carried him into the kitchen where my wife gave me a shirt and pants to put on him. I did, and then, again, held him near where our social worker was standing. She noticed that he has a cold. My wife told me later that she, being fed up with the CAS's allegations that I don't know how to look after our children, deliberately wanted me to look after him right in front of her. When our 7- and 6-year-old sons arrived (about 12 minutes late), our 8-year-old daughter ran out, wiped the snow off his license plates, and told their foster father that he now owed her some money. I talked with him for a bit when I went out to help our 6-year-old son come in. His attitude, on this occasion, seemed to be much more relaxed and friendly. Our 7-year-old son, while eating supper, began yelling out things like "calm down social workers". I, not wanting to allow too much trouble to be stirred up (especially since our social worker seemed to be in a good mood), tried, quietly, to tell him to calm down. He didn't, however, and continued, inventing schemes like one in which the social workers would be tricked into accepting a package full of peanut butter and jam which would then explode all over the insides of their cars. I have no idea regarding what she may have been thinking. I wonder, though, if she made the connection that there was a distinctively different attitude being displayed by those children who were already back home and those who weren't. I overheard our social worker tell some of our children "now get all of those ideas out of your minds". I wish I knew, but I have absolutely no idea what she was referring to. None of our children remember either. As our social worker was trying to leave, our 8-year-old daughter kept trying to make her stay so that she could get her to stand on our scale. Although she tried for several minutes, she didn't succeed. During her attempts, our 12-year-old daughter asked our social worker why, whenever she talks, she always sounds so grumpy. I don't think she answered this question. I'm told, though, that it did cause her to smile. Our 12-year-old daughter asked our social worker why, if they're supposedly so afraid of adults, our children had crowded around her and were so talkative. She asked, in total contrast to her remarks to us at other times, who said that our children were afraid of adults. Our daughter answered that she didn't know, but that she'd seen it in court papers. Our daughter also told me later that our social worker no longer had any grounds on which to believe all of those claims about our children being "elective mutes". Our 7-year-old son must have been so invigorated by his anti-CAS mini-speeches while our social worker was here because he didn't stop them until about fifteen minutes after she left. After we finished eating, my wife and our 7- and 6-year-old sons made paper wreathes which they then hung up with scotch tape. Our 18-, 14, 12-, 10- and 8-year-old daughters left for AWANA a few minutes before the end of their brothers' visit since they had to get a drive from someone else since the person who usually drives us had van problems. I didn't go because I didn't want to leave before our sons' did. The visit supervisor didn't come. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 11:10:21 -0500 (EST) >You may be interested in this page, about foster care stats: >http://www.civicrenewalonline.org/policy_family_facts_on_foster_care.html This page also contains an article regarding the author's belief that efforts to place children in foster "care" for adoption should be speeded up. While this may be true if it's certain that the children will never return home, I have at least two serious concerns with it. First: If it's done too quickly then it may be done eroneously. In our case it took a few months and the expenditure of a significant amount of money to convince the authorities that our children should be returned home. If we hadn't had any savings to draw upon then it likely would have taken more than a year. In that case, in addition to the immeasurable damage which such a slow process might have inflicted upon our children, the current one year cumulative limit for children younger than about 6 (I forget the exact age threshold) would be exceeded. Even as it currently stands, I'm not so sure our children would, even now, be being returned were it not for the clear signs of emotional and/or physical abuse which became very publicly evident in/on our 2-year-old son. Second: Siblings don't like to be broken up. One of the other foster daughters in one of the homes where a couple of our children were had put herself into "care" due to the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother's boyfriend. She refused to be made eligible for adoption since, at least as she understood it, being adopted would have cut her off from her two siblings. This, in her opinion, rightly or wrongly, would be a more severe fate than not having a permanent home headed by new good parents. Yes, speedier adoption probably is a better route. In my opinion, however, at least five improvements must be made to the system first. First: The CAS must be made more accountable for its actions. If a parent feels that the CAS is erring, then he/she should be entitled to call for a "trial" before a jury of his/her peers which is randomly selected from the public at large. This approach would ensure that those making the judgment wouldn't be biased either way. I don't think I'd have any problems swearing the jury members to secrecy so that, if necessary, the children's identities can still be kept confidential. Bad parents would likely not call for such a "trial". Second: The CAS should be forbidden to operate under overload conditions. It should be obligated to prioritize its case load by perceived severity, and only be permitted to handle as many cases (the most severe) as is realistic for timely resolution. All cases which fall below the threshold should either be indefinitely postponed or be canceled before apprehension. Once apprehension has taken place, the case should automatically go to the top of the list, thereby blocking the undertaking of a new case until it is resolved. Third: Siblings should not be split up unless there are extreme circumstances, e.g. incest, which warrant it. This should be a principle for foster care and a requirement for adoption. This may, of course, be logistically difficult for larger families, but we've now seen it done even when only two children are involved (the theory seems to be that, when split up, it's easier to get independent testimonies). For larger families, if it's not possible to place all of the children together, then every effort should be made to keep them in as close contact with one another as possible. The personal convenience of the foster or adoptive parents should not be a factor in this. Fourth: The CAS must be forced to make doing the right thing a far more important consideration than the perceived well-being of its own public reputation. One way to do this might be, if the jury system of "first" is used, to publicize the CAS errors for those cases in which the jury has found it to be at fault. Fifth: Foster parents should not be allowed to overrule social workers, and social workers should not be allowed to overrule judges. Strict punishments, rather than polite reprimands, should be mandatory whenever this is violated. In our case, this primarily occurred with respect to the foster parents of our younger children not helping them phone home, rudely interrupting such phone calls for "family" events, etc. Also, critical information was withheld from the children's lawyer regarding the rapidly deteriorating condition of our 2-year-old son so that she could not adequately represent him and so that the CAS's guilt could be concealed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 13:39:22 -0500 (EST) Our 4- and 5-year-old daughters, driven by their social worker, returned home permanently yesterday at about 1:30pm. They missed school in the morning so that they could have their exit medical checkups. They were given a Berger King lunch on the way, rather than either a proper lunch at their foster home or nothing until they got here. Their things were packed in a combination of boxes and suit cases. The suit cases belonged to the CAS head office, and had to be immediately unpacked so that they could be returned. Their social worker told me that, although she's allowed to use suit cases and boxes, she isn't allowed to use garbage bags, even though they'd fit better in her car, because of the negative connotation of the term. We still have the suit cases which were used when our 2-year-old son and 8- and 10-year-old daughters returned. I wonder if they were purchased by their foster parents, or if, since they weren't brought home by a social worker, we only still have them as the result of a procedural error. Their social worker told us that our 5-year-old daughter is suffering from a mild ear ache. We asked her, and she, pointing to her right ear, confirmed the statement. We suspect that it's a symptom of the weather having suddenly become rather cold during the past couple of days, and shall be watching it (I thought I'd avoid the pun that we, as the idiom goes, will be "playing it by ear"). About a day later, as I'm writing this, she says that it no longer hurts. I'd asked their social worker, earlier in the week, to bring their report cards with them. When she came, however, she told us that they didn't get report cards. Perhaps it's true that their rural school doesn't write report cards for kindergarten students. I find this hard to believe, though, given the current initiative to enforce common practices across all of the provinces schools. Now that our daughters are in our care, I'll call the school myself on Monday. Even if the school is still hesitant to talk to me, our daughters' new school should have no problem retrieving all of the information. On the drive here, their social worker showed our daughters the local public school and told them that it was their new school. Our 5-year-old daughter tried to tell her that it wasn't, and that she and her sister will be going to the Christian school, but she didn't believe them. I guess she hasn't learned yet that we and our children keep each other much more informed than do the social workers. Our social worker, too, when talking with us, has made statements which indicate that she still believes that our children will be attending the public school. I wonder what their reaction will be when they finally discover that they're wrong, and realize that they won't be among "friends" (those who share their "the state should raise the children" philosophy) when they sneak over to harass our children at school. We asked our 5-year-old daughter why, in early September, she stopped phoning us. She told us that she'd been asking her foster mother to phone us for her, and that her foster mother said no. She then added that she'd really missed us. At another time, she gave us a picture and told us that she'd drawn it because she really missed us. At yet another time, she showed me a doll and said that she named it after her teacher because she really missed her. She hasn't said anything, however, about missing either her foster parents or her foster home, but has told us that she doesn't want to go back there. I find her missing her teacher, especially after only three months of her very first school year, to be rather significant for at least two reasons. First, none of our other children have ever expressed such a sentiment. Second, all of the children whom I've ever known to have had an unusual attachment to their teachers were also unhappy with what was going on at home. I find myself wondering, therefore, if her attachment to her teacher, after so brief an association, is indicative of her unhappiness at having been taken away from us, and was one of her methods of handling the situation. Both girls came home with way more clothes and toys than they'd ever need (my wife is still trying to sort through it all). Did they just have super-indulgent foster parents, or, perhaps, was ever-increasing materialism used, as a drug, to attempt to drown out their emotional loss. Whatever the case, we can now see, especially in our 4-year-old daughter, that we have a lot of work ahead of us in terms of reteaching household restraint. They have brought home with them an attitude of being free to do anything they want, any time they want, any way they want. There's also some bidirectional jealousy between our 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son which needs to be resolved. I missed it myself, but my wife told me that, during the night while she was up trying to sort through some more of their things, our daughters awoke, saying that they wanted to go home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 16:16:27 -0500 (EST) Here, complete with its poor formatting and paternalism, and without the forms, is a copy of the booklet (entitled "Rights & Responsibilities of CHILDREN while in the CARE of a CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY") which each of our older children was given when the CAS took them. Of particular interest, at least to me, is the statement that each child in "care" has the following right: "you can visit frequently and in private with your family unless the judge says that you cannot". The fact that we had supervised visits right up until the end, therefore, would appear to be an indicator regarding how serious they were about suspecting us of abuse. If the physical state of our old house were their only concern then surely, according to this right, our visits should have been unsupervised when at the CAS, when at church, and when at home after we moved. R Responsibilities g h t s of CHILDREN while in the CARE of a CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY The law gives you rights when you are in care!!! It protects you! It provides you with ways to complain if you believe your rights aren't respected! You also have responsibilities while in care! This booklet will tell you about your rights and responsibilities What rights do I have? The right to: ... have some of your own things with you ... have reasonable privacy ... appropiate clothing and nutritious meals ... receive the type of education you need ... take part in recreational or athletic activities ... to receive necessary medical and dental care ... to receive a written Plan of Care within 30 days of placement and to participate in development; and changes in this plan. More things you should know... ... you are not to be punished physically- that is: no spanking or hitting ... you can not be detained in a locked room ... you can participate in the religion of your choice -let us know your choice when you come into care ... you are to be told what to expect about rules and discipline when you first go to your placement-[the place where you live] ... you can send and receive mail privately unless your situation suggests that this might be harm- ful. If it is, your worker will help you and remove the material while you watch ... you can visit frequently and in private with your family unless the judge says that you cannot ... you have the right to speak with your lawyer privately You are entitled to service from the C.A.S. social worker even after you leave the care of the Society [if you need it]. You have a right to be included as decisions are made about: - what kind of help you and your family need... - how this help will be provided... - where you will stay... - what education you need... - any decisions that affect you. Who will listen to your opinions about these decisions? - your social worker... - your foster parents... - the staff in your placement... - your lawyer [you can always ask your social worker how to get in touch with your lawyer or how to get one]. If you feel your rights are not respected... - talk to your social worker... - talk to your foster parents or the staff in your placement. If you're still not satisfied... ... you, your parents or your lawyer can tell your worker that you want the C.A.S. REVIEW TEAM to hear your complaints or concerns... ... or ... ... you can use one of the pages at the back of this booklet. If you remain dissatisfied... ... write it down [get help from your worker or another adult if you need it]... ... or ... ... fill out one of the pages at the back of this booklet. Then ... ... send it to the Government [the Ministry of Community and Social Services], or your Ombudsman, or your M.P.P. They will let you know if they will review your concerns further. Your social worker will see that your letter is delivered to the right Government office. You have RIGHTS and you also have RESPONSIBILITIES These include: -following the rules in your placement... -accepting the consequences if you break the rules... -respecting the rights, property, privacy and special needs of others... -meeting with and talking to your social worker. If you are 12 years or older you have some additional rights: -to look at your own records [except those parts that have information about someone else or that is likely to be harmful to you]... -to sign, with your parents, your own "Care by Agreement" [the form which admits you into the care of the C.A.S]. -to consent to your own counselling... -to be notified of and to attend court unless the judge is sure it would be harmful for you to do so... -to have your placement reviewed if you object to it. -to receive a copy of a court ordered assessment unless the judge feels it would be harmful. How to request a PLACEMENT REVIEW Between the 14th and 21st day of your placement you can request that R.P.A.C. [Residential Placement Advisory Committee] review your objections. -They will review your placement and make recommendations. If you are still unhappy you can request further review by the C.S.R.B. [Children's Services Review Board]. They will decide... ... to move you ... or ... ... to leave you in your placement. Your social worker, lawyer or parent will help you in getting these reviews. BE SURE TO MAKE YOUR FIRST REQUEST BEFORE YOU HAVE LIVED THERE FOR 3 FULL WEEKS You have another right... ... you may request to stay in care past the age of 18 yrs if you are still in school and require assistance. You can talk to your worker about this. FINALLY, no matter how old you are... ... if you feel something very bad is going on, and it has been impossible to get help any other way... ... WRITE IT DOWN and send your concern to: The Office of Child And Family Service Advocacy 2nd Floor, 2195 Younge Street Toronto, Ontario M7A 1G2 We know it is not easy to be in the care of the C.A.S.. It can be sad and scary. We want to help. We want to make it as good an experience for you as possible. Please let us know how we can best help you... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 16:41:11 -0500 (EST) Our 7- and 6-year-old sons, the only two of our children who aren't home yet, passed us just as we were waiting to cross Woodland Avenue as we walked to church yesterday morning. They'd just gotten out of their foster father's van when we arrived. Our 7-year-old son was very anxious to tell me about a couple of gifts which he'd been given at a going away party which his foster parents hosted for our sons on Friday afternoon. One was a tape of "songs about Jesus", and the other was a racing car. Later, at home during the afternoon, he was very insistent that I play his new tape. I first sampled it a bit, and then found myself bound to do something which I'm sure temporarily hurt him, i.e. refuse to play it (at least right then). While there didn't appear to be anything particularly wrong with the words, the music style, in my opinion, was not God glorifying. I'm very sensitive to this issue, believing that music is a language which can be used to reach, unfiltered by most people, deep down into a person's soul. I didn't want to give the visit supervisor any wrong impression regarding where our family stands with respect to the holiness of God, and shall review his tape with him, giving him a proper explanation, once he's back home in a few days. The visit was still supervised. The first visit supervisor came at 10am and left at 3pm, and the other came at 2pm and left at 7pm. I really do find this rather odd. All of our younger children, who were picked up at 3pm, are now home. The only two children who aren't home, our 7- and 6-year-old sons, visit us on Thursday afternoon without a supervisor. I observed to the first visit supervisor, "I guess we're still not trusted". She told me that she didn't know why, that she was just told to come, and that she hadn't yet heard whether or not the other visit supervisor would be coming. I had an unscheduled and unwanted, but probably needed, nap during our morning message. As near as I can tell, it had three contributing factors. First, our school and church mornings, with most of our children now back, are no longer relaxing, and I'll have to regain my former endurance. Second, our 5-year-old daughter woke up, somewhat scared, a couple of times during the night, at which times I got up to talk to her a bit. Third, it's impossible, with visit supervisors ever present, for both my wife and myself to schedule any rest during the afternoon. No one asked the visit supervisor for a drive home for lunch. Our 2-year-old son, holding his mother's hand, walked part of the way, and she carried him for the rest. I carried our 4-year-old daughter who, although she could have walked, wanting to regain a sense of the affection which had been withheld from her for the past few months, wanted to be carried. Our 6-year-old son walked between his 14-year-old sister and myself. Still having a very poor sense of safety, he insisted on playing as we crossed Carling Avenue and had to be carried to the far curb. The funeral for an elderly member of our congregation, who died Friday evening, will be on Tuesday. We plan to take all of our children out of school that day to attend, not only out of respect for their friend, but also to help them face their own eventual death, and, therefore, their own eternity, a little more tangibly. I promised our 7- and 6-year-old sons that I'd try to have them brought home for the day, too, especially since both of them liked him quite a bit. Our 7-year-old son told me, during his phone call this morning, that he'd asked his foster father about it and was told that attending school is more important. I left their social worker voice mail late last night, and she called back, a little later this morning, to tell us that she was sorry for our loss, and that she was working on having our sons brought home for the day. She herself will be bringing them here at about 9:30am, and then picking them up at about 4:30pm. This is actually a very kind accommodation on her part because it means that she, on only one day's notice, since their foster home is in Orleans, has added four half hour trips across the city, during rush hour, to her schedule. I asked the visit supervisor if she could delay our sons' 7pm pick up time so that they could join us as we went, after evening worship, to the funeral home for the viewing. She said that, on such short notice, she couldn't. I told the visit supervisor that it was a good time for her to consider her own death. She told me that she was sure she'd be "closer to the angels". I asked her why. She explained that she tries to be good enough. I told her that that isn't good enough because she, like the rest of us, has sinned, that every single sin needs to be paid for, and that if Jesus hasn't already paid for her sins then she'll end up in Hell. I continued to try, but, insofar as I could tell, was unable to reach her heart. Our 12-year-old daughter asked me if the body would be present during the funeral service. I told her that I thought it would be. She asked me why then there was no body at a funeral we'd attended several years ago. I explained to her that it was because he'd been cremated. She then asked the visit supervisor if she wanted to be cremated. The visit supervisor said "yes". Our 14-year-old daughter asked her why. Our 12-year-old daughter, without missing a beat, answered "because she smokes". The visit supervisor found her quick and pointed interjection immensely humourous. The visit supervisor told us how both of her husband's parents died, eighteen days apart, this summer, that both of them were cremated, and that she wanted the same thing to be done to her. I explained to her how fire, in the Bible, is always a picture of God's judgment, and that no one should ever do anything which even hints at wishing that kind of fate upon anyone. She told me that she doesn't think about those "judgment things". Our children told the visit supervisor about the terminology which they've developed during their sojourn within the foster realm. They told her that they say "foster house" or "foster place" instead of "foster home", and "foster people" instead of "foster parents". They told her that CYC (child and youth counsellor), which is what the visit supervisors are, stands for "crazy youth criticizer", and that CAS stands for "child abusive society". They told her that they abuse children when they take them away, and that they only love children when they return them. The visit supervisor told us that it was her son's birthday, and that he is now 9. Our children asked her why she abandons her children. She said that she doesn't abandon them. They asked her why she never brings them here then. She said that she can't bring them when she's working because she'd have to look after them. They asked her why I'm able to work with all of my children around. After the other visit supervisor arrived, while they were both here, I rather sternly went to both of them and asked what the big deal was, and why we needed two visit supervisors when our children, apart from scheduling logistics, were just as good as home. They both insisted that they hadn't been told that anything has changed (which isn't quite true since they clearly knew that only two of our children weren't home yet). I asked them if they'd be here next Sunday. They said they didn't know. I observed that it wouldn't technically be a visit any more since all of our children would be home. They agreed. I said that there should then be no need for them to be here. They asked me if I was trying to get rid of them. I said no, but that I was trying to get the social workers and the process out of our lives because having people here all the time messes up our plans. I really didn't want them to take my remarks personally, since we like them and since they've been very nice to us, so I explained that my issue isn't with them, but, rather, with the process and with those who run it. I added that they could probably do a better job since they do care about children whereas those who currently run the process just hide in offices behind reports, allegations, and scenario generation, and appear to have no concern or ability to care for children. They asked us if we were going to put up a Christmas tree. I answered that we might, but that we just haven't gotten around to thinking much about it yet. They then asked why there seem to be so many different variants regarding how Christmas is to be observed. I explained that there are three main points of division on the subject. First: There are those who believe that we shouldn't celebrate it since God hasn't commanded it to be celebrated. I told them that I didn't agree with this position because He clearly allowed the angels to hold a great Heavenly celebration on the day of Jesus's birth. I added that I see no reason why we shouldn't celebrate any truly joyous event. Second: There are those who make a big deal about December 25 being the wrong date. I explained that, based on Biblical data, it can indeed be shown that December 25 is the wrong date, and that the right date is probably near the beginning of October. I told them that I didn't agree with this position because, since the exact date isn't known, there's nothing wrong with choosing a day. I also pointed out that we celebrate the queen's birthday in the wrong month, and even on a floating Monday. Third: There are those who believe that it's wrong to give gifts because this business of gift giving has become so intertwined with the character of Santa Claus who definitely shouldn't be part of anyone's life. I told them that I didn't agree with this position because a proper separation of the act of gift giving from the worldly practice of worshipping Santa Claus leaves us free to give gifts as memorials of God's having given us the greatest gift of all, i.e. salvation for mankind. They then, returning to the initial topic, asked about trees verses no trees. I told them that I didn't know what the religious issue on this point might be, but that even the basic issue really isn't that simple since it's really no trees, real trees, or artificial trees. I told them that I have no problem with having a Christmas tree, but that I hate artificial things. Our children asked the second visit supervisor why she wasn't married even though she was older than the first visit supervisor who is married and has two children. She answered that it was because she was smart. The first visit supervisor, who was leaving right then, had a good laugh and then added that she had married when she was quite young. Our children, with the first visit supervisor gone, then told the second one that she should get married, have some children, learn what they're like, and then work to change the CAS. She then revealed to us that she had been married, that her husband had died, and that she hasn't yet found anyone else who's worthy. I explained to our children that she really is being smart in that she is being very careful regarding whom she would spend the rest of her life with. After some more probing questions from our children, we learned that her husband died as the result of bone cancer when she was 28. Our 18-year-old daughter and I discovered later that we'd both been independently wondering if that's why she's typically been quite serious, formal, and subdued. Our 5-year-old daughter and 6- and 2-year-old sons had a bath together. Their 7-year-old brother and 4-year-old sister, after hearing all of the excitement, joined them. The visit supervisor came up, soon thereafter, to see what all of the racket was. What she heard was repeated resounding choruses of "please", which I insisted that our children say before I'd briefly turn on the whirlpool mechanism. She, looking at all five children having fun in the water, said that they looked cute. The visit supervisor told me that she only works for the CAS part time, and that her full time job is teaching behaviour management to children in kindergarten through grade 3, and to their parents. I observed, "gone are the days when that job was unnecessary". She agreed. I asked her why. She gave two reasons. First: There are lots of single parents who spend so much time working to earn a living that they don't have enough time to help their children with their homework and to teach them other necessary skills. I told her that I'm a supporter of proper marriages with only one parent working. Second: These days too many parents try to reason with their children about what is best, what is right, what is wrong, etc., rather than tell them what the rules are. She added that this freedom of children to negotiate their way through life at home is being brought into the schools where the children now expect to be able to negotiate with their teachers regarding the conditions pertaining to their education. She showed a clear understanding of how people, if given the opportunity, will tend to argue for conditions which best fit their wants rather than best meet their needs. Our 18, 5- and 4-year-old daughters accepted a drive back to church with the visit supervisor. I carried our 2-year-old son, and our 6-year-old son walked between my wife and myself. Our 4-year-old daughter walked. After evening worship, we waited for our 7- and 6-year-old sons to leave, and then walked to the funeral home for the viewing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 11:38:00 -0500 (EST) Our 2-year-old son, for the most part, has been sleeping very well for the last couple of weeks. He still sleeps with us since he doesn't like to find himself alone. We've tried, a few times, to put him in his own bed after he's fallen asleep. He started to cry, however, whenever he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't see anyone. This may all change once his 7- and 6-year-old brothers, who'll be sharing his room, return home (still scheduled for tomorrow evening). He had one more nightmare this past Monday night. I'm not sure what caused it, but it may have been the fact that I hadn't yet gone to bed, i.e. my wife and I weren't both there, since I had some work to catch up on. She carried him around for awhile, but he didn't seem to be awake enough to recognize who she was, and, like before, cried, thrashed with his arms, and kicked with his feet. She eventually brought him down to me, and I carried him around for awhile while she went to the kitchen to wash a few more dishes. He didn't seem to recognize me either, and continued to cry, thrash, and kick as though he were trying to escape from something. I, for a reason I don't now recall, tried putting him down onto my office carpet. He continued to cry, but got up on his hands and knees and began to crawl (which he hardly ever normally does). What happened then was fascinating, i.e. he headed for safety. It was clear that, at that point, he knew exactly what he was doing. He crawled out into our entrance way, turned a couple of corners, and headed straight into the kitchen where he clearly hoped to find his mother. She, still doing the dishes, was there and immediately picked him up. At that point he instantly calmed down. Whoever he initially thought we were, he knew exactly who is mother was as soon as he, in response to his fear, fled to where he was sure safety would be. Yesterday, our social worker phoned us to ask if she could drop by this morning to tell us a couple of things. When I told her that my wife would probably be out at a play group, she told me that it would be okay if just I were home. I then asked her that, if this were the case, why she couldn't just tell me what those couple of things were over the phone. She insisted that it was necessary for her to come here. I initially thought that some last minute glitch must have come up which might prevent our 7- and 6-year-old sons from coming home tomorrow. This, however, proved to be wrong. What she wanted to do was ask us if we had any concerns regarding our 2-year-old son having been sexually abused. I immediately asked if she was referring to the treatment he received in his foster home, and she answered yes. We mentioned a strange rash which he had had in his lower abdominal area. Knowing how quickly social workers jump to conclusions, however, and also wanting to make a point, I quickly added that we aren't doctors, that, since he wasn't in our care, we couldn't take him to a doctor to have it checked out, and that the evidence is now gone. We mentioned that he would kick up a fuss whenever his diaper was changed. This immediately got her attention, and she said that that was of particular interest to her. Again, not wanting her to jump to a conclusion too quickly, I explained how my theory has always been that he'd linked diaper changes with being taken away since my wife would always change his diaper just before he had to leave. I then recounted how, even since he's been back home, his biggest fear seems to be being taken away again. I told her how he, at the outset, didn't want to be dressed for going out, and how he didn't want to be separated from us during his first visit to the parenting course. What apparently happened to stimulate this concern of hers is that our 14-year-old daughter, in an attempt to explain to her school how bad foster care is, gave a guidance counsellor some examples of how her siblings were behaving. When she mentioned that he would scream and kick whenever his diaper was changed, they jumped to the conclusion that sexual abuse must have taken place, and (are we surprised) phoned in an allegation. I think that it must be noted that she attends a high school. Her guidance counsellors, therefore, presumably are trained to deal with teen-related problems. Their expertise at dealing with infant-related problems, at least to me, should be questioned. I told her that, as far as we're concerned, while it's possible that he was sexually abused, we aren't willing to make that kind of devastating claim without something more concrete to go on. I told her that the psychologist who assessed us is a pretty clever guy (to which she said "yes he is"), and that, if she wanted to pursue it, and if it's even possible at this late date to make such an assessment, we'd ask him to check it out. If the foster parents are guilty, then action should surely be taken. If, however, they aren't, then we, having ourselves been victims of false allegations, surely don't want to stir up that kind of trouble for someone else. Just after our social worker arrived, our 4-year-old daughter, closely followed by her 2-year-old brother, invited her to see her bedroom. She, probably taking advantage of an easy opportunity to make a quick assessment of our house keeping capabilities, cheerfully accepted the invitation. It turned out to be a tour of all but one of the bedrooms. When our daughter couldn't open our older daughters' door, our social worker, noticing its baby-proof door handle cover, said "I wonder why" (in a tone which indicated her correct guess that we didn't want the little children to go in there unattended). I explained that it was in case our older daughters have left things like homework papers lying around. Our social worker then told our 4-year-old daughter that she guessed they shouldn't go in there then. Our 2-year-old son, while our social worker was still here, tripped with a toy, hurting his head as he fell. She had an opportunity to watch how both my wife and myself comforted him. My wife then told her "you see how they get hurt". She answered "don't they all". She offered us seven free passes to a Christmas party for children on Saturday afternoon. We asked her what would be happening there, and, after she told us, politely refused her offer but thanked her for it. We explained that we're "birth of Christ", rather than "Santa Claus", people, and suggested that some other family might be able to make better use of them. She was very friendly toward us, and her visit ended on an especially nice note. My wife told her that she would be late for a play group Christmas party, and asked her if she could drive her and the two children to it. She waited while my wife and I got our 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter ready, and then drove them. She even joked a bit by making an obvious reference to our children's having harassed her about the state of her car last Thursday, by saying that we shouldn't say anything bad about her car then. As they drove passed the public school, our social worker said, to our daughter, "there's your school". She responded, pointing to the Christian school, "no, that's my school". Our social worker didn't have anything negative to say, mainly asking questions about the cost. On the way, she told my wife that the two Sunday visit supervisors will be coming one more time, this Sunday, to "say their good-byes" (whatever that exactly means). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 16:00:40 -0500 (EST) Our 7- and 6-year-old sons, the last two children to be returned, came home to stay yesterday afternoon just before 6pm. Our entire family, after five months and a couple of days, is, finally, back together again. The social worker who drove them only stayed until all of their things were brought in. She carried our 6-year-old son in while our 7-year-old son stayed outside to unload their things and to bring them in. There wasn't enough time for the rest of us to don sufficient winter clothing to go out and help. As soon as our 6-year-old son was standing safely on the floor, he was subjected to lots of almost concurrent hugs from his siblings. This, I think, was the unspoken queue to the social worker that she needn't stay any longer. Before she left, however, I reminded our sons that, since their social worker was away, this one had made a special trip (at least a half an hour each way, the first one during rush hour, plus however much time she spent loading their things and waiting for them to get ready) to go and get them. They then thanked her. None of the nine children who were taken, even though, while away, many of them did watch plenty of television and videos, appear to have any desire that they be able to do so here. They haven't even so much as mentioned the content or name of a movie or show. While the older children haven't been affected by the excessive materialism of the foster environment, the younger children have. With our 6- and 2-year-old sons and 5- and 4-year-old daughters, this shows up as unusual selfishness when playing with toys. With our 8-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, this shows up as questions regarding when something they want will be purchased. I've responded to the latter by, plain and simple, telling them that foster parents are able to buy all kinds of things because the government gives them lots of money for that very purpose, that we can't because we aren't, and that, now that they're out of the foster environment, they'll have to get used to having their needs, but not necessarily their wants, met. Our 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter now have a great deal of difficulty in accepting "no" for an answer, and in obeying parental directives, but suspect that this will settle down in time. Our 12-year-old daughter does too, but in a more indirect way. She, while away, developed a fierce sense of independence which, at the time, served her well, e.g. frequent unauthorized unsupervised home visits, inviting us to school events, etc. Sadly, though, she is now using (abusing) this same skill to try to claim the right to do, or to not do, as she pleases. I told her how much we appreciated her frequent unofficial visits, reminded her how much she appreciated them too, and asked her to now not become a potential cause for the authorities to do the same thing all over again. Our 14-year-old daughter, a couple of times, without warning, has become very upset in response to innocent statements made by her 18-year-old sister. The first time, her sister, during a discussion on school work, suggested that she practice doing presentations in front of her class. The second time, while sorting out pairs of shoes, her sister asked her if she wanted to keep one. The common thread, in both cases, turned out to be that she felt her older sister should have already understood how she felt. First, her sister should have known that she freezes whenever she's asked to do a presentation. Second, her sister should have known that that particular pair of shoes reminded her too much of the "foster house". I think she's over these now. She seemed to need a great big hug which lasted as long as the talk which accompanied it. While away, she'd become accustomed to not being able to trust anyone, and to not being understood by anyone. Upon her return, she assumed that it'd go right back to the way she'd idealized it to have been. She'd forgotten that we, too, aren't perfect. What she remembered as having been perfectly understood really was a sufficiently trustable environment in which she felt free to express her weaknesses. Our 2-year-old son seems to be over most of the symptoms of his extremely stressful separation. His hair has even started to grow back nicely now. He's still a little apprehensive whenever my wife and I both leave him temporarily with someone else (even a sibling), and he still insists on sleeping between us. We don't think either of these will be overcome too easily, and just plan to patiently wait for his trust to return to its former level. My wife and I, too, have an adjustment to make. With most of our children having been gone for the past few months, and especially with all of our younger children having been gone, we haven't had that much to do. This caused life around here to get rather relaxing and quiet. Now that they're all back, we must regain our former endurance. Even amidst all of the residual problems, we're still very thankful that God didn't allow this ordeal to last much longer. A parent, while his children are away, suffers at least from the following: + The tremendous sense of unfulfilled duty which necessarily accompanies the forceable interruption of the God-given assignment to raise his own children. + The inability to protect his children from harm of any kind. + The inability to care for his children whenever they become either physically or emotionally hurt. + The knowledge that his children are being taught a worse set of values. + The dread of not knowing exactly what problems his children will eventually return with. + The stresses associated with the procedures, negotiations, and self defense required to rescue his children from the tyranny of the state. + The knowledge that each of his children (nine in our case) is himself suffering unknown intense emotional anguish. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 19:44:06 -0500 (EST) We've just discovered that we now owe the government a couple thousand dollars. Our child tax benefit money has apparently been flowing illegally into our bank account since July. The CAS, without warning the parents, tells the government that the children have been removed from their home. With all of the money we've had to spend lately, it didn't even occur to me that this might happen. Now we have to return money which has been spent. We'll come up with it, but that government letter which arrived today sure was an unexpected and unpleasant surprise. Aside from having emotionally abused nine of our children (one of them seriously), therefore, the CAS has created at least two bureaucratic complexities. First, it has told the income tax department that our children no longer are our dependents. Second, it has changed the addresses, and, in so doing, the version codes, on the children's health cards. At no time did they even hint that these have been done, and it's totally up to us, having discovered them on our own, to correct the governments' understandings of our situation. We now have eighteen forms, and a few months of delays (waiting for those forms to arrive and then to be processed), to look forward to. One would think (at least I did) that, with all of our children back, We'd no longer need a supervised visit. While we were walking to church yesterday, however, one of the visit supervisors drove by us. She and we ended up entering the building at the same time. She told us that the other visit supervisor wouldn't be coming. While it's true that we were expecting at least one of them (since our social worker had told my wife, while driving her to the play group Christmas party on Thursday morning, that the visit supervisors would be coming on Sunday for one last time to "say their good-byes"), this, in my opinion, was no less than an ordered supervised "visit". She explained to me, during a conversation at lunch, that she didn't know why she was told to come, that she hadn't even discussed it with anyone, and that she'd just received voice mail requesting her to show up. She added that, while she did know that the other visit supervisor would no longer be coming, she did not know whether or not she'd be coming again, and, if so, how often. It was a different sort of Sunday to that which she's become accustomed to. Instead of Sabbath School, the children of our congregation performed their Christmas pageant. After the pageant, we had a lunch to which everyone, including visitors, was invited. She, not having been prepared for this, had brought her own lunch. She ate the provided food, though, and, as she explained to me, left the lunch which she'd brought in her car for Monday. During lunch, one of the ladies told her that she'd be missing her. She answered that she wouldn't know what to do with her Sundays any more. Both the lady and I then, with the intent of encouraging her to place herself under the hearing of the Gospel, semi-seriously joked that she should join our congregation. She heard lots of the Gospel presented in a very plain and simple way. First, our morning message was on Philippians 2:5-11, a passage which describes how much Christ gave up and how much He suffered in order to pay for our sins, how great He is, how absolute it is that everyone will bow before Him, and how critical it is that each person decide, now, whether his bowing will be that of a humble servant or that of a defeated enemy. Second, our pageant is full of Scripture, Old Testament psalms and prophecies being used to augment the New Testament narration and dialogue. One of the men in our congregation, meaning well, did something which, in my opinion, could easily lead to another false charge. He observed our 4-year-old daughter playing in the snow, and, based solely on that observation, called out to me, from all the way across the large room, in a rather formal sounding voice, that she was too cold and had wet clothes. She, coming over to me, insisted that she was neither cold nor in need of a change of clothing. I checked her carefully, and found that, although she had cool and somewhat damp hands, all of the rest of her was very warm and none of her clothing was wet. If the visit supervisor reports exactly what she saw, then, without too much effort, it's entirely possible that the social workers will twist it into my having left our daughter cold and wet. I got into a conversation regarding the CAS's methods of operation, making, of course, some rather controversial statements which could have easily been overheard. Probably the most potentially dangerous one was my reference to my, by now, over 13,000 line report, and my plan to find a safe way to make the public aware of its content. I explained that whatever method I eventually use, should I actually figure one out, would have to be legal, and must not risk another seizure of our children since I'm not willing to martyr them for the cause. She asked me if we'd be going home after lunch, or if we'd be staying at the church. I told her that we'd be staying, since there wouldn't be enough time left in the afternoon to make the trip home worth it, and especially since the sidewalks were rather icy. She said that she'd have gone with us if we were going home, but that she'd leave if we were staying. True to her word, she, shortly after lunch was over, left. It was the first Sunday afternoon since early July during which we got some real rest. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 23:08:58 -0500 (EST) The CAS, at our November 23 non-hearing, gave our lawyer their first draft of the conditions which they want us to agree to. He visited us the following Monday evening, we worked out our response, and he, the next day, FAXed our response to them. There was a "to be spoken to" hearing on December 7 at which the agreement between ourselves and the CAS was to have been formally ratified. When I spoke to him on the evening before that date, i.e. on December 6, he told me that the CAS hadn't yet responded. He didn't feel, therefore, that much would be happening, and told me that we didn't need to go but that I should stay near our phone. Our phone didn't ring during that December 7 hearing. Our lawyer has been impossible to reach since then, primarily because his secretary left for greener pastures (more pay with less work). That's all I knew, therefore, until this afternoon when the children's lawyer came to visit her nine young clients, although I have been wondering why our children are all back home without an agreement having been signed. The CAS, after all, has lost most, if not all, of its bargaining power since it no longer is holding any hostages. It turns out that absolutely nothing, but a further adjournment, happened on December 7. The CAS apparently made this request, having said something about not wanting to proceed until all of our children are home. Our case has now been adjourned until January 9 at 9:30am. In the mean time, our children's being home has been classified as an "extended home visit" (hence the continuing visit supervision). This is exactly what our social worker, during a phone call on November 6, told me is hardly ever done and, in our case, would not be done. I don't know why the CAS has elected to take this approach, but, from my perspective, the 25 days between the return of the last two children and the next hearing (December 15 to January 9) will hopefully give us enough time to help our children fully overcome the abduction which they've endured. The children's lawyer stayed for about an hour and a half (from about 3:15pm to about 4:45pm). I intentionally went elsewhere in the house for a few extended periods of time while she was here so that she would be able to say that she had, and so that she actually had, plenty of time alone with her clients. I did, however, hang around where I could hear most of what was being said. At one point, I heard a couple of our older children telling her that there's no way they want to go back to their foster homes, and she assuring them that she'd tell that to the judge. At another time, I heard her note how restrained they were when she'd met with them in their foster homes, how lively they were today, and how, without even asking the question, she could tell by their conduct that she knew that they all want to stay here. Even though we knew, well in advance (about a week and a half), that she was going to come here this afternoon, we made absolutely no effort to prepare for it. In spite of this, and in spite of the normal minor daytime clutter we tend to have because we actually let our children play, it was nice to hear her say that our home was in a good physical state. She also said, after receiving a full tour hosted by our 4-year-old daughter, that our rooms are nicely laid out, and that we live in a good neighbourhood. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 21:07:07 -0500 (EST) Even though, in late November, our lawyer FAXed back our requests for changes to the CAS's initial set of supervision conditions, our social worker delivered court papers to us today which reveal that the only changes made to date are additions. She also gave us some more information regarding decisions made by the Child Protection Team (CPT) at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). The court papers portray us as parents who have some hope, but only because the CAS has involved itself in our lives, because a parenting course instructor visits us every week, and because we attend the bi-weekly sessions of the parenting course she teaches. I believe our social worker no longer thinks that we've been all that bad, but I also believe her when she says that, being so near the bottom of the CAS organizational structure, her recommendations aren't given all that much weight. I believe that her personal perspective has changed for the following reasons: + She no longer defends the CAS when I challenge its methods. + She no longer speaks patronizingly towards us. + She wrote a rather favourable affidavit for the court papers. + She permitted me to overhear her side of a phone conversation which revealed that her own marriage may itself not be operating as a CAS-acceptable level of functionality. The court papers contain a claim, without any supporting evidence, that I, at some unknown time in the past, accused my wife of abuse and neglect. I don't recall, or even believe, that I've ever done that. It may be that, during the initial months of her depression (a few years ago) before I recognized what was going on, I may have said something which could have been interpreted that way. I know that I have, on occasion, recounted a few incidents related to her withdrawal from those nasty psychiatric drugs which should never have been given to her, but, whenever I've done that, I've always been very careful to attribute them to the drugs and/or to the withdrawal, and never to her personally, since both were making her behave in an extremely uncharacteristic way. The court papers claim that several of our children, while in foster care, rolled up into a fetal position, became angry, and discussed being hit. Our children acknowledge having been angry (at the CAS), but neither rolling up into a fetal position (even after I demonstrated the position) nor discussing being hit. When I mentioned the last point, i.e. discussing being hit, they just burst out into laughter and declare that the CAS doesn't know what it's talking about. The court papers claim that our children's behaviour, during visits, at times became unmanageable, and that we, the parents, had difficulty setting limits. I can explain this one. Our children displayed all kinds of new bad behaviours which were a result of their having been abducted by the CAS. In some cases, we didn't know what to do. In others, we figured that it was better to do nothing, fearing a worse reaction, and to thereby save the rest of the visit. In yet others, we were reluctant to do what we really should have done because we feared that we'd go beyond CAS-acceptable discipline limits and, thereby, possibly lose our children forever. To complicate the whole situation: The harsh treatment our children received at the heartless hands of the CAS made them in much more need of affection than of correction, so we made a conscious and deliberate decision to deal with the correction once they were back home. The authoritarian attitude of, and the defamatory remarks made, in private, about us to our children by, the CAS did a lot to diminish our children's acceptance of our parental authority. There was often no point, therefore, in attempting to take on a battle which we estimated we wouldn't win anyway. The court papers make repeated reference to the fact that my wife and I did submit to a psychological assessment, and that that assessment was favourable, but also find fault with the fact that "no recommendations for follow-up were made". When specifically asked for follow-up recommendations, the psychologist responded with a letter (not mentioned in the court papers) which, in part, says: "It is of great importance to state that Ruby could not have been subjected to any greater stress than having her children removed from her care. During this whole experience Ruby was being observed by visit supervisors, social workers, lawyers, parent tutors, doctors and psychologists. Although she was emotionally upset she did not breakdown, lose her faith, or become unable to respond to her children on visits even though she was so deeply hurt and frightened. This was one of the severest tests one could have ever put Ruby through." A set of conditions which the CAS has added to the supervision order is related to the proper care of our 6-year-old son with respect to his cerebral palsy. While we, of course and in principle, wouldn't mind signing any such set of conditions, I'd rather not given the current situation. In my opinion, signing this sort of thing as part of this sort of document is tantamount to admitting that we've been guilty of serious failure in this area in the past. A condition which the CAS has added to the supervision order is that it wants a psychological assessment of our 10-year-old daughter. It's claimed that, while in foster care, she, on several occasions, was very negative about herself, cried silently, curled up into a fetal position, and claimed that it hurt whenever anyone touched her. In addition, our social worker told us that she had shown lots of anger. Maybe she did do some (or even all) of these things there, but, since she hasn't done any of them here (before her apprehension, during any visit, or after her return), doesn't this really prove that she had serious problems with her apprehension? I, in response to this, did the unCAS thing, i.e. ask her. She admitted to having been angry quite a bit, insisting that it was directed at the CAS. She admitted to having cried a lot, insisting that it was due to her having to stay in the foster place. She admitted to having been negative, insisting that it was directed at the foster people and due to her situation. She admitted to having not wanted to be touched, and to having claimed that being touched hurt, insisting that she didn't want to be touched by all of those strangers. She asked me what a fetal position was, and, after a live demonstration, said that she didn't remember ever doing that. She has exhibited a few interesting behaviours since she's been back home, and all of them appear to be humourous allegations against the CAS. She has, on a number of occasions, intentionally bumped into things and then asked us if we saw what the CAS just made her do. She's shown us a bruise and then told us that it was caused by the bad foster bed which she had to use. Our social worker told us that, although it's not in the conditions, the Child Protection Team at the Children's Hospital also wants our 4-year-old daughter to undergo a psychological assessment because it's claimed that she, while in foster care, was very quiet and spent a lot of time staring out into space. As I'm sure anyone who knows her will testify, she's a very lively little girl who's full of imagination. Once again, it would appear that the CAS's own evidence is the best testimony to the harmfulness of its own ways. It seems to be so blinded to this, though, that the best it can come up with is that any negative behaviour can only ever be indicative of how awful the real parents must have been. She told us that the Child Protection Team at the Children's Hospital, after hearing our 2-year-old son's foster parent provided list of behaviours, and after observing some of them for itself, has firmly concluded that he's been a victim of serious neglect by his real parents for an extended period of time. She, in response to my questioning, added that she'd told them that she hasn't observed any of those behaviours since his return home, but that they still insisted that those behaviours were symptoms of long term neglect. My opinion is that if our 2-year-old son began, in a very short period of time, to display behaviours typically only ever associated with long term neglect, then his foster "care" stint must have been an incredibly awful experience. Our social worker told me, during a phone call yesterday just before the CHEO CPT review, that it has been claimed that our 2-year-old son had some sort of anal tear when he was brought into foster care. She told me that she, personally, doesn't believe that we're guilty of having caused it, and asked if I could recall whether or not he was constipated that day. I couldn't remember, but told her that the only times I remember our children suffering from that sort of thing was when they switched from breast milk to solid food. What do an unexplained anal tear when he was brought into foster care, an unexplained penile laceration when he returned from a visit, and the CPT's belief that his stress-caused behaviours are signs of long term parental neglect all add up to? We've been added to the Children's Hospital's "alert list", meaning that we'll come under immediate suspicion whenever we bring in any of our children for medical care. A review, for whatever it's worth, will be held in six months. We weren't invited to yesterday's review, and I doubt that we'll be invited to the next one. They were aware of the psychologist's report, but its author wasn't at yesterday's review either. Add our alert list registration to our child abuse registry listing, and we're really in good shape! This business of being found guilty without having an opportunity to speak to the charges is really getting to me. God, in Philippians 2:14, commands that all things are to be done without murmuring and complaining. I must admit that, this afternoon, I'm having an especially difficult time obeying this directive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 09:19:46 -0500 (EST) The two week school break for Christmas and the new year has been good for our family. It's given all of our children lots of time to be around one another, and around us, on a continual basis again. There have been fewer and fewer selfishness attacks, and there has been more and more sharing, as the time progressed. Our children, upon their return home, demonstrated an unbelievable amount of affection starvation. At the outset, especially with the routine hecticness of a normal school day, it seemed beyond what we could do to accommodate this collective need. This two week break, too, has gone a long way towards helping us resolve this problem. Our children now rarely selfishly vie for our individual attention, tend to be willing to give each other turns, and often play together without insisting on our immediate presence. This foster "care" developed serious affection starvation must have been what caused the social workers, and even the children's lawyer (until she visited her clients at home), to suspect that we might be guilty of "insufficient nurturing". I don't fault the foster parents for it, especially since I've directly observed a couple of them actively work at trying to steal our children's affections. I believe, rather, that it's simply yet another symptom of what happens when children are removed from their parents and from one another. It's impossible to provide natural affection artificially. Although, when we moved, we brought along a lot of our children's clothing, we welcomed importing the clothes which were bought by the foster parents since that would save us a bit of money. We also, however, in an attempt to reduce our inventory to a manageable level, asked our children to get rid of clothing which they didn't want or felt they wouldn't use. Without any attempt on our part to dictate what stayed and what went, our children got rid of most of the clothing which was bought by their foster parents. Their reason was that they didn't want to wear things which reminded them of their apprehension. Our children still, on occasion, still launch into group CAS condemnation sessions. When this happens, I usually discuss their ordeal with them for a while, partly because they probably do need to talk about it and partly because I want to find out as much information as possible, but eventually try, with limited success, to redirect them towards an attitude of forgiveness (if only the CAS would ask for it) and compassion in light of what the eternal destiny must surely be for those who inflict such domestic strife. During one such session, our 14- and 12-year-old daughters recounted an incident which reveals, in an ugly way, the double standard which the CAS in-take workers have with respect to foster homes. Shortly after their apprehension, their in-take worker came to visit them in their foster home. While she was there, their foster father's sister walked into the room and intentionally kicked her (the worker). When she (the foster aunt) realized that she'd kicked a social worker, she apologized, explaining that she'd thought she was one of the foster children. Instead of reacting with horror and condemning the foster home, the in-take worker wrote off the incident, simply saying that it was okay. The public schools maintain demographic information on each student, including detailed information on who he's living with and who his legal guardians are. They claim that they maintain this information in order to ensure that no child is ever picked up by an unauthorized person. One would think, therefore, that a student's official records would be updated with a degree of urgency whenever a change in this area has taken place. We've discovered, however, that this isn't true. Our 12-year-old daughter told us that nothing significant would be happening on the last day before the break, and asked if she could go with us to her 6-year-old brother's class Christmas party. The school, even though it was just a few days short of a month since she returned home and handed in her updated demographics sheet, phoned her foster parents to report her absence. They eventually called us, but only because her foster mother enlightened them. I asked about the fact that she'd handed in her updated information a few weeks before, and was told that it might be in that pile of sheets which haven't been processed yet. A few days ago, I wanted to try to find out more about what went on in our 2-year-old son's foster home. I very gently asked him, therefore, just after he woke up (probably a poorly chosen time), if he could tell me what happened while he was away. He immediately became very quiet, hid his head under the sheet, and, after a few seconds, asked for a bottle. A little later, he started crying the way he did just after his return. Yet later, at breakfast, our 18-year-old daughter asked me why he was just sitting there, staring at nothing, instead of laughing like he usually does. I went to the health card office, late last week, to try to get our children's health cards straightened out (but couldn't since our children aren't officially home yet). It was there that I finally discovered our precise, rather odd, state of affairs. The eight older children are officially still in "care", but our 2-year-old son was officially returned home in November. This means that we've been declared capable of caring for the child who is the youngest and who has the most, by far, serious set of problems, but that we're officially not capable of caring for the others even though they're far less problematic. I've been wondering why the CAS hasn't officially returned the older children, and can only come up with one explanation. While it was in the CAS's legal interests to get our 2-year-old son off their hands as soon as possible, it must be that they still need to hold hostages since we haven't yet signed a settlement agreement with them. They're trying to force us to sign a bunch of unacceptable conditions. Some of them insinuate that we're guilty of things which never happened. Others force some of our children to be followed up by the Child Protection Team at the Children's Hospital, i.e. the very group of "experts" who've made seriously wrong allegations about us already. One insists that I'm incapable of caring for our children without additional adult assistance. Our next hearing (on January 9) will be another waste of time, not requiring our attendance, at which another postponement will be requested. Our lawyer met with us, late last week, to discuss the CAS's latest set of supervision conditions. He then immediately sent a letter to the CAS with our response. The CAS's lawyer has since told him that she's so busy that she hasn't had time to look at our response yet, and that she'd also need to talk to our social worker (who won't be back from her vacation until the day before the hearing). There's probably reasonably good news behind all of this. If the CAS is so busy that it doesn't have time to get to us, then we must now be fairly low on its priority list. The fact that our social worker, before her vacation, has been leaving us more or less alone, and the fact that no interim social worker was assigned to us during her vacation, would seem to indicate that, for the most part, the CAS no longer assumes that we're a high risk case. There's another sign that our social worker seems to have changed her opinion of us. She went to talk to our 14-year-old daughter, on the last day of school before the break, to further investigate her claim that her 2-year-old brother had been abused in his foster home. Our daughter, during that conversation, told our social worker how poorly foster children tended to behave. Our social worker, in response to this, told her that foster children tend to come from messed up homes, but then added that she knew that our children did not come from a messed up home. Our problem seems to be that the in-take supervisor has decided, and is unwilling to change her opinion, that I am an abusive person. She apparently thinks that my wife is okay, but that our family is not safe as long as I am around. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 01:20:39 -0500 (EST) We've not seen a visit supervisor since December 17. We still do receive a weekly hour and a half visit by the parenting instructor (which shall continue until June), but even this was suspended over Christmas (from December 19 until January 9). Our social worker has made no effort to visit us since returning from her vacation on January 8 (although, as soon as a settlement agreement is signed, I expect this to change since her job will require her to drop by with some degree of frequency). All of this seems to indicate that the CAS as an organization, aside from a few stubborn people within its ranks, no longer believes us to be abusive parents. We really do have a health card problem. We took our 6-year-old son to a routine eye checkup yesterday morning only to find that his health card, even though it doesn't bear any version code (since it's of the older vintage), wouldn't work. I was able to convince the nurse to look up the correct version code and use it, but I'm not looking forward to this ever happening when my wife is alone. The only official action taken during the hearing on January 9 (which we didn't attend) was to schedule another hearing for January 31 at 9:30am. Informally, however, significant progress appears to have been made, during its time slot, outside the courtroom. Our lawyer and the CAS people constructively discussed our problems with the CAS's demands, and actually came to a lot of mutually bearable resolutions. We're now waiting to see if this apparent success survives being put into writing. The CAS was seeking an entire year of supervision (starting as of the signing of the agreement) whereas we were wanting the end of the supervision to coincide with the end of the parenting course, i.e. in June. The CAS insisted on extra time beyond the end of the parenting course, and, eventually, October was selected as the compromise which, unless we want to undertake a nasty courtroom battle, we'll probably just have to live with. They're reasoning was that they want to be sure that we won't let things slip once we're no longer under the ever watchful eye of the parenting instructor. They don't seem to understand that this sort of reasoning is entirely bogus since, after all, we'll still be under the even more ever watchful eye of the social workers. Conditions which erroneously insinuate past misconduct on our part, e.g. that we promise to care properly for our 6-year-old son, shall be amended to bear the additional statement "as they did before the children were apprehended". Conditions of an open-ended and/or opinion-oriented nature, e.g. that we promise to provide necessary support so that our 6-year-old son won't injure himself as he learns to walk, either will become lists of explicit requirements produced by mutually acceptable experts, e.g. the staff of his school, or will be removed. The condition that I only be allowed to care for my children when at least one other adult is present will be modified to bear the qualifier that it exists because I'm blind (to avoid the insinuation that I'm abusive), to set the maximum age of children for which the condition applies at 5 or 6, and to set the minimum age of those who are eligible to offer such assistance at 12 (which, after all, is the legal babysitting age). While this is still restrictive, annoying, and, in my opinion, entirely unnecessary, it's livable, and does fit our normal state of affairs anyway. This one requires a bit of background. Four years ago, while my wife was out, I went upstairs to take an urgent phone call from work. While dealing with that issue, I missed the fact that our then 2-year-old (now 5) daughter had unlocked our back door and gone outside. A passing driver brought her in, and then reported me to the CAS. The fact that our old neighbourhood provides lots of passing drivers ample opportunity to see lots of young children running around outside without any adult supervision still seems to make me more guilty than the rest. I indeed am guilty, but the fact that others commit the same offense far more often than just once, and often deliberately rather than accidentally, points out an extremely out of balance double standard. Despite this, I'm just thankful that God had that exact driver passing by at exactly that time so that no harm came to our daughter. In its relentless search for parental perfection, the CAS is holding against me (forever, it would appear) the fact that, after 13 children and almost 22 years, I blew it once in this area. It doesn't seem to matter that I, in addition to openly acknowledging my error, took a number of steps to ensure that a similar incident would not happen again. For the record: I installed an additional lock which was higher up and more difficult to operate, I purchased a cordless phone so that I could remain amongst our children while dealing with work issues, and, in our new home, I've placed my office right near the door and also where I can very easily hear what's going on almost anywhere in the house. The only conditions which have no tentative agreement are those pertaining to the Child Protection Team at the Children's Hospital, i.e. our being on the hospital's alert list, and their insistence that some of our children have regular follow-up appointments with them. The CAS is insisting that it can't negotiate these because the hospital, being an entirely separate institution, doesn't take orders from the CAS. Our lawyer feels that all such conditions should, therefore, be removed from the supervision order, and that the hospital will have to fend for itself rather than rely on the CAS for enforcement. He's now trying to set up a meeting with the Child Protection Team, which he himself, the children's lawyer, and we will attend. If he's successful, they, for the first time, will have to face us as they make their accusations. We have no problems at all with some of the conditions, e.g. those which insist on follow-up appointments with our family doctor, those which insist that my wife continue going to play groups, and even that we continue to take the parenting course. We have no official problems with the rest, which include things like permission for the CAS to snoop in medical and school records, to secretly commune with play group staff, and to drag our children out of classrooms for private interviews, because to make any attempt to restrict this kind of harassment would likely mean sudden death. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 00:43:13 -0500 (EST) >Unless I missed it, though, you said nothing in this post about the status >of the no spanking demand. You're right. I forgot about that one. The actual wording, by the way, is far more general, i.e. "no physical discipline". They can't possibly mean this literally as worded, as it would prevent such innocent forms of discipline as taking a child by the hand and gently leading him to where he's been told, but is refusing, to go. I'll probably sign it, trust God that, for the duration of the supervision order, I won't need to do so, and, even if I find the need, maintain the spirit, if not the letter, of the requirement. What they're really trying to put a stop to is abusive spanking, e.g. hitting, shaking or choking, which are totally inappropriate, and spanking which is too severe. They, after all, are typically dealing with an unGodly populous which is known, all too often, for using physical discipline as an outlet for uncontrolled parental temper tantrum throwing. This has severely tainted their understanding of the proper use of the tool. From a logistical point of view, it's also far easier to make a general requirement which is then selectively applied to complaints as they arise. This leaves only one question, i.e. am I, before God, guilty of lying if I sign that general requirement, intending to abide by its spirit, but being prepared to selectively violate it should the need arise? I don't think it is, although it's nagging my conscience enough to be of some concern. I owe my children a proper upbringing, which includes proper discipline, and this commitment certainly exceeds any commitment to obey an unGodly requirement of an unGodly organization. The question still remains, however, whether it's wrong to premeditatedly mislead a judge. I don't want to be guilty of situational ethics. I also, however, neither can afford nor want to subject my family to the lengthy legal battle which would be required to win what really is, at least within our family, a small point. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 00:48:44 -0500 (EST) >Isn't it interesting that the CAS has not >come in to visit or snoop in all this time, but less >than a few months ago they thought you were the worst >parents in the world? Yes, it is. The difference appears to be between those who have taken the time to get to know us verses those who merely rely on reports. >I was wondering what you meant by the following: >"because to make > any attempt to restrict this > kind of harassment would likely mean sudden death." > >Sudden death? Call it poetic license. My sense is that total openness is the key to resolving the situation. Even the slightest hint of information withholding, in my opinion, would be enough to reignite their suspicious minds. Being a Biblically based person, I have absolutely no problem letting them probe anywhere. God, after all, who is my ultimate judge, already knows far more about my faults than they'll ever find out. My approach of total openness seems to have now gotten us to the point where our social worker implicitly believes whatever I say, which is quite a change from the way it was only a couple of months ago. Perhaps God is using our situation to be a living demonstration to her of the difference between the people of the world and those of His kingdom. If I ever find out that even one of those CAS people has become saved as a result of all of this, it'll make the whole thing worthwhile. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 01:50:45 -0500 (EST) Our social worker called yesterday around lunch to discuss the condition that I not be left alone, without additional adult assistance, to care for our children. She told me that she'd agree to lower the age of eligibility for adult assistance to 12 so long as she could come over on January 31 to give our older children a lecture on the fact that they needed to be helpful, and not just hanging around, whenever their mother is out. Perhaps it was misdirected self defense since I know I can look after our children well, anger at the great insult which her insinuation leveled at our older children who really do help a lot, excessive weariness at being micro-managed by ignorant people who possess the authority to impose their foolishness on one of the dearest things to my heart (my family), or some combination of these. Whatever the case, my peacefulness threshold was exceeded. I hope this wasn't a stupid lack of judgment and/or self control which will worsen the situation. I started out mildly, telling her that the condition was binding me in such a way that our family wouldn't be able to function properly. I illustrated my point by explaining that we'd be guilty if my wife returned from walking with our children to their elementary school after our 12-year-old daughter (who has the latest school start time) has to leave, and asked her if it'd really be better if, just to comply with the condition, we let our young children walk to school alone. She told me that she'd understand this sort of exception. I told her that it would be wrong for me to engage in the practice of selective obedience to the law, and asked her why she wouldn't put this sort of thing in writing. She didn't respond. I pressed the point, explaining that, no matter what kind of working agreement she and I had, it still needed to be in writing since another social worker might be assigned to us should, for example, she fall over dead. She still didn't respond. I then began to resort to a practice which I intensely dislike, i.e. self supportive statements, which is how I know that, at least somewhat, I'd lost control. I asked why the condition was in the list since my track record is excellent. I even went as far as to tell her that my track record is probably better than hers. She told me that that was quite an arrogant thing to say. I told her that it wasn't because those who know that they answer to God are always working at improving the quality of their practices, whereas those like she, who've given no indication that they recognize that they answer to Him too, have no such motivation. I then added that it's really her organization which is being arrogant by expecting others to be more perfect than they themselves are. For the record: I was being arrogant. I ought to have been, and very much am, humbled by the fact that God has so blessed our family that we so often do do the right things. This ugly display of self righteousness on my part further validates to me that my policy of avoiding self serving statements is a good one. It's all too easy to deliberately choose the sinful alternative when insufficient thought precedes ones (in this case, my own) actions. I told her that she was relying on a report full of lies regarding the time when our then 2-year-old daughter got out of our house without my immediate knowledge, and then gave her the facts. I explained that the incident had nothing at all to do with my blindness, and that it was really due to my having elected to take an urgent phone call from work. I told her that the report didn't even contain the concrete actions I took at the time to prevent a similar situation from recurring, i.e. acquiring a cordless phone, and putting a better lock on the door. I added that she should realize just how seriously I took the incident since, as she knows from having visited us in our new home, my work area is right next to the door. She commended me for having taken all of these steps, and even added one more, i.e. our front door handle has one of those infant proof covers which prevents them from being able to turn it. She continued, however, referring to yet another poor past report, that she still had her doubts since there was another similar incident which involved the police. I then gave her the facts regarding that one too. Whenever either my wife or I take out any of our children, we're very careful to inform the other regarding which children are coming along. That one time, however, way back in 1989 (I think), I didn't hear her tell me that she was taking our then 3-year-old daughter grocery shopping. Very soon after they left, I noticed that our daughter wasn't in the house, asked all of the children who were still home to assist me in a thorough search of both the house and the neighbourhood, and then personally called the police for assistance. She then commended me for having decided to involve the police. I then asked her why, given that she knew that I'd done the right things in these situations, she was still insisting on including the condition. She said that she still wanted to be sure. I told her that she was being extremely unrealistic in that she was demanding perfection. She said that she wasn't looking for perfection since she knows that no one is perfect. I asked her why then was she being so demanding. She said that she was just looking for 100% assurance. Putting these two statements together, we get a ludicrously inconsistent combination, i.e. although she isn't looking for perfection, she is looking for 100% assurance! This, to me, illustrates how blinded CAS people tend to be regarding their methods. I got fed up at this point, and launched into a lecture about how hypocritical her organization is. It was long, and is difficult to recount because of the twists and turns it took, but essentially dealt with the fact that we, who've never abused any of our children, are the ones who are on the alert lists and abuse registries, whereas they and the foster parents remain innocent even though our 2-year-old son had clearly been severely abused. She, insisting on perpetuating the hypocrisy, calmly reminded me that the incident had been investigated and that all parties were cleared of any wrong doing, and suggested that I make formal charges if I wished it to be pursued further. I told her that this was yet another example of how crooked the system is, explaining that they need only utter the word abuse in order to get as much government funding as they need to pursue innocent people like ourselves, whereas we, who have a large family to support, would run out of money were we to attempt to pursue criminals like them. She tried to end our conversation at that point by formally asking me if there was anything else I wanted to discuss. I asked her why proper care of our 6-year-old son was also a condition, especially since it would only take an interview with the Children's Treatment Centre staff to verify that we've always taken good care of him. Her response amazed me, since it had nothing to do with our past conduct. She said that it was because he was now coming from a foster home in which he was able to receive much more personal attention due to its smaller size into our home wherein he couldn't possibly receive as much personal attention due to our family's larger size. Again ... I got fed up. I reminded her how those expert foster parents, whom she believes to be so much more caring, were, in fact, guilty of physically abusing him because, on several occasions, they'd put his braces on incorrectly. She, showing her ignorance on the topic, asked me what I could possibly be meaning. I explained to her how his braces are carefully crafted to precisely fit his legs and feet, how, if put on incorrectly, they could impair blood circulation, and how the subsequent damage could easily go unnoticed until it's too late because the affected area would be concealed by socks, braces, and shoes. Showing a further inability to fully grasp the issue, she asked me how long it would take for such damage to occur. Again, as patiently as I could (which, at that point, wasn't very), I explained that that would depend on how badly the circulation was being cut off, and how, if it were bad enough, it could easily lead to a lost limb. After dwelling on this issue for a while longer, and then reminding her yet again about the CAS's severe emotional abuse of our 2-year-old son, I inadvertently handed her a clever way to end our conversation by switching the topic to our useless pile of health cards. I explained how I'd discovered this by accident when we took our 6-year-old son for his eye checkup. She asked me why I hadn't yet reported the problem to her. I answered that I've become accustomed to getting no response with bureaucratic issues of this nature. She, very astutely realizing her escape route, promptly promised that she'd look into the issue immediately, and then, very hurriedly, said good-bye. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 03:42:54 -0500 (EST) Our 14- and 12-year-old daughters returned home, in November, without their health cards, but their foster mother brought them over the next day. Our 10- and 8-year-old daughters returned home, also in November, with their health cards. This left us, for two months, with five missing health cards, and with four which bore the CAS address. Our social worker, last week, in a successful attempt to end a heated phone conversation, promised me that she'd look into the problem immediately. She promptly found the health cards for our 7- and 6-year-old sons, and mailed them to us. We received them on Monday, and I then left her voice mail to let her know that we still didn't have health cards for our three youngest children. She returned that call on Thursday, telling me that our 2-year-old son's health card was returned with his things, and that she'd ask our 5- and 4-year-old daughters' social worker to look into theirs. I told her that we didn't find our 2-year-old son's health card amongst his things, and, rather than accuse anyone of wrong-doing, I suggested that we might have inadvertently lost it since we weren't notified, at the time, of the presence of such an important document. During this conversation, she told me that she'd asked the appropriate CAS person to notify the Ministry of Health, in advance of our January 31 hearing, that our children are home (I see this as a good sign) so that we wouldn't miss the ministry's monthly deadline and be without a proper set of cards for yet another month. I don't know if that's all it took, or if the process was accelerated by the fact that a ministry person was already aware of our situation as a result of my trip there at the end of December, but, to our surprise, a complete set of all nine health cards, all bearing our new home address, arrived in the mail yesterday morning. Whatever the case, this one week (at most) turnaround for nine health cards sure beats the two months (or so) we've had to wait after the birth of each child. I learned something else, during this same conversation, when I asked her why we hadn't yet received our 2-year-old son's home health card since he was released over two months ago. She told me that he wasn't actually released, and explained that it only appeared that way since his social worker, who is new, closed his file prematurely, and that no one wanted to go through the effort to undo that procedural error. True? Perhaps. In any event, I see either possibility, i.e. whether he was released or whether no one felt motivated to reopen his file, as a good sign. As if two good signs aren't enough, there's yet a third. When I told her that I wasn't looking forward to another delay in getting our government paperwork straightened out should our next hearing fail to reach a mutually acceptable agreement, she told me that I needn't worry about that. I asked her why, adding that I don't trust the CAS in such matters. She told me that, to the best of her knowledge, the CAS lawyer had committed to honouring all of the agreements reached during their discussion with our lawyer at the last hearing, and, in fact, to use his suggested wording, verbatim, in the settlement agreement. She even confirmed her understanding that the demands of the Children's Hospital's Child Protection Team would be deleted. Assuming that this is all true, we're only left with one really awkward condition, i.e. that someone aged twelve or older must be with me when my wife is out and young children (I didn't confirm the age limit) are in my care. While violation of this condition isn't likely to happen anyway, it might. Our social worker's apparent willingness to accept short or emergency violations, and her apparent reluctance to initiate a reapprehension of our children, may get us through. We're now awaiting her visit on Wednesday afternoon wherein she wants to give our older children a lecture on being helpful. I'm beginning to wonder if this is something she really wants to do, or if it's just something she feels she has to do in order to give report readers a sense of comfort. I've alerted our children to the purpose of her visit, and told them that they're free to say anything at all which doesn't attack her personally. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 12:42:32 -0500 (EST) We signed a settlement agreement with the CAS yesterday, which means that our children are now, really, officially all home. It's not as good as we were hoping for, but, then, when you have to bargain rather than seek justice, you don't always get what you want. It's not too bad, though, and we are able to live with it. The alternative, i.e. seek justice, would involve lots of money and a long and bitter battle. While the result, strictly from a justice perspective, would certainly be more accurate, it would probably incur more misery, and last much longer, than the supervision conditions we've agreed to. It was essentially a lawyers only event. No CAS people, other than their lawyer, were there. The children's lawyer and ours were also there. So were my wife and I. The lawyers met privately to discuss some final details, and then our lawyer, knowing what we could live with, signed the agreement for us. He then came to tell us about the result. We all then went into the courtroom where the whole thing, in front of a clerk rather than a judge, was formalized. The agreement begins with a few statements (I can remember four right now) which are probably a legal requirement in order for the CAS to retain the right to request a supervision order, which sure make the CAS look justified in what they did, which I'm sure they were pleased to agree to, but which we, having no choice but to sign, consider to be a set of lies. First: The children are in need of protection. Surely "were", rather than "are", would be a more accurate statement. Even that, though, is debatable. Even if one were to take the position (as they do) that our children's health was potentially at risk, surely our history shows that they weren't in any immediate danger. The CAS could have left them at home, therefore, and "protected" them by helping us resolve the real problem. The problem here appears to be that the CAS only knows one way to "protect" children, i.e. to abduct them, and then to make it nearly impossible for them to be returned. Second: There've been several past incidents of CAS involvement with our family, this being the first one requiring protection. From their perspective, this is true. From ours, however, this one didn't require protection, most of the past ones were false, and the rest were isolated and were resolved. The only one which they could legitimately point to as being worrisome was our then 10-year-old daughter's black eye a couple of years ago. Third: Our house was unhygienic and unsafe, and this state of affairs was unexplained. We agree that it was unhygienic. We did give an explanation, however, which the CAS refuses to accept. It was not unsafe, as our history clearly verifies, although, in a society wherein people only look at external appearances and don't take the time to thoroughly understand an issue, it's easy to understand why the claim of unsafeness would be made by most. The fact is that many who live in cleaner houses than ours was tend to be sicker than our children were. The reason for this, which there's now some medical research to validate, appears to be that a person's immune system gets less exercise, and, therefore, is less developed, when there's less work for it to do. Fourth: The least intrusive means to deal with our problem was the method which the CAS used, and includes the conditions which have now been agreed to. This is simply not true. Our problem could have easily been resolved without inflicting all of that emotional, and perhaps physical, abuse on nine of our children. Furthermore, how can they call this agreement the least intrusive method when it includes lots of conditions which have absolutely nothing to do with the problem which it purports to be solving? The supervision order is for nine months. This is excessive, but our lawyer feels that it'd be too hard to argue the CAS down any more than he already has (they were asking for twelve months). A hearing has been scheduled for October 26 at 9:30am to review our compliance with the order. If the CAS has no further complaints at that time, this case will be closed on that date. Our lawyer, in order to make a point to the CAS (too bad more of them weren't there), had some fun with the court clerk (too bad she wasn't a judge who was willing to deviate a bit from procedure). Nine months from yesterday would clearly be October 31, but he started by generalizing it to "some time in October". She, looking at the court schedule, suggested October 29. He said that earlier would be better. She said "really?". He said "really!". She suggested October 26. He said that October 1 would be better yet. She asked him if he was serious. He said that he was. She said she couldn't do that. Although I did let our lawyer know our position on the use of physical discipline, I, not wanting to jeopardize the rest of the agreement, made a conscious decision, in compliance with our lawyer's advice, to not pursue the issue. I didn't even pursue it with him, deciding, rather, to leave the matter with God. God honoured that approach. Our lawyer was able, at the last minute, to have the word "inappropriate" added to the condition. We're now whole-heartedly able to agree with the condition, i.e. that we won't exercise inappropriate physical discipline. A humourous note: The wording in the agreement, if taken verbatim, only applies the "no inappropriate physical discipline" condition to six of the nine children. It doesn't apply at all to the other three, including our 2-year-old son, since they've been treated as special cases. If this agreement sets a legal precedent, then I guess the CAS thinks it's okay to spank babies! The one final point which the lawyers resolved just before the hearing was to remove all of the Children's Hospital's Child Protection Team's demands from the agreement. Our lawyer thinks we should pursue them separately (finances may not permit this) regarding their highly incriminating, false allegations, but they're not being permitted to use the CAS to force their hand. We're still agreeing to have the assessments done that they've asked for, but by the psychologist who did our assessment rather than by them. Even though this means the spending of yet more money, I believe that it's wise to be open and to show good faith in matters of this nature. My wife is to have a monthly psychological checkup, for the duration of the supervision order, to ensure that she isn't slipping back into any form of depression. Our 10- and 4-year-old daughters are to have a psychological assessment to investigate the causes of the odd behaviours reported by their foster parents. Our 2-year-old son is to have a language development assessment for an as yet unknown reason (probably because he didn't talk while they had him). In addition, our 2-year-old son is to have a couple of monthly checkups by our family physician for an unstated reason (so that the CAS can be assured that he's adequately recovering from the abuse which they themselves inflicted on him). I've agreed to not care for children 6 or under unless I'm in the company of an adult or a child 12 or over. The condition, in order to remove any doubt as to why it's there, specifically states that this is because of the limitations which my blindness imposes. While I disagree with the need for this condition, it's still probably better that they're targeting me, rather than my wife, with the only nasty requirement. If that's what it takes to keep her a little more distant from their impositional tendencies, then so be it. The conditions regarding the proper care of our 6-year-old son are still in. While I don't like the implications they carry, our lawyer insists that no one would read those implications into them since it's consistent with the way the CAS routinely does business once they get their hooks into someone. I didn't ask, and he didn't say, but it might be that he agreed to leave them in in order to get the word "inappropriate" added to the physical discipline condition. Whatever the case, we'll certainly have no trouble meeting this obligation. Finally ... the boring stuff. We agreed to continue with the biweekly parenting course (which includes an hour and a half weekly visit by the instructor) until it finishes in June, that my wife will continue to take our younger children to a specific play group, to sign all sorts of consent forms so that the CAS can snoop into records and harass professionals, and to let the CAS privately harass our children. Another humourous note: The agreement actually says that we'll continue to attend the "bimonthly" (not "biweekly") parenting course. I, wanting to sign a rigorously accurate document, pointed out this error to our lawyer. His answer was to leave it the way it is since there's nothing wrong with letting the CAS's incompetence be on full display in a legal document. Oh yes ... there's yet one more. Buried in the middle of the list, where it almost goes unnoticed, there actually is one which makes sense. While, in my opinion, all of the others are either traditional (they just always include those sorts of conditions) or a result of the CAS's suspicions of abuse, this one clearly applies to the official reason that our children were taken away. It requires us to keep our house clean. This ought to have been the only condition since it's the only one which addresses the only problem. Given that it isn't, I would at least have expected it to occupy a position of prominence, i.e. be listed first. It's really easy for the likes of me, i.e. the legally naive, to get the wrong impression when listening to courtroom discussions. I heard the phrase "no access", and immediately began to wonder if they were discussing some sort of restriction regarding contact between us and our children. Our lawyer, after the hearing, explained to me that they were simply filling out fields on a form, and that that phrase meant that there was no need to arrange for access since our children were at home. I joked with him that that was about as confusing as when a doctor tells you that you're healthy by announcing that your diagnosis is negative. When we got back home, we found out just how easy it is to violate a condition. My wife asked me if she could go get something or other from the store before our 5-year-old daughter came home at lunch. I, thoughtless person that I am, said "sure". After she left, I suddenly realized that I was now caring alone for our 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son. Although I wasn't expecting the CAS to drop by (since our social worker had already scheduled a 3:30pm visit), I still felt rather uneasy since I don't like to be dishonest. Our lawyer will be coming by on Friday evening to discuss the agreement at greater length, and to discuss what we want to do regarding the Children's Hospital's Child Protection Team, and our presence on the Alert List and the Abuse Registry. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 16:01:41 -0500 (EST) Our social worker came to visit us on Wednesday afternoon during our weekly visit by the parenting instructor. While chatting with the parenting instructor as we waited for our social worker to arrive, our 12-year-old daughter came to tell us that our 6-year-old son's teacher just phoned to tell us that he had head lice. In a moment of wrongful vengeful thinking which, in addition to being a sign of the weakness of the flesh must also have been a sign of my hatred of what the CAS has done, I joked to the parenting instructor that I should encourage our social worker to pick up our 6-year-old son to give him a great big hug in the hope that she might pick up his head lice. While I only meant it humourously, I should really work harder at not saying, or even thinking, such things. God, after all, has declared that vengeance belongs to Him and has promised that He will repay. When our social worker arrived, she gave me the last two CAS health cards, told me that our home health cards should be arriving within a month or so, and observed that at least we had health cards which would work. She apparently had absolutely no idea that we've already received all of our home health cards. I didn't tell her, partly because I didn't want to minimize the efforts she went through to get and personally deliver the CAS ones, and partly because, just in case someone, in order to get us our home cards quicker, violated a procedure, I didn't want to stir up any trouble. I did, however, thank her for having brought them. Our social worker told our children that she'd come to see how we were all doing. Our 10-year-old daughter told her that she knew that that wasn't true because I had told our children that she was coming to give them a lecture. Our social worker told her, in a cheerful and somewhat humourous tone, that she hadn't come to give them a lecture (I think she found the term a bit strong). Our daughter didn't give up, declaring that she knew from the dictionary that a lecture was a speech. Our social worker began by asking our children if any of them had any questions. None of them responded, so she suggested that they might want to know things like how often we'd be seeing her. She then answered this proposed question by telling them that we'd continue to see the parenting instructor once a week until June, that we'd be seeing her about once a month until October, and that she'd be willing to see us more often should we bring some problem to her attention and ask for her assistance in resolving it. I suspect that one visit per month is probably the minimum she's obligated to do. This, therefore, I take to be a good sign. She added that she hoped, come the end of October, to say good-bye to us and then to never see us again. Understanding what she meant, i.e. that the CAS would then remain out of our lives, I told her that I'd said something similar to a nurse once when leaving a hospital emergency room. She asked me if that turned out to be true. I told her that that'd be impossible given a family the size of ours. She laughed. One of our children told her about their 6-year-old brother's head lice. I observed that, were it not for appointments like this one, we'd be already dealing with the issue by going to the pharmacy to get the required medication. She asked me if I didn't think it wiser to verify the diagnosis first. I told her that that might make sense were our family smaller, but that I trusted his school staff on matters like this, and that, with so many young children, acting quickly in a matter of this nature is of the utmost importance. She appeared to understand. Eventually, remembering that I happened to have a lot of cash on hand that day, I gave some to our 18-year-old daughter who then went to the pharmacy for us. Our social worker then got down to business, telling our children that, given that I told them she'd come to give them a lecture, they must be wondering what that lecture was about. She told them about the condition stipulating that I be in the company of someone at least 12 years old when caring for a child who is 6 or younger. She explained to them that she wanted to talk with them about this condition to ensure that, when my wife is out, they'd be helping me rather than be off somewhere else in the house doing their own thing. She, in reference to that one incident of our then 2-year-old daughter escaping from the house, specifically told them that they should help make sure that their younger siblings don't leave the house without supervision. One of our children asked her if she didn't think they were helpful. She answered by telling them that that's not at all what she was saying, and emphatically told them that she knew they indeed were helpful. Another asked her how she knew that since she's hardly ever here. She told them that their parents have told her so, and added that she could see for herself, too, that it must be true since our house is being kept clean. One of our children asked her if she thinks that I'm incompetent just because of that one incident. She said no, acknowledged that I am competent, listed an example or two to prove that she meant what she said, and then gave what I was already beginning to expect was the real reason for her visit. She explained that she had to make sure that that incident was dealt with in case someone else asked her about it. One of our children then told her that I look after them better than many parents who can see and only have a few children. She agreed. One of our children asked her if she was requiring one of them to stay home from school should my wife have to go out during the day. She said no, adding that my wife is out with our younger children at the play groups during the day anyway. I, seeking clarification, reminded her that the play groups are only in the mornings, and asked her about the afternoons. She answered that our children shouldn't have to miss school, that she wasn't wanting to make it necessary for us to higher a babysitter, and that there's a big difference between a trip to the store and grocery shopping. She then added an interesting statement which I didn't pursue, i.e. that, for short period of time, it should be easily possible for me to know who's in the house and where they are. She was telling us, in other words, that, as far as she's concerned, short violations of the condition are acceptable. I, feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the selective application of a legal requirement, asked her how we could know exactly where the boundary is. She told me that it's her wording, that she'd be applying common sense when interpreting it, and that, as long as we put everything on the table and kept no secrets, there shouldn't be any problems. I take this to mean that, as long as we don't do anything blatantly stupid, she's willing to let us get about our normal business and to defend us before the powers that be. This is okay, the only potential problem being what might happen should we be assigned to a different social worker. Our social worker made an appointment with us, on February 12 at 9:30am, to come here so that we could sign all of those consent forms. She said that my wife needn't be here since she didn't want to stop her from going out to the play groups. The parenting instructor asked our social worker if there are any specific things which she'd like her to work on with us. She answered no, adding that her only concern was that we have an adequate household routine, involving sufficient help from our children, so that our house will remain clean. My wife pointed to the chore list (already seen by the parenting instructor) which is posted on the wall. She didn't look at it, but did ask our children how they find it. She also told them that, regardless of assigned tasks, they should each clean up after themselves rather than leave messes for the designated cleaner. That was the end of the formal discussion, and the conversation turned to other issues. Our children, among other things, continued to tease her about the state of her car. At some point, she mentioned that her children were babysat after school. One of our children (who already knew that hers are teen-aged) asked her why. She said, without giving any further details, that one of her children wasn't normal. Sensing her reluctance to freely discuss the issue, I observed that the world is a very wicked place, and then asked why, then, would anyone want to be called normal. She said that my point was well taken. Eventually, our social worker said that she unfortunately had to leave. One of our children asked her why that was unfortunate. She said that she knew it wasn't unfortunate for us. We wondered, later, if this was just her way of introducing her departure, or if she actually enjoyed herself here. On her way out, our younger children invited her upstairs to look at something. We didn't go up, and have no idea what transpired. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 16:21:55 -0500 (EST) Our social worker came by this morning to drop off seven consent forms which we need to sign in order to fulfill one of the conditions in our, now signed, supervision order. They authorize the disclosure of information and the inspection of records by our social worker with respect to each of the four schools our children attend, our family physician, the psychologist, and the play group my wife takes our youngest two children to. She seemed cheerful, and I would characterize her visit as friendly. She got here while my wife, our 4-year-old daughter, and our 2-year-old son were waiting for a taxi to go to the play group, and said that she'd have been willing to drive them had the taxi not already been called. My wife asked if she should sign the forms while waiting for the taxi. Our social worker said no, explaining that she wanted her to read them before signing them. While this is good advice, we're now so used to these forms that we no longer feel the need to waste a lot of time reading them. While discussing this with our social worker at greater length a little later, she told me that she wants my wife to become less dependent on me, less fearful of the CAS, and more used to dealing with bureaucratic processes. While skills like these definitely are assets in today's society, and while I'm not opposed to my wife making advances in each of these areas, I do think that it's a bit audacious of her to take on this task. Being an opportunist, though, I said little, and shall make the most out of the situation. To me, it's a God-provided forum. This makes the arrogance of CAS staff an entirely inconsequential matter. She noted that our 2-year-old son looks quite good. I confirmed that he's now doing very well, adding that he now sleeps in his own bed most nights. She asked where he used to sleep. I answered that he used to insist on sleeping with us. She observed that we've now almost broken him of "that habit". Her referring to our son's need to sleep with his parents as a "habit" reveals, at least to me, that she really just doesn't understand how removing a child from his home really does inflict serious emotional damage. Not feeling like stirring up trouble, though, I just added that once, when he woke up in his own bed in the middle of the night, he, rather than coming to us, went to his 6-year-old brother's bed. She thought that was cute. The consent forms state, in a brief sort of way, that they're authorizing two way communication. They also say that the agreement is based on "section 29 of the act", which she explained to be a reference to the mental health act. While none of these consents have anything to do with mental health (except the one for the psychologist), she explained that "that's the form everyone uses these days". It's probably being done this way in order to minimize the confusion resulting from having too many different forms, but it seems a bit dishonest to me since the regular form is probably more restrictive. At the very least, this practice is obscuring the difference so that an unsuspecting person, who has become too used to the process, may unsuspectingly sign a real mental health consent. She also brought an extra, blank, consent form in case, as she put it, we wanted to grant permission for her to talk to someone else who probably would say all sorts of good things about ourselves. Being more interested in truth than in deceptive pleasantries, and also being interested in promoting communication with people who are informed well enough to speak knowledgeably, I suggested that she might want permission to talk with the elders of our congregation. I didn't push the issue, however, and that blank form never got filled out. I told her that we also needed her signature in order to reestablish our child tax benefit payments. The government is now demanding, via the form, that the child protection agency verify that the children have indeed been returned. She told me that she was unfamiliar with this requirement, adding that she rarely is involved with an issue of this nature. This, to me, either means that this is a new government requirement or indicates how infrequently children are returned to their own parents. Whichever it is, she felt that she wasn't sufficiently authorized to sign the paperwork. She phoned a knowledgeable colleague, therefore, to ask, left voice mail, and is still awaiting the answer. Since the forms were all filled out except for the authorizing CAS signature, I let her take them with her. She promised to mail them once they're appropriately signed, and to let me know when that has been done. In order to reapply for all of the nine children who were abducted, and to accurately specify each of the different return dates, we had to fill out three main forms and two extensions. After all of that, and in order to recover as much of the money as possible, I sure hope that specifying the real return dates (which began the extended home visits), rather than the legal return date (of the settlement agreement), was the right thing to have done. I mentioned this to her, and she assured me that it was. My concern that all of these forms might be rejected because of a potential misunderstanding regarding the data contained therein reminded me of another bureaucrat story from our past which I proceeded to recount to her. When our 6-year-old son was born, we, as dutiful citizens of this country, filled out a birth registration form for him. When we got down to "birth place of father", we filled in "Burnaby, B.C.". We ten, upon noticing the "province" column, crossed out "B.C." in the previous column and filled in "British Columbia" in the right place. This minor uninitialled alteration was sufficient to cause the birth registration to be rejected. I was tempted to send in a rejection of the rejection, but, instead, just ignored the whole thing for a while. About a year later, we received a letter from the government calling us national criminals, and threatening imprisonment, for failing to register the birth of one of our children within ten months of his birth. She, seeing the humour in this, asked me if I was getting used to being on various criminal lists. Rather than directly answer her, I recounted yet another story. Way back in 1982, when we moved out of an apartment, the land lord decided to do some routine repainting, carpet cleaning, etc., and wanted us to pay for it. Even though he knew where we were (since we'd mailed him, in a return addressed envelope, our last month's rent), he waited for a whole year and then sent a collection agent after us. I had a long discussion with the collection agent wherein we worked out what we probably did owe the land lord, and, while I let the collection agent make a bit of a profit, we made sure that the land lord wouldn't get any more than was his due. I thought that was the end of it, and, as is my custom, forgot about it. Three years later, we made arrangements to purchase our previous house. The mortgage broker almost turned us down, citing the fact that we'd been sought by a collection agent in the past. It took me a while to remember what he was referring to. Fortunately, after I told him the story, he had a good laugh and removed it from those factors which he was considering. When making arrangements to buy this house, I, in order to avoid surprises, told the bank about the previous incident. They looked, but could no longer find any record of the collection agent business. I guess these things are actually removed after sufficient time elapses. I even told her why the land lord was so mean to us. Once, when the fire alarm went off, and after all of us tenants went down the stairs and waited in front of the building, the superintendent turned off the alarm and then went himself to look for the potential fire. I told him later that he should have left the alarm on, should have waited for the fire department to look for the problem, and should have made the successful evacuation of all of the tenants his sole concern. He told me I had no right to tell him how to do his job. I told him I had every right since my family lived in his building. Since he didn't listen to me, I called his boss (the property manager). All she did, however, was defend him. I, therefore, called the fire marshall, who, the very next morning, dragged both of them into the building office and lectured them for at least an hour. While discussing all of this, I told her about two more consent forms which we are sending to the government so that my wife and I can freely discuss each other's tax information. I told her how meaningless marriage has become to the bureaucrats, and, as a result, how frustrating it was for me to try to get our child tax benefit problems straightened out since they're always paid to the mother. She told me that she understood, and then recounted an incident wherein she wasn't allowed to sign something related to her husband's purchase of a car. I told her how, to make my wife's life easier, I made sure that both our old and new houses were in both our names, but added that this, too, complicated things since we then both had to sign every document pertaining to the sale and the purchase of property. She observed that it's like that all over the place these days. I told her that, insofar as I knew, there still is one place which isn't like that, i.e. the bank. Our bank accounts are still in both of our names, but any action only requires one signature. She asked if our old house has been sold yet. I answered that it has been as of January 26, and observed that the mortgage payments for our new house have now been reduced to half of their initial value. She noted that that should be a great relief to us. I said that it was, but added that finances were still tough because my plan to pay off the rest with stock options (the latest thing high tech firms bribe their employees with) has been, at least temporarily, thwarted since their share value has dropped so drastically during the last few months. I didn't tell her the whole truth, however, i.e. that we're now, due to the mortgage, living at a deficit with almost all of our savings used up, for fear that that would stir up more CAS involvement. Our financial situation should approximately level out once our child tax benefit payments are restored. If the company stock goes back up again, it still is my plan to use those funds to get rid of the mortgage altogether. Rebuilding our savings will have to wait. She asked how our 4-year-old daughter is doing in junior kindergarten. I told her that it often makes her very tired, and that, were she in a public school class, we'd probably remove her because it'd be no more than a very expensive babysitting service since the public school teachers don't take teaching seriously enough. She told me that she wasn't prepared to discuss the inadequacies of the public school system. I told her that it should be obvious since the public school treats children as biological accidents descended from apes whereas the Christian school treats them as people created in God's image who need to be trained for service in His Kingdom. She asked if my wife had native status. I told her that she may have, and, if not, that she probably is eligible since her mother had it, but that we've never pursued the issue. She encouraged me to look into it, explaining how that could save us a lot of money with respect to sales tax and post secondary education. She illustrated her point by describing how the showing of a status card made a big difference when she took native children assigned to her shopping for clothes. She asked if we've received written notification regarding our provincial child abuse registration yet. I answered that we haven't. She again noted that it was a process she couldn't stop, but added that she'd be willing to accompany us to an expunction hearing (implying, without actually saying it, that she'd testify favourably on our behalf). She said that we wouldn't have to pay a lawyer since such hearings are, more often than not, private discussions between the registree and the people conducting the hearing. I, in reference to the Children's Hospital's Child Protection Team, told her that I wouldn't dare go to such a hearing without a witness since we've already been the victims of enough deceit at the hands of unobserved experts. She asked if our lawyer had managed to arrange a meeting with the Child Protection Team yet. I answered that he hasn't. She said that she knew he intended to do that as a priority item, and then wondered if they were "stone walling him". I believe that her willingness to use this kind of terminology reveals that even some CAS people question the actions and the decisions of that team of experts. She then volunteered a piece of information which lends further credibility to this theory, i.e. she told me about someone (I forget both his name and his occupation) who once asked the CAS about "the medical mafia at the Children's Hospital". She told me that she has to update that "plan of service" document which was initiated back in September by the in-take people. I said, "oh, that stupid thing". She said that the government has mandated that it be reviewed every six months. I said that I was referring to its contents, and not to it itself. Although she didn't say so, she seemed to agree that it, in its current form, is more of an annoyance than it is useful. She referred to how repetitive it was, said that we've already complied with most of it, and seems to want to update it with useful items which won't be offensive to us. She'll be returning next Monday (February 19) at 1pm to do this, and to pick up the signed consent forms. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 17:11:09 -0500 (EST) Our social worker came by, as previously scheduled, last Monday (February 19) at 1pm. I must be getting fairly relaxed about our situation at this point since, although I made my notes that same day, it's only now that I'm actually writing about it. Another similar sign is that I've started to enjoy doing my job again, i.e. I can devote a proper amount of attention to it, and it doesn't tire me. I think that I'm only now beginning to realize just how preoccupied I'd become with the comfort, rescue, and restoration of our children. For the first time (other than when her car failed in December) she was late, arriving at about 1:10pm. I told her that it was good that she was late since it gave me time to finish my lunch (which I was actually still eating). I then took my time in order to give my wife some time to get used to talking to her on her own. While they waited for me, my wife asked her how often she had to go to the play group to meet the requirement of regular attendance. There are three issues behind this question. First, our 4-year-old daughter, after a morning at the play group, is often too tired to go to school in the afternoon. Second, my wife has to take a taxi to and from the play group (about $10 each way) in order to spend a reasonable amount of time there yet get back in time for our 4-year-old daughter to have lunch and be ready to go to school at 12:30. Third, being out of the house every morning, and using the time between lunch and the end of school as a much needed time for some rest, is cutting too deeply into housekeeping time. Since our 4-year-old daughter only goes to school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I've been trying to encourage my wife to feel comfortable with only going to the play group on Tuesday and Thursday. This, to me, would still be regular attendance, but would give her more reasonably free time at home. She would also neither have to rush home nor feel obligated to take taxis. She, however, still fearing the worst, was afraid that such a big cut back in play group attendance might result in the reconfiscation of our children. Our social worker's answer, by the way, was the right one, i.e. it's up to us. We asked her about the supervision condition requiring our 2-year-old son to initially have monthly checkups by our family physician. Knowing that that condition was put there to ensure that our son was adequately recovering from mistreatment by the CAS, I asked if that condition really applied to back when he was returned, and, therefore, is no longer applicable. She agreed, although a short discussion followed about our taking him for a checkup should we feel the need. She suggested it. We said that we of course would. She said that she knows we would. Our social worker asked us how we were doing in our battle with the head lice. We told her that we were still finding nits in some of our children's hair, and of the cancellation of our now 9-year-old daughter's birthday party two days earlier. We also told her that the parenting course, scheduled for the next day, had been cancelled because, among other things, another family was also having problems with head lice. She observed that they must be going around these days since her supervisor knows of someone else who also has them. She asked us if we'd received our health cards yet. I confirmed that we now have all of them, but still said nothing about how unexpectedly soon they'd arrived. She told us that she'd mailed our child tax benefit forms for us, and that it turned out that she herself was able to, and did, sign them. We told her that we hadn't yet signed the consent forms since she wanted both of us to sign whereas each form only allowed for one signature, and because they needed the signature of a witness. She told us that we should just put both of our signatures in that single place. We then did so, and she signed as the witness. She took out her updated "plan of service" document, and summarized for us the changes she'd made to it. We then both signed it, even though we didn't carefully read through it first. Time will tell whether this was, or was not, a good thing to have done. My wife is still a bit worried about it, whereas I was, and still am, willing to gamble a bit. Our social worker seems to be treading the fine line between keeping the CAS bureaucrats happy and making our lives as simple as possible given the current circumstances. Assuming that this is true, I didn't feel like showing a lack of appreciation by subjecting her work to ruthless criticism. She again commented on the repetitive nature of the original document, adding that she didn't know why it was that way. I'm somewhat surprised by this because my expectation is that she, by now (after thirteen years), must be so used to the way that the in-take people prepare them that she'd hardly give their style a second thought. It's possible, I suppose, that this was just her subtle way of telling us that she felt the in-take people had been a little too harsh with us. Another possibility, of course, is that ours was an atypical plan of service document. If so, it may be that the in-take people, in their zeal to produce a larger document for greater effect, but without much to go on, felt that reiteration was better than nothing. She changed all of the requirements for psychiatric follow-up to reflect the fact that we've retained a psychologist. While telling us about this one, she interjected several comments which reveal that she's genuinely satisfied with our choice. She changed all of the requirements for a family support worker to reflect the fact that we're attending the parenting course, and that it's instructor visits us privately (almost), i.e. when most of our children are at school, as well as when all of our children are at home. She now comes every Wednesday afternoon for an hour and a half. She alternates between getting here at 1pm (when only our 2-year-old son, 5-year-old daughter, and 20-year-old son are here) and 3:30pm (about when the rest of our children return from school). She added that my wife and our children are to get their native status. I'm fascinated by this one since it has absolutely nothing to do with solving any problem. I think, however, that I know why she did it. She reminded us, yet again, that native status would be a good thing to get since, according to her understanding, we wouldn't have to pay sales tax, and our children's post secondary education would be covered. She then gave what I think is the reason that she added it as a goal. She knows that my wife has a hard time dealing with bureaucrats, but she also knows that those bureaucrats might not be willing to discuss my wife's personal information with me. She also knows, however, that they would be under an obligation to talk with her. She has, in other words, used the process to enable her to assist us should that become necessary. We've always had a problem with this native status thing, i.e. it's not our nature to expect something for nothing. In the end, however, it can't hurt to have it since having it doesn't necessarily mean abusing it. Whether or not we elect to use its benefits in any individual case will still remain an individual decision. Perhaps, since we actually spend very little on non-necessities, and since it's all entirely legal and promoted by the government anyway, we should just consider the benefits of native status to be a gift from God which He has chosen to allow us to be eligible for in order to help us with the enormous financial expense of raising the large family which He has given us. She added that my wife is to become less dependent on me. While, to be accurate, a husband and wife are, in ways she may not be considering, totally dependent on one another, I know what she means and am not opposed to the goal. That, after all, is exactly why I took my time finishing my lunch even though I knew she was already here. She ammended the requirements that we provide our children with a clean and safe home with statements to the effect that we now have a home which is large, is spacious, meets our needs, is maintained, etc. She added, although it's not written down, that she was pleased to have been told by the parenting instructor that we did our chore list on our own, i.e. without her help or motivation. We told her that our children were themselves very much invovled with its development. She finished by asking us if there were any goals which we'd like to add. I told her that I wasn't in the business of making things more complicated, but then added that we should add one which would get the CAS to help us pay for its demands. She said that the CAS wouldn't cover our legal expenses, but left open the possibility that it may yet consider helping us pay for those psychological assessments of our children which they've requested. I told her that I was still waiting to see what my medical plan would cover, and that I may yet get back to her regarding this issue. This decision, of course, would ultimately be made by someone else, so, while it's an avenue which may need to be tried, I don't hold out much hope. To drive home to her just how little money we have for those significant, unexpected, unwanted, obligatory expenses which the CAS has foisted upon us, I told her a little about what our legitimate expenses are like. I started off with the cost for my wife to take a taxi to and from the play group each day. I then added on-going costs like groceries, and our water and electricity bills. I then added one-time costs like the addition of a second washer and drier, and the installation of a high-performance hot water tank. With official business being over, our social worker officially turned her attention to watching our 5-year-old daughter play (although I'm sure she'd been watching all along). Our daughter, at that moment, was playing with a toy which is a replica of some TV character or other. Our social worker asked her if she knew what its name was. Our daughter said that she didn't (not bad, I'd say, for a young child who's just spent several months in a foster home). I reminded our social worker that we don't have a television, and observed that that was a good thing. She observed that there are a few good channels, and then proceeded to name them (history channel, learning channel, ...). I told her that the majority of the channels were still bad, and, therefore, that TV, cable, and all that are far too expensive for so little true value. I also told her that it's better to teach children to read books, use the library, etc., in order to be free from the restriction of only being able to learn whatever happens to be on those few good channels at the time. Our 5-year-old daughter continued to play, tell our social worker things, and show her things which she's made. We, using our 20-year-old son's rugby-induced afflictions as a bridge, recounted a number of the injuries which our children have had, giving her the real stories behind them. Upon our mentioning of a couple of accident prone strings in our 14-year-old daughter's past, she told us that, based on the visit reports, she guessed that our 7-year-old son is a handful all on his own. We agreed, but told her that he's okay as long as he has something useful to do. My wife told her about how he has, at least for the moment, become interested in learning how to make simple meals, and I told her about how he, entirely on his own, was able to put together a set of shelves after watching his 20-year-old brother assemble the first set. She seemed to be impressed, but added that we should always make sure that he's adequately supervised. We then discussed the importance of not discouraging a child who shows an interest in doing good things. Our 2-year-old son was asleep when our social worker arrived. He woke up shortly thereafter, and, finding himself alone, started to cry softly. My wife went up to get him, and he resumed his nap as she held him. At one point, when my wife had to sign the consents, I took him from her. Our social worker commented on how well he stayed asleep during the transfer. Eventually he woke up again, sat up, got up, and went to play with his 5-year-old sister. Our social worker commented on how well this transition took place, i.e. he woke up quietly, got up slowly, walked over to his sister calmly, and then the two of them just started playing together without delay and without incident. Our social worker left around 2:50pm. She told us that she was going home, rather than back to work, because, for some reason which she told us but I no longer can remember, the "care giver" (a term which I hate) for her child was unavailable that afternoon. She also told us that she knew it was time for my wife to go to the school so that she could walk home with our children. P.S.: Way back in October, when we went to the first session of the parenting course, there was a lady who said that my wife was the last person she expected to see there. This lady and her husband were there because their 1-year-old daughter (their only child) had been apprehended. They haven't been coming to the parenting course since Christmas. We wondered, and suspected we knew, why, since it's highly unlikely that the CAS would allow anyone to stop in the middle of a course. We met her husband in Carlingwood today, and now we know. On December 27 (what a Christmas gift!) the family court, after having had them assessed by the Family Assessment Clinic, declared them to be incapable of ever being adequate parents. Another tragedy of the system! May God bless their poor child wherever she's been marooned. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 19:06:31 -0500 (EST) We had an appointment at our (now) 7-year-old son's school a couple of days ago, i.e. Thursday, at 12:00 to review his progress. We brought our 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter along. Our social worker was there too. I'm not sure if they (the school) invited her or if she invited herself. We did know in advance, almost by accident, that she'd be there because, a couple of days earlier (Tuesday), my wife met her at the school after walking there in the morning with our children. During that encounter, she told my wife that she'd be at the meeting, and offered to drive us if we'd give her a call. We didn't, perhaps partly because we have a tendency to resist CAS help of any kind, but also partly because we enjoy talking with our children while on long bus rides, and partly because we wanted to get there early in order to spend some time with our son during his lunch break (which began fifteen minutes before the meeting). We did, however, accept her invitation, after the meeting, to drive us home. Our social worker, during the meeting, took a vast quantity of notes but said very little. Our two children, on the other hand, after eating (during the meeting) the lunch we'd bought for them, became fairly energetic, and began to talk and play with each other. The occupational therapist eventually went and got some crayons and paper for them, and they began to colour. Our social worker commented later on how well they shared. She also got to hear our 2-year-old son, the one who's required to have that speech development assessment, talk quite a bit. She even talked with him after the meeting, and didn't appear to have any trouble understanding what he was saying. I hope she also noticed that his intonation is quite expressive. While reviewing the requirements brought forward at the previous meeting (in the fall), a point came up which was not brought to our attention at the time (even though we were invited to a special meeting at the time in order to inform us regarding what took place). The school staff had recorded the need to monitor our son's emotional well being. I'm not sure if this is something which is always done when a child is in foster "care", or if it's indicative that he really was giving them cause for concern. I do know that his teacher told us that he, as well as his legs would permit, practically leapt into her arms when he told her, on his last day away, that he was going home that afternoon. Whatever the case, the principal made it very clear that that was the first time that such a requirement had been made, that it was during the time that he was in foster "care", and that there didn't seem to be any cause for concern now. The fact that we're getting a special table and chair for our son to do crafts, homework, etc., was mentioned. Our social worker, after the meeting, asked us if our insurance would cover that cost. I told her that it wouldn't, but, since they'll be made by the school's volunteers, it'll only cost about a hundred dollars which means that we can afford it. She said something to the effect that she wished she were in a financial situation which would permit her to spend that amount of money whenever an unscheduled need arose (two incomes, only two children, I don't understand). I didn't bother telling her that we really can't afford to do it these days either, but that, on principle, I'll do it anyway. She then told us that the CAS has money put aside for special needs such as this, and offered to use it to cover the cost. Perhaps, if I can determine that such assistance comes with no strings attached, I'll take her up on the offer, partly because we really could use it, and partly because it'll give her an opportunity to do something nice for us. I'm just too used to working for what we need, and, in accordance with that principle, making sacrifices when necessary in order to afford that which is truly needed. The problem with that approach, given that the CAS is now closely watching us, is that doing without something may be perceived by them as evidence that we are unable to meet our children's needs. This business of trying to properly raise spiritually sound children while being assessed by materialistically minded authorities is not easy. Our social worker talked and played with our children while we talked with the occupational therapist after the meeting. She then helped get them ready, and we all walked together to her car for the drive home. As she drove, she observed that our children were very active, surmised that this must make my wife very tired, and wondered how soon after they go to bed my wife falls asleep. She said that, were it her, she'd be out like a light in only a few minutes. I guess she's beginning to get an appreciation for what it's like to be a parent of so many lively children, and of how easy it is for us to fail to live up to the expectations of those who haven't got a clue regarding what it entails. She told us that she and the parenting instructor have been passing notes back and forth (I wonder what they contain), and that she'd like the two of them to come by during the day, when its quiet, to talk with us. She also wants to come by, soon, during the evening to watch how our house cleaning routine works. I don't know how this latter one is going to work since cleaning and child bed time activities are overlapped, since, therefore, the whole thing takes several hours, and since it'll all get messed up if she's here since our younger children, with a visitor in the house, probably won't want to go to bed. In addition to these, she told us that she'd be meeting with the psychologist the next day (Friday). She told us that she'd invited the parenting instructor to attend also, but that she declined since it was a P.D. day for at least one of her children. She asked if the psychologist already had a copy of the Children's Hospital's reports. I told her that I didn't know. She told me that, if he didn't, she wouldn't be allowed to give them to him. I don't know what she expected this meeting to be for, but the fact that she'd invited the parenting instructor to go along has me wondering. I do know, however, what I hope happened. I want to know, once and for all, the specifics regarding what the required assessments of our children are to cover. I don't want, after all, to pay for a bunch of expensive general assessments, only to be told, after the fact, that more are necessary. Our 4-year-old daughter (one of the two children who supposedly need a psychological assessment), with no apparent external stimulous to do so, started to repeatedly, and rather loudly, say "I love my mommy and my daddy". Our social worker didn't say anything about it, but there's no way she didn't hear it. I hope she noted the inconsistency between this behaviour and the claims of the child protection team at the Children's Hospital that there is clear evidence that she's suffered from long term parental neglect. P.S.: Our child tax benefit payments have resumed. The good news is that the amount owed to us from the time the children were returned until now exceeded the amount which we owed due to the delayed stoppage in payments last year. The bad news is that the capital gains which resulted from the sale of the after tax part of my employee savings plan in order to make the downpayment on our new house exceeded my refund. With not too much money left, we now owe the government about five thousand dollars. On top of that, we also owe the city about four thousand dollars in property taxes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 14:31:23 -0400 (EDT) I overheard a murder plot today, and was told to shut up and mind my own business. During the break in the middle of this morning's parenting course session I overheard one of the mothers telling one of the instructors (the one with whom we deal) that she was planning to abort her unborn child because, should she bear her child, she'd be unable to go to school and would have to remain a stay-at-home mom for at least the next couple of years. The parenting instructor's response was that the mother would have to carefully consider all of the alternatives, and that it would be wrong for her (the instructor) to impose her own values on the situation. Did I get angry? You bet I did! I sought every opportunity during the remaining hour to, without revealing to the others what I'd overheard, challenge the evil deed which that mother was planning to perpetrate. There was a list on the wall which showed at what ages various stages of child development should be expected, so I suggested that they add an age range for unborn children since they, too, are under-going very significant development. When we were asked at what age we should expect a child to be able to suck through a straw, I commented that that's exactly how "doctors" vacuum out an unborn child from his mother's womb. When we were asked at what age a child begins to copy what others are doing, I answered that even adults do that, giving as an example the fact that adults read in the media that it's okay to abort their unborn children so they go ahead and do it. Whenever, as happened on a few occasions, comments were made which hinted that life begins at birth, I threw in a firm declaration that life begins at conception. After the session, I deliberately aggravated the situation by talking with our 4-year-old daughter about the cruelty of those who kill their children before they're born. The mother who was planning the evil deed came back into the room and asked me what I meant. I told her that unborn children were people, and that it was wrong to kill them. She told me that I didn't understand, that I had no right to make such judgments, that she was pregnant, and that her child would kill her (what a statement when, given the content of the discussion I overheard, the only issue was that she wouldn't be able to go to school for a couple of years). Without revealing how much I knew, I told her that that was no excuse to commit murder. She didn't respond, and left the room. After everyone else left, I challenged the parenting instructor regarding the issue. Not being ignorant of the motivation behind my earlier public remarks, she took a really good look around, to ensure that we were entirely alone, before she allowed our conversation to begin. I asked her what counsel she'd give me if I were to tell her that I felt like killing our 2-year-old son should his behaviour become more than I could handle. Without answering that question, she said that she knew what I was getting at. Allowing that, for the moment, I asked her why she just stood by, effectively lending her approval, when that mother told her what she was planning to do. She told me that I must have been listening to a conversation which was none of my business, and that it was wrong of me to do that. First of all, although I didn't remind her of the fact, I, during the conversation between that mother and her, I purposely repeatedly said, loud enough for both of them to clearly hear, "it's murder, it's murder, it's murder". In doing this, I not only let them know that I was overhearing them, but also let them know exactly where I stood on the issue. If, therefore, she wishes to accuse me of having intentionally listened to something which was none of my business, she doesn't have a leg to stand on. It's really she who, in response to my deliberate warning, didn't seek out a different, more private, place to continue their conversation. In response to her attempt at issue avoidance by telling me that I shouldn't have been listening, I told her that I, unlike she, am not afraid to face even the most controversial of issues. I reminded her that this, being a parenting course, wasn't merely an every day kind of place where the issue of killing unborn children might be discussed. I pointed out how the intent of the course is to teach parents how to take care of their children more responsibly, and observed that the killing of a child is among the most irresponsible acts a parent could engage in. She, again not directly dealing with what I was saying, told me that she knew how strongly I felt about abortion. I told her that it has nothing to do with how I feel, but, rather, that it has to do with what's right and what's wrong. I then again reminded her about my question regarding the planned killing of an ornery 2-year-old. She, finally getting a bit emotional, said that there's a difference, and then asked me what that difference was. I answered that the only differences involve things like where the child is, and whether or not he can be seen. I then pointed out that minor differences like these really mean that there's no difference at all. She insisted that there was, told me that I knew what it was, and reiterated her previous question. I insisted that there's no difference. She said that the killing of a child who has been born is immoral, and again demanded that I answer her question. I told her that she was probably referring to the fact that abortions are sanctioned by the state, but then added that that didn't make them right. I pointed out how our government has enacted a lot of stupid laws, and observed that it's never right to just blindly trust its decrees. She told me that I clearly had missed a lot of what she'd said to the mother. I told her to please correct me then, as, if I were wrong, I'd be glad to give her a full apology. She said that she didn't expect an apology. I said that, since I'd just accused her of a very serious misdeed, i.e. the sanctioning of the premeditated murder of a child, I most certainly did owe her a huge apology if I were wrong. She then told me what I already knew, i.e. that the mother would have to carefully consider all of her options and their consequences, but that she herself would be unable to make any decisions for, or impose any values on, her. I told her that that was consistent with what I'd understood, and, therefore, that she, especially in her role as one who trains parents to responsibly care for their children, had ultimately failed since she, when confronted with the fact that a child was about to be snuffed out of existence, failed to take steps to protect him. She then said something (I forget exactly what) to the effect that she no longer wished to discuss it. I told her, "I know, you just don't want to face the issue". She remained silent. I left. One of the other instructors, who had the job of driving us home, saw that I was having some difficulty finding my way along the narrow walk between the plants and the house, which makes a couple of sharp turns, on my way to her van. She came to offer me some assistance, and I explained that I wasn't paying proper attention to where I was going because I was angry. Once in her van, I asked her how a parenting instructor could lend support to the murdering of a child. She said that she didn't know what I was talking about. I told her that one of the mothers had revealed that she was planning to abort her unborn child. She said that she didn't remember that as being an issue which was raised during the course. I told her that it wasn't, that it came up during a hallway discussion during the break, and that I'd been told to mind my own business. She asked me if that's what I'd stayed behind to talk to the other instructor about. I said yes. She said that she couldn't discuss it since she didn't know all of the details. I told her that she didn't need to since the concept is sufficient to make a determination. She didn't say much for a while, so I just kept on talking. I don't remember everything I said, but it included things like that it would be wrong for me to want to kill my 2-year-old even if his behaviour were so bad that it drove me to tears, and observed that the CAS would be right, given such a circumstance, in removing my children from me and placing them in a better home, but that that mother will be declared responsible for ending her unborn child's life. I asked her how, especially at a parenting course, could such an uncaring attitude be shown toward a child. She said that this course was only concerned with children after they're born. I said that, in any other circumstance, it would be wrong for anyone to fail to notify the police were he to overhear a murder plot. She said, "I knew how strongly you feel about abortions, but that's all I know". I told her that she, too, was among those who just didn't seem to care. I added that, while I may be unable, for the time being, to do much about what the CAS has done to our children, I may well be able to do something about this. She then tried to engage in small talk with my wife, which I appropriated for the issue at hand. When she said that it was a beautiful, warm, spring day, I interjected that it wasn't, but, rather, that it was among the coldest of winters, adding that the mothers who plan abortions have cold hearts, that the doctors who assist them have cold hearts, and that all those who won't intervene have cold hearts. When she said that it was a nice day to spend some time outside, I said that it was a nice day to write an article. When my pager beeped, she noted that that was the first time that had happened while she was driving us. I told her that it was also the first time I'd overheard a murder plot no more than ten feet (actually, it was more like twenty) from me and was told by the authorities to keep my mouth shut about it. May God grant that my boldness won't ultimately turn someone, i.e. the parenting instructor, who has clearly tried very hard to help us, into an enemy, and, as a result, do something which might place our children in danger of reabduction. Whatever happens, all I know is that I just couldn't sit back and say nothing in an attempt to maintain the stability of my own situation. What an evil world we live within! How glorious it'll be when God finally declares that my assignment herein is complete. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 06:29:38 -0400 (EDT) I discussed the issue of the mother at yesterday's parenting course who wanted to abort her child with my pastor later that afternoon. He gave me good advice, reminding me, among other things, that mothers like these need to be given constructive and wholesome alternatives so that they have a proper framework within which to say no, and that, especially in matters like these, what I say should not fail to reflect the compassion which I feel (for the mother). I must say, though, that I neither felt, nor yet feel, any compassion whatsoever for the instructors, who, given their position of authority, the implicit trust which is bestowed upon them by the course participants, and their supposed deep level of caring for the well-being of children, did what amounts to nothing, or, worse, through their silence, actively encouraged, this frightened mother to proceed with her plan. Perhaps the instructor just didn't get it, but it seemed pretty clear to me that the mother had some misgivings about her plan, and was either seeking her approval or hoping that she'd help her find another answer. Apart from having had doctors ask us if we wanted our 22-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter to be aborted, yesterday's parenting course session was the first time that I've ever found myself directly confronted with the issue. With the course sessions only being every two weeks, with my inability to contact the mother at any other time due to the anonymity imposed by all such systems, and with the possibility that she would carry her plan to fruition fairly soon (she told the instructor that she already had an appointment which she had no intention of canceling), I hastily made the decision to do as much of what I thought I could get away with as I could during the precious few minutes which were available. This, perhaps, was one of the few times in my life wherein I panicked. I knew that it wasn't really the right place to deal with the issue, and I also knew that, in many ways, I lack the tactfulness to deal with difficult issues in which my first hearing may be the only one I'll ever get. In spite of my knowledge that I probably wasn't the right person for the task, however, I still couldn't get away from the nagging realization that I might be the only person who disagreed with her plan and is also bold enough to say something about it whom she might hear from in time. I hope that my haste and inadequacy didn't do more harm than good. I've left the parenting instructor voice mail late last night regarding this issue, since she's my only hope of getting a message to the mother. I hope that she'll listen to it with an open mind, being as I suspect I got her rather angry with me too. Using, as a queue, her statement yesterday regarding the fact that she felt I'd misunderstood what she'd said to the mother, I began it by saying that I suspected that, although she probably felt herself professionally bound in ways which prevented her from properly dealing with the issue, she probably had as much distaste for it as I do. Several weeks ago, in the privacy of our home, I had a discussion with her regarding the weaknesses of a child protection system which seeks to correct bad parental behaviours while believing that the attitudes which drive those behaviours should never be challenged. During that discussion, she suggested that perhaps I should try to find a way to encourage the CAS to become interested in seeking ways to direct their clients to spiritual counselling. I continued, therefore, by saying that I think it was she, some time ago, who suggested that spiritual counselling may be a good additional approach to use when trying to properly resolve parental problems. I then offered that, were the mother willing, and should she not be too offended by the things I said yesterday, I'd be willing to talk peacefully with her in a private setting. I concluded by telling her that my pastor is very willing to speak with the mother regarding this issue. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 09:54:11 -0400 (EDT) The parenting instructor called on Monday morning to reschedule her home visit next week. Her reason for wanting to do this was that our social worker had requested a time when the two of them could come by together. She said that she didn't know what our social worker wanted to discuss, but that she, with our social worker present, wants to determine what she should be working with us on for the remainder of the course. The only time the two of them have free is Tuesday morning at 10. This turns out to be an ideal time for us since it fits in very well with the plans of my mother and sister, who'll be visiting Ottawa, and, of course, us, next week. Our social worker called Monday afternoon. She mentioned next week's joint home visit by herself and the parenting instructor, so I confirmed with her my understanding that it's on Tuesday morning at 10. She said that one of the things she wants to talk about is the content of her discussion with the psychologist last Friday. I asked her if, after that discussion, she's determined that we're a lost cause. She said, rather energetically and with her formality tainted with a bit of humour, "far from it". She also asked if she could drop by the next day, i.e. Tuesday, at the end of the day. I asked her what the purpose of her visit was, and she answered that it would be the one she'd already told me about during which she wants to watch how our children help with the house cleaning tasks. I raised my concern regarding the fact that our younger children would likely not want to go to bed on time if we had a visitor. She told me that "end of the day" meant "end of the work day", and that she was really asking if she could drop by, on her way home, shortly after 5. I said yes, although I really wasn't sure how much she'd be able to observe at a time like that since the bulk of our house cleaning takes place around bed time. My guess was that she wanted to watch how the table got cleaned up after supper. I hope she appreciated the fact that I referred to her as a "visitor", rather than as an "authority", a "spy", or some other such thing. She arrived around 5:15 on Tuesday afternoon, while my wife was still making dinner. Several of our children, expecting her, ran to the front door when the bell rang. After she came in, we ended up standing there and talking with her for the next ten minutes or so. Our 9-year-old daughter asked her if she wanted to see some sign language. She answered that she already knew sign language quite well. Our daughter, book in hand but not referring to it too often, spelled out the names of her brothers and sisters, and then did the alphabet. Our social worker made gentle corrections where necessary, and showed her the signs for a few common and useful words. She engaged in a few short conversations with our 2-year-old son, and, once again, didn't appear to have any difficulty understanding him. She also watched closely as our 7-year-old son was being his normal, playful self, jumping and half running, without his braces on, with his ever strengthening legs. He was being a little more daring than usual (I think he was showing off a bit), and fell a couple of times. This doesn't worry us because we know that he knows how to go down safely. I'm not sure, however, what she thought. There is, after all, that supervision condition about providing proper support for him, but I don't want to get into doing something out of the ordinary when she's here, even if it's only to avoid a false accusation. To me, crucial parts of his development include his getting to know his capabilities through normal play, the development of his reflexes, and not being held back by others' limited expectations regarding what he can do. She eventually asked our children if they knew why she was here. They did, but, being more interested in pursuing other issues, didn't respond to the subject change. She finally told them why she was here, and asked to see our chore list. They took her to it, and, knowing that it was just before dinner, she picked out the appropriate duty, i.e. setting the table, and asked our other 7-year-old son (who'll be eight in a few days), if he was going to do it. He made no effort to leap into action, and we made no attempt to force him. She hopefully didn't take this as a sign that he's rebellious and/or that we can't manage him. Our children just hate putting on "look how good I am" performances for others, and we don't feel like making them. The fact is that he sometimes cheerfully, and essentially on his own, makes an entire meal, including the setting of the table, of his own free will and desire. She asked my wife if she should help us "get on the case" of any of our children. My wife told her to ask me. She did, and I just observed that no children are created perfect, and confirmed that none of ours are. While we certainly don't mind it when others encourage our children to do what's right, and, therefore, while I wouldn't even mind her help, I must admit that I do suffer from a severe case of "item in CAS report phobia". She really does seem to want to constructively help, and, if she'd ever promise to not record certain things in CAS files, I might be more willing to take her into my confidence. My wife, without consciously planning it, had made an extra plateful. She asked our social worker, therefore, if she'd like to join us. Our social worker declined, and, as soon as we sat down to eat, she said that she'd come by at another time which wasn't just before dinner. She chatted with my wife for a minute or so at the door, and then left. When the parenting instructor came for her usual Wednesday visit (at 3:30 this week), she told me that she got my voice mail (regarding my offer, and my pastor's offer, to talk with the mother who wants to abort her unborn child), and that she's waiting for a meeting with her supervisor in order to discuss the issue and determine what they feel they can and cannot do. Although she seems very reluctant to do anything at all outside of the formally defined boundaries of the course, I take this as a positive sign. Perhaps she really does wish she could do something to intervene, feels powerless to do anything herself, and now does see that there are those who, without question, will do their level best to help. The only potential glitch (other than the as yet unknown opinion of her supervisor) appears to be that she's in the middle of a management change this week. It may take a while, therefore, for her to meet with her new supervisor. I hope that that mother's appointment at the abortuary is still some time away. I further hope that, imperfect as it was, my initial attempt was sufficient to cause enough conscience stimulation to procure a delay. God, of course, is in charge of this whole thing, so I'm not too worried about it. All I can do is be alert for opportunities, and then do the best I can as they become available. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 11:25:46 -0400 (EDT) Our social worker and the parenting instructor came over for their joint home visit at 10am on Tuesday. Our 12-year-old daughter had stayed home from school (for the second day) as she was quite sick with a rather nasty cold. I let them know that I, too, was also quite sick with the same ailment, in case they wanted to maintain a safe distance. Our 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter were, of course, home too. They started out by asking the two young children questions about their grandmother's and aunt's visit. Our children showed them some of the toys and books which their slightly older cousins, my sister's two sons, had given them. I don't know how much to make of it, but, when looking at our 2-year-old son, our social worker commented on how much he's grown up from a baby into a little boy. My wife and they spent some time discussing the merits of a new stain remover which she'd bought and which neither of them had heard of before. I was glad for an opportunity to prove that my wife had done something on her own, by asking what the name of the substance was, since the parenting instructor often states her belief that my wife relies on me for too many things. Eventually, our social worker got down to business by announcing that they were here to see how they could help to ensure that the CAS would get out, and stay out, of our lives. The parenting instructor then said that she wasn't sure what our social worker wanted to achieve, stated that her desire was to determine what she should be working with us on for the remainder of the course, and asked if this could be the opening topic. Our social worker agreed, and never did get around to any specific agenda that she might have had. We never did find out, for example, her take on what the psychologist had told her during their meeting a couple of weeks ago (even though she'd told me, during the phone call to arrange this visit, that that's one of the things which she wanted to discuss). The parenting instructor then began by stating what she believes to be our two main problems, i.e. that we still have a problem maintaining an adequately clean home, and that we don't follow through sufficiently when we make demands of our children. Dealing only with the former issue for the moment, we told them why that might appear to be true. We told them that it's extremely likely that, every time the parenting instructor comes over, our home isn't in the best of shape, and then proceeded to tell them why. We described the typical hecticness of our mornings before school, reminded them that my wife walks with our children to school and is then at the play group all morning, told them that she tries to get some much needed rest between lunch and our children's return from school, and concluded that it's essentially impossible for the cleanup after our early morning activities, unless we get up an hour earlier, to begin until later in the afternoon. They told us that this problem could be alleviated if others at home would help. We asked them who that might be since all of our older children are at school. Our social worker observed that I'm usually at home, and asked what I was doing. I reminded her, somewhat angrily as I couldn't believe the stupidity of the question, that I have a job to do, and that I'm busy trying to earn enough money to pay for the legal expenses and psychological assessments which were foisted upon me against my will. She then said, rather matter-of-factly, "so you're quite busy". My wife said that the only real way to solve this problem would be to hire a daily cleaning lady. Fortunately, even those two experts agreed that that wasn't financially feasible. Unfortunately, they both went on accusing us without offering any constructive suggestions. We then told them that, for the time being, we have an additional problem. We're somewhat short staffed in the evenings because our 18- and 14-year-old daughters are both spending a significant amount of time looking through everyone's hair for lice and nits. They first acknowledged the importance of this task, and then, without asking first, launched into a lecture regarding the need to reassign cleaning duties so as not to overload the two girls (as if we didn't already know that). They apparently missed the whole point. Firstly, jobs normally done by older children are now being done by younger children, which means that they're being done less perfectly. Secondly, we're still trying to maintain a reasonable balance between work and play. By the way, although we forgot to mention it, our 11- and 9-year-old daughters are also taking turns vacuuming all of our furniture and towels. To prove her point to our social worker, the parenting instructor then recounted an isolated incident wherein she saw half of a sandwich, and a bunch of crumbs, on our kitchen floor. I told her that the most likely scenario which was at the root of that one was that a school lunch (extra, not taken, forgotten, who knows) hadn't been put away, and that one of our little children, in search of a snack, had probably gotten into it after lunch while my wife was resting. She persisted in trying to make it appear as though it was a remnant of the previous day's mess, but I resisted. I insisted that it couldn't be, and, since I would have been home at the time, accepted full responsibility for not having been aware of, and dealing with, the problem. They said that that didn't solve it, and told us that all children, even young ones, must be taught to put such things into the garbage. We told them that we agreed, and that we do teach our children such things, but also added that our children aren't perfect. I told them that it'll always be possible for them to fault us for infractions committed by imperfect children, but that that ought never be used as evidence that we don't try to teach them. The parenting instructor, insisting on making her point, then recounted another isolated incident wherein our living room was a mess. I reminded her that, as we told her at the time, we weren't able to get to that one room the previous evening due to lice related activities. She mentioned that there had even been a used diaper on the table, implying, as best she could, that it, too, had been left there overnight. My wife told her that a far more likely scenario was that our 2-year-old son, who's now getting interested in using the toilet, had probably, shortly before she came, just taken it off and put it there. This developed into a second lecture on the importance of teaching our children to put such things into the garbage, as well as another one on various methods of toilet training (forget the fact that we've successfully been through this twelve times already). They asked us how we handle it when a child doesn't do a good enough job at whatever his chore is. We told them that we bring him back and ask that the job be completed. They told us that they hoped we didn't slip into the temptation to do it ourselves in order to quickly get it done right. We told them that, in general, we don't as we don't want to remove an opportunity for him to learn. I added that this approach, while being the correct one, also makes our situation look worse to an observer since it means that a mess, unknown to the observer, is sometimes left as it is for a longer period of time than one might naively expect. They then made a big deal about the fact that they expected my wife, and not I, since she can see, to be the one who inspects the quality of the work. Our social worker noticed some toys on the floor which our children were no longer playing with, and asked us why we weren't asking them to put them away. I answered that we may be up against a difference in philosophy, and that we don't believe in turning children into robots who repeatedly perform the mechanical step sequence of take, play, stow. My wife told her that our children do know how to put toys away when asked, and then recounted a play group incident wherein our children helped clean up while all of the others continued playing, and wherein ours, therefore, received a major compliment for their conduct from the leader (or whatever her title is). I told her that, in my opinion, it's perfectly okay to allow them to leave toys out for later use, but didn't bother giving her a lecture regarding how children don't always plan out their days with adult-like precision. I then added that most adults don't even behave that way, and asked her what I would find were I to go into her own office. I asked her if I would find a totally clean desk, and then answered for her, saying "maybe I would, but, then, maybe I wouldn't". She didn't answer. The parenting instructor told our social worker that she'd observed, on several occasions, our not insisting that our children comply with requests. My wife, not using the wisest terminology for the moment, told them that we didn't believe in humiliating our children in public (what she really meant is that public discipline is wrong because it achieves humiliation rather than correction). Our social worker responded by exclaiming that she hoped we wouldn't ever humiliate our children. I tried to clarify the issue by explaining that, unless the situation is really urgent, we prefer to defer matters of child discipline until we're alone. She asked me what I meant by "alone", and I told her that it meant that no visitors are present, adding that it's impossible to ever be truly alone in a family the size of ours. In addition, I told her that neither our children, nor we ourselves, felt like putting on a special performance for either of them, especially given who they are. She told us that they're only here to help because they don't want to see our home fall apart again once they're out of the picture. I told her that I found this to be a somewhat offensive statement, and asked if she thought we're merely trying to impress them. She said that she hoped we weren't doing that. I told her that we aren't, reminded her of my commitment to that effect a few months ago, and explained that I wouldn't allow such a thing anyway since I'm only interested in permanent solutions. I added that it ought to be obvious that we're not trying to impress them since we clearly don't go out of our way to tidy things up when we know they're coming over. Although I didn't say it, the fact is that sometimes, if it's too close to their expected arrival time, we leave messes just the way they are so as to avoid the appearance of wrong doing. This, of course, does work against us, but I still think that it's the better route to take. Our social worker returned to her insistence that both of them really only want to help. I told her that I really did believe her, and that, were she on her own, I'd even be willing to trust her, but that I didn't trust her employer. I explained that her employer, due to its attack upon our children and deep injury to their souls, gives her a stigma which she can't get away from, and said that I'd be glad to work with her should she not work for them. She said that that would be impossible since, were she to quit, they'd assign another social worker to us. I observed that, were that to happen, the next one would probably be a nerd, and then told her that she could take that as a compliment. To illustrate my point, I hypothesized that she, with the best of intentions, and with the greatest of accuracy, might document something which one of her colleagues might later twist. I pressed this point by reminding her how often this very thing has actually already been done to us by others within her organization. She insisted that she's very careful regarding how she documents things. I told her that I didn't quite believe that, and recounted how, a few months ago, she'd concluded that my friend from work did all of our meal preparation just because she'd seen her showing our 20-year-old son how to prepare some special food which she'd brought over one evening. She told me that it wasn't a conclusion, and that she'd merely put that possibility on the table to open it up for discussion. I told her that she had to understand how we'd take such a statement. I further explained our distrust of her employer by saying that it, at least its in-take branch, was very sick in that it seems to have forgotten what children are. By very deliberately forcing our conversation onto this tangent, I wanted to, and believe I did, achieve two things. Firstly, I wanted to make it crystal clear to our social worker that our resistance to her help is rooted in our feelings toward the CAS, and not in any way related to either her intentions or her person. Secondly, I wanted the parenting instructor to have a clearer understanding of the underlying issue, and to know that, in addition to making the occasional remark to her privately, we really do openly discuss our concerns with our social worker. I told our social worker how it appears to me that any piece of negative data, no matter how small, always seems to be grabbed onto immediately and with great fervency, whereas mountains of good data don't seem to carry much weight. To illustrate my point, I referred to the nearly two hundred hours of carefully supervised child visits which we had. She said that she didn't doubt my figure, and then explained that that was an unfortunate side effect of a system in which they're called upon to prove our guilt. I said that one of the problems with the in-take people is that they don't understand simple math, explaining that they maintain an expected number of injuries per family rather than per child. She said that that isn't quite true, and then explained that, when there are a certain number of file openings with respect to a given family (not much difference to me except that it makes it worse) then they take more intrusive action. I hate nice phrases which cover up evil deeds, so I forcefully asked just what that more intrusive action had been, and then answered my own question by declaring that it was the abduction of all of our children. Our social worker told me that I was welcome to document my concerns in a letter, and address it to the CAS's executive director (I think that's the title she used). I said that I doubt I'd get a favourable hearing since she (I happen to know that her name is Susan) obviously supports the methods which her people are using. She told me that I shouldn't prejudge her. I told her that I didn't expect the management to be too concerned with its organization's treatment of the children any more since, after having bullied the government into granting it more powers, after having such an increase in its case count, after having yet more people to manage, and with overloaded workers, it must now be preoccupied with issues like employee satisfaction. She told me that we industry types have it good, and insisted that social services organizations treat their staff like scum (she put it more politely but I can't remember how). I cautioned her that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and then asked her how, if they treat their staff so poorly, could they possibly expect their staff to treat those precious members of society, the children, properly. She didn't answer. I told her that I suspect that, in many ways, she probably regrets what's happened to us, but added that I didn't expect her to say so because she might be scared that I'd quote her. She seemed to laugh a bit. I then promised to not quote her should she ask me not to. She responded by asking "Quote who?". The parenting instructor, apparently catching one of the reasons that I'd elected to engage our social worker in this discussion in front of her, showed what I believe to be a great deal of sensitivity by saying that she worked for a different employer. Our social worker, also showing what I believe to be a great deal of sensitivity, quietly told her that she may have a different employer, but she works in the same building. My wife, near the end of our conversation, heard a suspicious noise in the kitchen and went to see what it was. One of our children had apparently gotten into some food while we were preoccupied with CAS business. She was so quiet about correcting the problem that I don't even know what happened (I never did ask). When she came back, she asked our social worker and the parenting instructor if they'd noticed that she'd properly dealt with an issue which required an immediate resolution and proper follow through. Our social worker said that she had. They then asked us if we felt that our methods are good enough. I told them that they aren't perfect, and that we're always working on improving them. They reiterated that they're both here to help should we choose to avail ourselves of them. Would that the system were sound enough that we'd feel comfortable in doing so. That ended the business portion of their visit. Some friendly discussion followed, during which our social worker told us that she'd be calling in a couple of weeks to make another appointment. They left on a happy note, i.e. as guests whose departure time had come rather than as hated intruders who were being expelled. I think they both understand that we have nothing against them as people, that we even kind of like them, and that we actually do trust them. I think they also understand, however, that there's absolutely nothing they can do to encourage us to trust the system within which they work. If only the CAS would acknowledge its error, especially the harm it inflicted upon and within our children, and would ask us for forgiveness. It would work wonders for us as well as for them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 10:44:48 -0400 (EDT) Our social worker called on Monday afternoon to arrange her next visit. Right from her first word, she sounded more cheerful, and genuinely so, than I've ever heard her be before. So far, she's arranged each visit several days in advance. This is far more than keeping to her original promise to give us at least an hour notice. She was wanting to visit us on Thursday. I informed her that that wouldn't be possible because we have an appointment with the psychologist that day. After some mutual schedule searching, we finally settled on next week Tuesday at 1:30pm. She suggested that one of the things she could do (she didn't say, but, presumably during her visit) was begin to help us with my wife's, and our children's, Indian registration. I told her that we've already gotten the "long form" birth registrations for each of our children, and added that that cost $37 each. She seemed somewhat surprised at the cost. She must have done a rough multiplication by thirteen since she seemed a bit empathetic. I told her that I still had to get photocopies of each document because, given their price, I wasn't going to mail in originals, and that we also still had to fill out all of the Indian status registration forms. She said that she could at least help us with those things. We could do it ourselves, but we'll probably let her since she really does seem to want to do something to be helpful. Perhaps I shouldn't be so suspicious, but I do wonder if, should she get the photocopies for us, she'll keep an extra set for the CAS records. There were a couple of things which I didn't tell her (because the conversation didn't go that way). First, it turns out that my wife has already been registered (probably at birth), although with her maiden name since they aren't aware of her marriage. Second, to get this corrected, we also had to get a document to prove our marriage (yet a bit more money). This resulted in a bit of a surprise. Both of us have always thought that we were married on March 2. The government documents, however, all insist that we were married on March 1. Back in 1979, March 1 was on Thursday and March 2 was on Friday. Neither of us can remember which of those two weekdays it was. In the overall plan of things, the exact date probably doesn't matter all that much. It's still an interesting puzzle, though. Should we trust our memories or the official records? I told her that, speaking of forms, we had yet more to fill in because the next day, Tuesday May 15, was national census day. She said that she'd already filled hers in and mailed it. I said that we wouldn't be doing ours until the correct day. She, somewhat humourously (I think), asked if it was part of my "passive aggressive tendencies" to wait until 11:59pm of the last day to do such things. I explained the need for the government to gather all of its statistics as of one specific date, and, therefore, the need for everyone to wait for that date in case an unforeseen event, e.g. a death, might alter the data. I added that, given this reasoning, the official census day is the earliest, rather than the latest, day to fill in the form. She mentioned that our 7-year-old son's school had invited her to his IPRC, which stands for "Individual Placement and Review Committee meeting", which is held annually for each child who needs to be in a special education program, and which formally determines where he should be during the next school year. She said that she told them that its early time, 8:30am, was too early for her to offer to pick us up. I told her that we've already notified the school that we couldn't make it that early because of the activities required at home in order to ensure that all of our children are ready for, and off to, school on time. She said that she thought as much too, and added that the school had told her that they'd try to find a better time. I told her that they told me that they'd give us a better time slot should some other parents indicate that they won't be attending the IPRC for their child. She told me that she'd called the principal of the high school, who gave her "glowing reports" on our children. Those indeed were her exact words. While I think our children are great, I still suspect that she must be using a bit of poetic license. Whether or not this is true, she certainly seems to be looking upon us with favour. She also said that she's been playing telephone tag with the principal of the elementary school, but, when she finally gets ahold of her, she expects to hear great things about those children too. She asked me how my mother's visit was, and if she's gone home yet. I reminded her that my mother had come and gone before her last visit. She had completely forgotten, and still didn't believe me (she either wasn't looking at her notes, or, perish the thought, she didn't take many notes last time). I reminded her that she'd asked our children about their grandmother's visit, and that they'd showed her things which their cousins had given them. She finally remembered, and explained that she must have forgotten because CAS life is very busy these days since they're currently being audited by the provincial government. I asked her about how the audit is performed. She told me that people from the ministry come in and select several files at random for inspection. They're checking to see if the files are complete, i.e. if every ministry-edicted procedure has been correctly followed, and to determine if the children are receiving adequate care. I asked her if the audit was one-sided, i.e. how is the audit protected against CAS bias. She told me that each child whose file is being audited is asked to fill out a short questionaire. I didn't ask, and don't know, what's in that questionaire, but, since she said that it's short, it can't be asking much. It appears that the ministry is content to leave it up to the courts to decide whether or not the CAS has acted correctly or not when it chose to intervene, and all that it itself really cares about is whether or not, now that the CAS owns a child, that child is having his physical needs met in ways which please that child. This audit, therefore, no matter how much the government touts it as a healthy control on CAS activity, and while it may control the CAS to some degree after they've taken a child into their custody, does absolutely nothing to control how the CAS decides to intervene, and, if so, how it carries out that intervention. The courts only appear to be concerned about whether or not a child should be returned. The intervention process, therefore, at least insofar as I'm able to determine, appears to be wholly without accountability. She asked us about our health, and I told her that none of us is sick. She asked about our head lice situation, and I told her that, although they're not all gone, we seem to be very close. We're finding only around two nits and/or really tiny (probably baby) lice in two of the older girls' hair each night. I didn't tell her, but we actually found nothing at all on Monday and Tuesday of last week. We've also found nothing on Monday and Tuesday of this week. She commented on the resilience of things like lice and fleas, adding that they must be since they've managed to survive for so many millions of years. That was the wrong (or right) thing to say to me. I told her that the Bible doesn't allow for the universe to be that old, and added what I believe to be a solidly Biblically derived age for the earth (the year of creation, in our calendar, being 11,013BC). I then explained to her one big reason why the scientists get it wrong, i.e. they selectively use clocks whose values decrease over time, e.g. radioactive decay. This allows them to pick whatever starting values they want. If they think they need more time to support their theories, all they need to do is believe that these decreasing clocks started with higher values. I suggested that they should use clocks whose values increase over time, e.g. the distance of the moon from the earth, and then, to be sure, make the starting values be as low as practically possible, e.g. start with the moon rubbing against the top of our atmosphere. I told her that such clocks tend to show that the universe is only tens of thousands of years old. She wondered about the fossils. I explained that fossilization over long periods of time can't be a valid theory because the animals, tress, or whatever, would rot first. I then told her about Mount Saint Helens, a volcano which erupted in Washington state around 1980, and how, after only a half a day of mini-flooding, real fossils formed. I then explained how the massive global flood of Noah's day, which I believe to have taken place in 4,990BC, was the cause for the formation of the fossils which we now find. I told her how there still may appear to be some descrepancies between Biblical declarations and scientifically collected evidence, but that doesn't make the Bible wrong. I told her that I've found that all I need to do is patiently wait for science to catch up. I told her that I have a head start on all of those experts because I listen to what the designer of our universe has told us about what He did and about what has happened thereafter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 15:45:19 -0400 (EDT) Our social worker came by, as scheduled, at 1:30pm three weeks ago (Tuesday, May 22). She stayed for an hour and a half, leaving at 3pm since she knew we had to pick our children up from school then. When she left, she, in response to a request from my wife, drove both my wife and our 6-year-old daughter to the school. I'd characterize the time as a friendly and cheerful visit. She didn't appear to have any negative axe to grind. This may be a case wherein I'm being very slow in acknowledging an answer to prayer. Way back at the outset, we asked God to so order the situation that the right social worker would be put in charge of our case. Surprise! I'm beginning to dare to think that He's actually done that! I guess we can all learn to trust Him just a little bit more as the situations get just a little bit tougher. Having said that, I wonder what the next one will be. She talked with our 6- and 4-year-old daughters as they played cheerfully, livelily, and freely. Eventually, our 4-year-old daughter fell asleep on my lap. Our 2-year-old son was asleep upstairs. She looked at the Mother's Day cards which our children had made for my wife. She commented on how our 4-year-old daughter was always wearing nice dresses, and, at that point, our daughter took her upstairs to look at the rest of her dresses. While she was here, of course, she also talked with us about many things. She mentioned again her willingness to help us with my wife's, and our children's, Indian registration. We told her that we found out that my wife was already registered at birth. I told her that the next step to register our children was to get photocopies of their long-form birth registrations, which we'd already acquired. She said that she'd make two photocopies of each, and, as she was leaving, I gave them to her. As she took them, she asked, "What are my instructions?". It's the little things like that which give away where a person is really standing. I interpret this one as evidence of her sincere desire to be helpful. To avoid any confusion, I told her about something which she might find a bit odd when going through our children's birth registrations. We goofed when we registered our 7-year-old son. Although we'd picked a unique middle name for him, and although we've always been using it, we accidentally filled in the middle name of his older brother when originally registering his birth. We chose this as a convenient opportunity to correct that bureaucratic error, and, therefore, there were two forms to photocopy for him. We spoke about pets for a while. She told us that she has two cats. We told her that we've had several cats, and, later, a dog. We've also had, at one time or other, various rodents, a couple of birds, and some fish. We talked about the inappropriateness of having rodents as pets when there are little children in the house. We told her about our attempts at having guinea pigs and rabbits, describing how rodents wriggle too much and too forceably to be safely held by small hands, how that eventually means that they will fall (usually upside down), and how that usually results in their death since they have such thin and fragile necks. I then recounted a humourous story about one time when we, as is required by law in this city, took one dead rabbit to the Humane Society for disposal. Since we don't drive, and since it was too far to walk, we wrapped up the rabbit really well in several plastic garbage bags, and took it on the bus. Our 13-year-old daughter, who was about 6 back then, wanted to come along. Not wanting to create a state of uneasiness among the passengers during the half hour bus ride, I told her that she could come along if she promised not to tell anyone what was in the package. She promised, and, as well as she could, did comply. She couldn't resist, however, getting as close to the topic as she could without actually breaking her promise. For the whole half hour, she kept inventing, and loudly asking, questions like "How many dead rabbits do you think are on this bus?". My wife mentioned her foster parents, as well as her lack of knowledge regarding why she was taken away from her real parents at a young age. Our social worker asked her if she'd like her to dig through the records to find out more details. My wife said that she didn't really want to pursue it at this point, and then added that she'd met her real father about 20 years ago (in December of 1979), and that she'd met a lot of her brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces, as well as her very elderly (93 years old) maternal grandmother a couple of years ago (in September of 1999). Our social worker asked her how the meeting with her real father went. She answered that it didn't go well at all, since he'd never lost his bitterness over having lost his children. He was drinking a lot when we met him back then, and, upon meeting his oldest daughter for the first time, must have felt that there should be an immediate affinity between them since he started ordering her to do things around his house. I, sadly, felt the need to intervene, and told him that, although she is his daughter, she's also my wife and I won't let him do that to her. After more of that sort of stuff, he eventually ordered us to leave, even though it was late at night, even though it was raining quite hard, even though we had our first baby with us, and even though we had nowhere to go. We didn't tell her all of this, but we did tell her enough to let her know that his life was devastated by what had happened to him. She said that she can understand why he'd feel that way, but added that he can't let that ruin the rest of his life. There's both right and wrong in her answer. She's right because, of course, it's wrong for a person to give up just because life has dealt him an extremely hard blow (that's not a very theologically accurate way of putting it, but that's how an unbeliever would see it). She's wrong, though, in not showing any compassion to the victims of the very system in which she works. My wife, feeling a bit self-conscious about the imperfect state of our home, observed that the maids hadn't been by that week since Monday, the day they regularly come, was Victoria Day. Our social worker then observed that our home was then indeed in a good shape. We then told her how we'd had our windows cleaned the previous week, and how we'd be having our carpets cleaned on Thursday. That did happen, although there are some permanent marker stains which couldn't be removed. When an ant happened to walk by, she bent down, killed it, and then picked it up and brought it over to our daughters for an up-close look (pretty level-headed I'd say). We then discussed our on-going problem with ants here. She understood, and agreed with, my position that I don't like using potent poisons since that would be harmful to our children. We told her that we've placed several ant traps around the house. She, without being told, acknowledged that we'd have to place them in less than ideal locations in order to keep our 2-year-old son from playing with them. I told her that that was true, and added that, while I'd welcome her opinion on their placement, I wouldn't tell her where they were just then since I didn't want our children to know. She told us that she'd finally gotten ahold of the principal of the Ottawa Christian School, who'd spoken very positively about our children. She offered to look into financial assistance for us should we send our children to any camps this summer, making it very clear that those camps would be of our own choosing (using, as an example, a camp which our church might be organizing). At this point, I don't know if summer camps are, or are not, a realistic possibility since we're still contending with, albeit a very few, nits and/or head lice on a daily basis (although we found nothing last night). As she was leaving, my wife said something about needing our walls to be cleaned at some point. Our social worker then said something about coming over one day with the right kind of stuff and teaching our girls (yes, that's what she said, as if boys shouldn't also be required to help with such tasks) how to do it. I'm all for the open and rightful recognition of the differences between boys and girls, but that one caught me by surprise. About a week later (I forget the exact date, but I think it was Monday, May 28), the children's lawyer phoned to let us know that another lawyer would be taking over. She told me the other lawyer's name, but, having a flaky memory and neglecting to write it down, I no longer know it. She told me that we probably wouldn't be hearing from the new lawyer until near the next court date. She asked me how things were going, and I told her that, as far as I could tell, they were going fine except that I have some reservations regarding the possibility that our lack of trust of the CAS might be misinterpreted as lack of cooperation. She asked if we've been complying with the supervision order. I said that we were. She said that there should be no problems then, and that she fully expected the CAS to quietly disappear as of the next hearing in October. She added that she'd seen this happen many times in the past. I'm fascinated by her use of the word "many", since lawyers always choose their words very carefully. It may actually mean that the CAS, as an organization, while it'll never openly acknowledge error, may actually be capable of recognizing, at least internally, when it has erred. I asked, so she told me that she was off to do family dispute kinds of things like divorces and separations. I told her that, as far as I'm concerned, the word divorce should be removed from every married person's vocabulary. I'm one who believes that there's absolutely no justification whatsoever for divorce (yes ... even adultery). Marriage is the one and only relationship we have wherein people can, and must, learn how to truly love, forgive, and be selfless. She told me that she wished I could speak to her clients. Our 7-year-old son's IPRC (Individual Placement and Review Committee, the annual school meeting at which the placement for special needs children for the next school year is decided) was rescheduled to 9:30am on Thursday, May 31, so that we could much more easily attend. Our social worker wasn't there. Since I assume that the school notified her of the change, perhaps it no longer fit into her schedule. In any event, it's an indication that she has no serious concerns with respect to our ability to care for him. Our social worker stopped by briefly last Tuesday, June 5, to drop off the photocopies of the birth registrations. Even though I wasn't home at the time, it didn't seem to bother my wife. The envelope containing the photocopies, as well as the originals, also contained a note in which she apologized for having taken so long, and again offered financial support for summer camps. In addition, her note contained the following, very welcome, paragraph. "Finally, I wanted to let you know that i followed the paper trail and it appears that somewhere along the line, the necessary forms were never submitted to the Child Abuse Registry and your name is not registered. I also will not be submitting any forms to them. The mystery is now solved and you know that you are not registered." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 01:43:00 -0400 (EDT) On Tuesday morning, June 12, we had our next to last parenting course session. There'll be one more on the 26th, but, rather than a formal session, it'll be a fun outing for both the parents and the children. I suspect that, in a sneaky sort of way, it's still a formal session in that the instructors will be using it to assess how the parents and their children interact when they're in an informal setting and probably quite a bit more off guard. That's okay, though, since it's something they ought to be doing if they want to be able to write an accurate report (or whatever they do with us afterwards). The outing will be either at some strawberry picking farm (if the weather's good, and if all of the strawberries haven't been picked already), or at some amusement place called Cosmic Adventure. I hope it's the former, since I have a very weighted preference for those activities which promote an appreciation for the tremendous beauty of God's great creation, and a severe aversion to manmade pass-times which have been solely designed to over-stimulate ones senses. Even if it's the latter, though, it may be that the name is a misrepresentation of the place, and that it'll turn out to be lots of fun anyway. Which ever it is, since most of our children will be out of school by then, we'll all go and have a great time. In retrospect, I must say that it's a good course. I would have found it very helpful had I taken it before our first child was born, and it undoubtedly is of great help to those who have children but don't know much about being parents yet (which may be a far more common situation than I at first thought, given the incredibly high rate of broken and/or confused family structures which our society suffers from so tragically these days). The biggest difference between our methods and those promoted by the course (other than our use of the Bible for guidance and standard setting) seems to be with respect to the teaching of good behaviour. The instructors are very much into behaviour management, i.e. keeping the children well-informed with respect to what their gains will be for good behaviour and what their losses will be for bad behaviour. We, on the other hand, are much more into attitude training, believing very strongly that a child must learn to be good simply because it's right, and not to be bad simply because it's wrong. I firmly believe that behaviour manipulation yields hypocrites because, if a person's attitude isn't fixed, then, while he may learn to conduct himself in a most exquisite manner when he's around those who'll react negatively when he does otherwise, he'll invariably find ways in which to express his true inner self when he's away from the controls. A person's behaviour (good or bad) is a symptom of his attitude. I think that most parents major on behaviour training because it, while being only a symptom, can be seen, whereas attitude, which is the underlying cause, can't be seen. I much prefer to do whatever it takes to train our children's attitudes, and often let poor behaviours go (unless, of course, they're really bad), using them as a measuring stick to assess my progress at correcting the attitude problem. This does, at times, cause others to conclude that I'm failing to deal with problems, and it's definitely a much harder and longer road to travel, but, in the end, it tends to yield people who really do genuinely want to be good. I asked the parenting instructor about this difference when she came for her weekly home visit the following afternoon. She acknowledged that our way is better, but added that it requires a lot of commitment, and that it only works if it's begun from birth. I confirmed that we do, in fact, begin teaching our children right from birth. She told us that a lot of parents don't, and explained that her first goal is to get homes into a state where proper learning can begin, even if it means that the parents are being taught to do things which they don't yet fully understand, and even if the methods being used aren't the ideal. I told her that I could understand that, since she probably needs to jump-start situations in order to create a forum in which proper training can take place without chaos as a background. She concurred. She told us that she didn't really have any special agenda for this home visit, and that, unless our social worker instructed her otherwise, it would be her last. We thanked her for having arranged, way back at the outset, for our younger children's visits to be moved to our home, under her supervision, from the CAS building. We also apologized for our occasional rough treatment of her and of her course, explaining that it was really a sad result of our feelings toward the CAS. We told her that, looking back, we now recognize that her course is good, and that our initial impression was severely tainted by the fact that the CAS had ordered us to take it. She told us that she's been doing this job for a very long time, and that she understood exactly what we meant. We've talked with our social worker since, and she, without prompting, spoke about the conclusion of the parenting course. Also, the parenting instructor didn't visit us this week. I guess that means that we've passed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 19:31:53 -0400 (EDT) Our social worker phoned us at 2:30pm on Tuesday, June 12. Without giving her an opportunity to tell me why she called, I immediately thanked her for having checked into the status of our child abuse registry. This was work she didn't need to do, and I'm also sure that it wasn't easy for her to do. I wanted her to know that we really do appreciate it. Still not letting her tell me why she called, I told her about our 6-year-old daughter having broken her upper arm by falling off the monkey bars during her school's "play day" the previous Wednesday (June 6) afternoon. I didn't want her to hear about this incident via any other route, especially since it involved a trip to the Children's Hospital where the Child Protection Team might have taken note. She asked me when we were at the hospital. I told her that it was on Friday around 2pm. She said that either the system is slow or our daughter is not "flagged", adding that, were our daughter flagged, she should have received a note by then. The fact that our social worker still hasn't told us about any hospital-originated note regarding our daughter's broken arm probably means that she really isn't on their list of endangered children. This, pleasant as it may be for us, reveals a serious weakness in the system, i.e. that children are registered as being at risk while their parents are not registered as being risky. I would think that the siblings of a child at risk are also at risk, but that's not the way it appears to be done. I think that there's supposed to be a review of our 2-year-old son's status with the Child Protection Team some time soon. It'll be interesting to see how that goes. I'm glad our social worker knows, ahead of time, about our daughter's arm, in case the subject is raised at that time. Rather than being caught by surprise, she'll be able to respond to them intelligently. She finally had a chance to tell me why she called. She'd found out (probably through his school) that our 7-year-old son has been given the opportunity to take part in a brand new summer program for children with conditions like his. It's a three-hour-a-day, twelve-day, program, running from 9am to 12am each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from July 3 through 26. She wanted to offer CAS funding for the program (it costs $144), and to provide a driver to transport him back and forth each day. She told me that day-camp drivers aren't usually obtainable, but, in his case, she was sure she could justify an exception. I accepted, and thanked her for, her offer. She mentioned my wife having mentioned a desire for bikes for our children. I told her that we've already been given two small bikes and one small tricycle by one of the parents at the school. She told me that she'd asked around, received several offers of free bikes, and would be bringing them over, one by one, as time permits. Again, I thanked her. She then told me about a couple of services that she'd found through which we could probably get our walls cleaned. One, which, upon seeing the name of its head, she believes to be run by a former "crown ward", seems to be willing to do almost anything. The other is run by the housekeeping department of one of our local hospitals, and forwards all proceeds toward the purchase of new hospital equipment. We still haven't used either of them, since they do cost money, but it's still nice to know about them, and it definitely was nice of her to find them. She then said that she'd like to drop by in a week or so. She didn't say why, but, since that would be about four weeks since her last visit, I suspected that it was our monthly checkup. We agreed on 1:30pm on Tuesday, June 13, since that time and day worked out very well the last time. Before we concluded our conversation, I told her that one of the reasons that, in spite of her obvious desire and willingness to help, we're reluctant to ask for anything is that asking for things just isn't in our mind set. We, for the most part, have worked for what little we have, and, unless there's a major exception, believe that it's a good way to exercise restraint. She answered that she understood. I believe that her persistent yet patient offering of assistance is evidence that she really does. Our social worker brought one bike by on the morning of Friday, June 15. It's a 14-speed bike which is in very good condition. It's only flaw appears to be a small tear on the seat. She told me that she'd asked her husband to check it out first. It's just the right size for our 15-year-old daughter, who has been enjoying it ever since. Our social worker came by, almost on time, at 1:45pm on Tuesday, June 19. It's interesting to note that both she and the parenting instructor were very careful to be on time at first, but both slowly began to arrive later as time progressed. I believe this to be an indication that we're not that high on their priority lists any more, and suspect that they're letting other, more important, issues cut into our time. She spent a lot of time looking through our 15-year-old daughter's high school year book, and told her that these years should be the best ones of her life. Although I didn't comment, I don't agree with statements of this nature. I believe that we should always strive to make our upcoming years better than those which have preceded them. I suppose that one reason that many people think that way is that, recalling their own childhood, they remember having gotten away, for the most part, with claiming the freedoms that come with growing up while, at the same time, avoiding the responsibilities which come with the territory. She told us that the funding for the special program for our 7-year-old son this summer had been approved, and that a driver would be provided. She told us that the driver might even be the former foster father of our then 10- and 8-year-old daughters. She thought this would be good because our 7-year-old son also knows him fairly well since he'd also driven our then 7- and 6-year-old sons to and from visits fairly often. I was kind of looking forward to seeing him again too since he was one of the strong voices in the system advocating our children's return. Our 11-year-old daughter told us, later that evening, that he really loves driving children around. She then reminded us about the neck brace he'd had on last summer, and revealed that he'd been injured while doing so as the result of having been struck by a drunk driver. The phone rang while we were discussing the driving of our 7-year-old son to and from the program. The caller was a lady named Amanda, who identified herself as the driving clerk for the CAS. She was calling to confirm our son's pick-up time. She was very nice, and clearly trying to do a good job based on an action which had been initiated by our social worker, yet I must admit, to my discredit, that my reaction to getting a phone call from a new person who identified herself as a CAS employee was rather negative. I'm thankful I was able to catch this wrong response in time, and respond with the politeness she deserved. When I returned to our livingroom, I mentioned this coincidence, i.e. the topic of our interrupted conversation and the topic of the phone call, to our social worker. She told us that the lady who called was a brand new driving clerk for the CAS, since the previous one had just recently been killed in a New Hampshire skiing accident. She added that the former clerk had only been 22. Although I don't remember exactly what I said, I do remember that it was some sort of foolish joke about the situation. In so doing, I carelessly missed what might have been a great opportunity to discuss an issue with her which is far more important than the reason she came. She told my wife and me that she'd be dropping by after school on the following Monday with all of the camp brochures she could find so that our children could see what opportunities were available. She seems to have now learned that, serious as I can get, I, too, like to have a bit of fun. Recognizing that her persistence might be perceived as being a bit strong, and also recognizing my refusal to relinquish my role as head of my household, she came over, stepped gently on my toe, and, in a tone which gave away the big grin which must have accompanied the statement, told me that she wanted to be sure that she wasn't crossing any boundaries. I, grinning back, assured her that she wasn't. I told her that I did have a serious concern regarding overnight camps related to the very real possibility that they're too lax with respect to discipline. I told her that it would be impossible to know in advance what the situation was with respect to any particular camp, and that the brochures surely wouldn't reveal any problems in this area. She said that she understood this concern, but added that she herself has had some prior experience which we could rely on. She's very big on children making their own decisions regarding what they want to do, and I suspect that she considers us to be somewhat over-protective. If normal were right, she's probably correct. The problem, of course, is that normal isn't right, and that this world really is a rather evil place. We don't believe that it's right for parents to blindly entrust their precious children to the care of others whom they know next to nothing about. This was one of the problems we had with the foster care system, and it's certainly one of the problems we have with week-long residential camps. If my crime is not wanting to let our children get into a potentially harmful situation which I can't oversee, then I plead guilty as charged. She's also very big on children "socializing" with their peers. While there's nothing at all wrong with children spending a reasonable amount of time with others their own age, as that's where they learn inter-personal give-and-take sorts of skills, I believe that our society over-emphasizes this need to the detrement of its younger members. Children don't learn the truly valuable and necessary skills of life from their peers. They learn them from adults. Those children who spend most of their time with others their own age, which seems to be the prevailing attitude in our day, and which is strongly advocated by the public school system, are having their growth stunted since they're rarely, if ever, being called to a higher level. My wife told her that, earlier in the day, she'd told our 2-year-old son that "Nancy" (our social worker's name) was coming over, and that he'd responded by saying that he didn't want to go back into foster care. She explained that he was probably a bit confused since his former foster mother's name also was "Nancy". Our social worker looked at him, and, in a very gentle voice, told him that that would never happen again. She added that, should he ever be in her car, his mother would also be right there with him. We discussed our 6-year-old daughter's broken arm for a bit. The fact that she wasn't wearing her cast was, after all, a point of curiosity being as it was not yet two weeks after her injury. We explained that her cast wasn't on since she'd gotten it wet the previous evening when she slipped while getting out of the bathtub. We explained how her 7-year-old brother's safety bar was ideal for helping her keep her arm out of the water while in the tub, but that she wasn't careful enough while getting out of it. We explained how it was just a horseshoe-shaped cast which was held in place by a tensor bandage, so we'd easily be able to put it back on her when it was dry. She watched our daughter play for a while, and then observed that she seemed to be getting along quite well without the cast. She then noticed another tensor bandage lying on the couch. We weren't sure, but suspected that it belonged to our 20-year-old son who is a member of a local municipal rugby team. We also briefly discussed our 15-year-old daughter's involvement in a high school soccar team. Then our social worker said something rather surprising for a CAS employee which I wish the backroom readers of reports and hearers of allegations would take to heart. She said that, as long as we have tensor bandages and health cards, we should be okay. As she was leaving, I remembered that we had another bill to pay which she might be able to get funding for. A volunteer who does work for our 7-year-old son's school made him a special cut-out table and chair for crafts and homework. While the work is free, the deal is that we pay for half of the materials; the cost was $100. I asked her if she would be able to get funding to pay for them. She asked me to give her the bill, and said that she'd look into it. She, as before, was going to drive my wife to the school to pick up our children. She couldn't do so this time, however, because too many children wanted to go along. Her little car just didn't have enough seats and seat belts. Our social worker came by, plenty of camp brochures in hand, at 3:15pm on Monday, June 25. Her brochures described camps of all sorts, which, other than, perhaps, a very few, had nothing to do with the CAS. She stayed a whole two hours, leaving at about 5:15pm, and I think she enjoyed her stay. She, my wife, and most of our children sat around our dining room table to look through the brochures and make decisions. I stayed in my office, which really isn't that far away; there's just a half-wall divider between the two rooms so that food doesn't inadvertently make its way into any of my equipment. I could easily participate in the discussion when I wanted to, but felt that maintaining a bit of distance was a good way to let her know that I've begun to trust her. My wife eventually left the table, too, in order to start preparing dinner. Our social worker, therefore, got to spend almost the whole two hours with our children. While we did make the occasional suggestion, my wife and I, for the most part, left our children free to decide for themselves. In the end, they chose well. I only over-ruled one potentially bad choice. Our 9-year-old daughter wanted to go to a music camp. I, being more aware than our daughter of what kind of music might be featured at such a camp, raised this concern with our social worker. She said that she understood my concern, and that particular camp wasn't mentioned again. She told us what the CAS would be willing to fund, and ensured that the selections remained within those bounds. For each child, they fund either two weeks of day camp or one week of residential camp. They only provide transportation to and from residential camps. Since transportation to and from day camps is not provided, and since none of us drives, she ensured that day camp selections were near by so that we wouldn't be spending good chunks of our time on buses. Our 6- and 9-year-old daughters selected a day camp at the Y which will take them on a lot of really fun- and healthy-looking outings. Our 11- and 13-year-old daughters chose a residential equestrian camp. I still do have my concerns about the potential lack of discipline at residential camps, but, for whatever reason, I'm of the opinion that horse-lovers aren't too prone to that sort of problem. Our 8-year-old son was very insistent on going to a hockey camp. This posed a bit of a problem. There were two possibilities: one is a day camp which is very far from here, and the other is a day camp which, while it's fairly close by, isn't until the end of August. Our social worker was concerned that he'd get impatient, and give us a hard time, if he had to wait until the end of August, and told me privately that she'd try to get another exception made in order to get him transportation to the one which is sooner but much farther away. I told her that it's good for children to learn to be patient, and that it didn't bother me at all if he had to wait a couple of months. She must have taken me seriously because we got a phone call two mornings later (Wednesday, June 27) confirming his registration for the later camp. We had a one-page form to fill in and sign. Our social worker told us that she had another five-page form to fill in. Ours was clearly designed for children who were not living with their real parents. It contained questions like "will the social worker visit", "will the foster parent visit", "who isn't allowed to visit", etc. I was bothered by this, and, bold person that I am, asked about it. Her answer was that it's another one of those cases wherein one form fits all situations. I didn't verify, but she told me that she'd crossed out all references to foster care. That question about who shouldn't be allowed to visit the child at camp gave rise to an interesting interchange. As soon as one of our children read it to me, I quickly answered "bad people". Our social worker said that she was glad I didn't have to help fill the form in. I further expounded my answer, explaining that I meant that I didn't want anyone visiting our children who would be a bad influence. She agreed with me. I then asked if that question was there because of all of the broken homes our society has plagued itself with wherein one parent gets the right to the children and the other parent is forbidden to go anywhere near them. She confirmed this hypothesis. I didn't hear what led up to it, but, at one point, our 2-year-old son said that he's staying in this home. I suspect that the catalyst was innocent enough, e.g. someone asking him if he, too, wanted to go to a camp. We again briefly discussed our 6-year-old daughter's broken arm. Her cast is now off, although she's supposed to keep her arm in a sling for the time being. At her check-up last Friday, the doctor told us that this is the most dangerous time because, although the pain is gone, the bone is still very fragile. He told us that she should continue to use a sling for another ten days, and that it would be another four weeks (that makes six weeks total) before the healing is complete. She told us that our 7-year-old son's driver would be a man named "Ray". That means it won't be the former foster father whom she at first thought it might be. He himself called us later that evening to introduce himself, and to confirm the pick-up time. I didn't connect his name with anything at first, was concerned that a CAS person was calling so late, and, again, felt a strong anti-CAS sentiment rising from within. I guess it'll be a very, very long time before I'll stop viewing them as anything better than servants of the devil who sought to destroy our family. God allowed it, and used it, for good, but I'm convinced that that was in spite of their motives. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 23:20:05 -0400 (EDT) My wife has been doing very well of late. Tonight, however, she was very quiet when she came home. She went upstairs to lie down for a while. Then she came downstairs to where I was working, and calmly said, "call an ambulance, I swallowed half of my pills [her rather strong blood pressure medication], I tried to kill myself, I was wrong." She then began to feel dizzy and sick, and lay down on the floor. She wasn't able to get up for the ambulance people in order to help them get her onto a stretcher. She's now in the Civic. I may try to go there in a couple of hours to see what more I can find out. On top of this problem, I don't know what'll happen when the CAS finds out about it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 14:52:56 -0400 (EDT) My wife is doing okay now. In one significant way, she is, in fact, doing much better than ever before. Perhaps God has allowed this experience to bring about a much needed change within her heart which couldn't have been accomplished by any other means. After the ambulance took her to the hospital, I called the lady to whom she'd just been speaking a half an hour or so earlier. We talked for some time, but, combining her quite detailed collections of that conversation with my probing, we couldn't come up with any clue whatsoever regarding what might be behind this incident. This is a lady whom my wife trusts a lot, so I'm sure she would have told her if something really had been bothering her. This, at least to me, verifies what she told me, as well as one of our congregation's elders, the next day, i.e. that it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I went in to visit her around midnight. She was in the resuscitation room, hooked up to a bunch of vital sign measuring equipment. Her blood pressure was down around 100 over 60 (not too bad). She was very groggy, appearing to be asleep most of the time. She woke up a bit occasionally, and, even in that half-awakened state, was able to immediately and clearly recognize myself as well as both members of the couple who'd brought me there. Both her thoughts and speech were, according to all three of us, very clear and coherent. When I asked her about what the cause was, she kept saying that she was having flashbacks about the CAS. I asked her if they were about her experience as a child, or about our children. She said ours. I asked her what she was saying. She said that it was the police lying. I believe this ultimately means that she was seeing various aspects of that whole afternoon, e.g. social workers, police, screaming children, helpless parents, etc. My sense, although I didn't think to confirm it at the time, was that she meant she had these flashbacks on a routine basis, and not just right then. I think my sense that she was referring to an on-going situation was made more certain by other things she said which clearly were of an on-going nature. She complained, for example, about the mothers at the play group who constantly reminded her about the past by asking her how things were going now. She also complained that no one would listen to her. Although she didn't offer too much of an explanation, I think I know what she meant. Both the psychologist and I are able to see that there isn't much to worry about (this situation not withstanding) with respect to the CAS these days. She, however, having been so badly treated by them as a child as well, can't quite see this yet herself. She thinks, therefore, that our seeing it differently than she does means that we're not listening to her. We are, and are searching for a way to help her understand, but it'll be difficult as long as she equates listening with agreeing. She repeatedly apologized to me, insisted that it was a spur-of-the-moment incident, and described how she suddenly gave up and just didn't care about anything. She told me later that it was a hug from our 3-year-old son which brought her back to reality and caused her to come down to tell me what she'd just done. I'm convinced that God was in direct control of those two little arms. The on-duty doctor (I think his name was Wasalov) came by while she was sleeping, and instantly recognized me as having made a visit to that very same emergency department a few months ago with one of our children who had had a leg laceration. He told me that it's hard to forget someone who has thirteen children, and that it's even harder yet when that father is blind. He asked me what I thought was the cause for what my wife had done, so I told him about what the CAS had done to our family. He said that that was the same thing my wife had told him earlier. I stayed for about an hour, and then went home for some much needed sleep (she was sleeping most of the time anyway). Since the doctor on duty had told me that a psychiatrist would be visiting her at about 6am, that's when I returned. She was asleep when I arrived, but woke up immediately when the automatic blood pressure machine did it's thing. She complains, at the best of times, of how much those automatic machines hurt when they pressurize the cuff. My guess is that they over-pressurize it since they probably can't properly "hear" the blood flow while the motor is running. She was much more alert than just a few hours before. Both her thoughts and speech continued to be clear. She also was readily able to recognize the lady who'd brought me there. Her actions don't seem to have affected her brain in any way. For that, I'm grateful. Her blood pressure was 116 over 78, which is almost textbook perfect. This time her emphasis was not on CAS flashbacks, but, rather, on something she'd done the previous afternoon. She has a friend who's been in and out of the Royal Ottawa Hospital for several years now. When she's there, she's on the very floor that my wife was on during her stay. She's in there because she apparently hears voices which tell her to do bad things. She's very heavily zombyized by the same sorts of noxious stuff that my wife had been given. My wife, apparently, is her only remaining friend. Therein lies a dilemma which I've had for some time, and which I think she's beginning to now sense as well. My wife doesn't want to trash her friend, especially since she's the only remaining friend her friend has. I don't want her to have to do that either. She does good things, even for others, while she's visiting her friend. She told me, for example, how, during the previous day's visit, she'd helped a couple of other patients go to sleep by reading to them. However much good she wants to do for others, though, and however much she wants to care for her friend, I fear that hanging around all of those depressed people has taken its toll on her. A couple of very gentle male psychiatric residents came by after a while (I think their names were Etan and Lau). They asked her if they could take me aside for a private discussion. She consented, and the three of us went into a small room. They'd obviously been looking into her records, since they were well aware of her ROH stay. They asked me some questions about it and its cause (all of which I don't remember), which I answered. I also took the opportunity to describe how the drugs used at the ROH caused more problems than they claimed to be solving. I also told them about the psychologist we're already seeing, whom I hope they'll consult before, should they ever get the idea, they ever attempt to mess with my wife's brain. They asked me about what might be at the root of the current incident. I told them about our CAS ordeal, not only because my wife had made a big deal about it both to myself and to the doctor, but also because such harm inflicted on her precious little ones can't help but be the backdrop for whatever happens to her these days. They spent a lot of time asking me, over and over in various ways, how I felt about my wife being allowed to return home. I insisted that I thought that that would be the best thing for her, that I was not worried, and that I didn't think she would do it again. We returned to my wife's bed side, and they then asked her if they could talk to her, and if she wanted me there or somewhere else during that discussion. She told them that they could talk to her, and that she wanted me to stay. I did, but was very careful to keep quiet so as not to influence her answers in any way. These guys were excellent. They wanted honest answers to hard questions, but they were so gentle about how they went about getting them. My wife, who isn't in any hurry to trust strangers at the best of times, opened up to them immediately. They asked her, for the most part, the same sorts of questions they asked me. They left, and returned a little later with the on-call staff psychiatrist (I think her name was Bourgette). She had an entirely different demeanour. She was much more abrupt, and treated my wife rather maternalistically. My wife immediately closed down, and didn't want to tell her anything. She also began to cry, and complained that she didn't like seeing the residents taking notes about whatever she said. The psychiatrist immediately jumped to the conclusion that my wife was trying to hide something, and that I must be part of the problem. She told me that she'd be keeping my wife in the hospital until she opened up and told her everything. I told her that she'd misunderstood my wife's reaction, and explained that she didn't like her approach and would probably never open up to her. I added that, given that this is the case, I hoped that wouldn't mean that they'd hold her indefinitely. She told me that the Civic, being an acute care hospital, couldn't hold someone for too long. I told her that I knew that, but that didn't stop them from transferring my wife to another place like the ROH (which, although I didn't say it, I hate because of how it abused my wife in the past). She said that hardly ever happens. She then raised her concern regarding how my wife seemed to be fearful regarding the notes which the residents were taking. I explained to her how the CAS, which attempted to destroy our family last year, would routinely take notes and then twist them into whatever they wanted to prove. I told her that it's just as hard to trust a system which has let you down as it is to trust a friend who has let you down. She insisted that she had nothing to do with the CAS, but I still fear that she'll pass on to them her twisted understanding of my wife. Should she do this, the CAS's back room story writers will, of course, believe her "expert testimony" much more than my intimate knowledge. I, then, seeing what was coming, tried to alleviate the situation by telling her everything, to the best of my recollection, that my wife had told me in private. She didn't trust me, telling me that secondhand information wasn't reliable, and, as I suspected, invoked a form 1. It was a bit humourous because she told me that a form 1 is explained on a form 42. I don't need to read it, however, because, due to our ROH experience, I already know what it is. She's being held against her will in the psychiatric part of the hospital for 72 hours. The door is locked, and is watched by a security guard. She cannot wear her own clothes, and must wear a hospital gown (I guess that makes it harder to sneak out, and makes any escapee easier to spot). They have the right to pump chemicals into her if she tries to escape or if she becomes violent. Since I don't expect my wife to do either, i.e. try to escape or become violent, they should have no reason to resort to their hideous chemical arsenal. Just in case, however, I told the doctor that "I'd fight her to the death" (perhaps not the most appropriate choice of words to use given the circumstance) should she ever prescribe even one drop of the stuff. I tried to get closure on what the criteria for my wife's release would be, since I know full well that that form 1 can easily be reinstituted as many times as they feel like, but the most she would say was something about being glad to see that my wife had my support (I have neither time nor appreciation for such trivia). She changed her story to an insistence that it would be wise to keep my wife in the hospital so that her vital signs could be monitored for a longer period of time, but who does she think she's fooling. The nature of the ward on which my wife must now live tells the real story. It's incredibly ironic. My wife had just come to her own realization that hanging around a psychiatric ward with a lot of depressed people isn't good for her. She'd come to the conclusion that she should only ever go to see her friend if someone else accompanies her. She'd come to the conclusion that, even then, the visits would have to be kept short. Now the "experts" have put her right where she should not be, all by herself, for an indefinitely long period of time. I started by saying that a great thing may have happened. My wife has, until Friday evening, always been able to find someone else to blame, and never been able to apologize. Right from the outset, however, with respect to this incident, she's been repeatedly, without any prompting of any kind, and even during the grogginess of the first few hours, been apologizing, and been fully accepting the responsibility, for her action. She's called it stupid, she's called it foolish, she regrets the hurt she's caused others, she's begged for forgiveness, and she's said "I'm sorry". As near as I can tell, and as near as the elder of our congregation who visited her can tell, all of these are genuine. Could it be that, with such an awful backdrop, God has finally elected to open her heart? May it be so! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 13:03:49 -0400 (EDT) Dr. Northey called me from the hospital today. He's the doctor who's been officially assigned to my wife. He was on call yesterday, so he's not brand new to her case. My initial impression of him is that he's both highly professional and very reasonable. He told me that my wife is doing fine. He said that no drugs have been used, and that he's not planning to use any. He's granted her "privileges", which means that she's now allowed to go anywhere she wants throughout the hospital, and to do so wearing her own clothes (I'm sure glad I brought them to her on Saturday evening even though they hastily locked them up). He said that he expects to be authorizing her release tomorrow if no problems develop. He was very concerned that I felt safe with this plan, and invited me to call him any time, day or night, should I have any concerns. I suggested to my wife, a little later, that she go up to the maternity ward and look at the babies for a while. If there are any lingering problems, this should stimulate them. If there aren't, it'll cheer her up a lot. I suggested to him the possibility that her action was triggered by an anniversary scenario, i.e. it's just about exactly one year since July 13 last year, the date on which our children were kidnapped by the CAS. He said that that sounded reasonable, and that it was, in fact, the only thing that he and his colleagues were able to "put their finger on". I told him that our appointment with the psychologist happens to be on Thursday morning of this week, i.e. just two days after her potential release. He thought that this is a good thing too. We joked a little about how hard it would normally be to gain access to such expert help so quickly. All in all, I think this situation will come to a nice conclusion. If, in fact, God has used it to save my wife, then, in spite of the initial anguish, it'll be the best birthday present I've ever received (my birthday was this past Saturday). If the CAS can accept its role in this incident, then we should be okay, and, just perhaps, it'll do them some good as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 03:20:25 -0400 (EDT) My wife was released from the hospital on the morning of Tuesday, July 10. The psychiatrist assigned to her said that he was glad to see her showing remorse for what she'd done. She just went outside, took a bus, and came home on her own, so I'm glad I'd brought her clothes to her during the weekend. Shortly after she arrived home, she went back out, on her own, to pick up more medication. She told the pharmacist the truth when he asked her why she'd run out of it so soon. She also, yet again on her own, made an appointment to see our family doctor the next day just after noon, and told his secretary exactly why she wanted it. She's continuing, to this day, to accept full responsibility for her action. Our social worker called during the afternoon of Friday, July 13, to let us know that she'd be dropping by after work with another bike. This bike needed a new set of tires, but it turned out that there's a place only about a half a block from here which is selling tires at 20% off, and, if they're bought there, they put them on for free. While she was here, she made absolutely no mention of my wife's attempt to kill herself. I'm not sure, but it certainly appeared like she wasn't told about it. Perhaps, if the doctors really did connect her action with the CAS, they may have reasoned that informing the CAS might be a bad thing to do. Our social worker came for her roughly monthly visit around 2pm on Wednesday, July 25. She'd left us voice mail the previous day indicating her intention to come, but neither of us was able to get ahold of the other until that morning. She kept asking me to pick the time, but, in the end, I told her to do whatever best fit into her schedule. She was very cheerful for the entire time. Her demeanour was much more that of a friend than that of a professional spy. We stayed in my office (which is more like an open living room) most of the time, simply because it's near the front door, and because that's where we ended up since I wanted to show her something on my computer screen. This, too, probably helped set the informal tone of her visit. She still made absolutely no mention of my wife's suicide attempt. Whether intentionally or not, her relaxed and genuinely friendly state (something I didn't think she was capable of when I first met her last year) was the right way for her to be in that our children, even though they knew exactly who she was, weren't put off by any traces of formality. She was, therefore, able to see them in what one might call their natural setting. They were their normal selves, running around, making lots of noise, jumping up on people's laps, hugging and being hugged, chattering livelily, etc. She finally got to see, without restraint, what our lawyer told me finally convinced him that our children really did belong at home. He said something like that they run all over the house with such uninhibited openness and freedom, as if they own the place, and that that's something he never sees in abused children. While she couldn't see much of the house from my office, she could easily see the state of our dining room since it's separated from my office by only a half high wall. Just before she left, however, she, without asking permission, said that she was going to go say hi to our 13-year-old daughter, and then went upstairs to do so. This, of course, provided her a convenient "excuse" to check out a bit more of our house (like a good chunk of the upper floor), but, since our policy is to hide nothing, we didn't mind. She probably also has some sort of mandate to be sure to check out each and every child. The fact that she didn't ask indicates, at least to me, that she now senses a level of trust which has been very slow in building. I didn't interpret it in any way as some sort of authoritative intrusion. She asked me if I'd received the camp information which she'd sent me by e-mail earlier that morning. I told her that I had, and showed her the very strange e-mail address which it had come from (that's what I wanted to show her on my computer screen) ... leaving off her userid, it ended with "/FSCP/CASOC%CASOC%CASO@cas.gov.on.ca". She wrote it down, and then told me that her business card contains a much shorter address (it ends with "@casoc.com"), but that people have told her that it doesn't work. I then sent two test messages, one for each address, to see which of them worked ... the long one did, and the short one didn't. I've since sent her the returned delivery failure for the short address, which she's now printed off and given to her computer people for analysis. With respect to the long address, she told me that "FSCP" stands for "Family Services, Child Protection", and I already knew that "CASOC" stands for "Children's Aid Society of Ottawa Carleton". We briefly discussed our 9- and 6-year-old daughters' disappointment that the day camp at the Y which they'd wanted to go to was already full. Our 9-year-old daughter then expressed an interest in joining her older sisters at the equestrian camp (she does love horses). Our social worker then told us about yet another CAS policy. They don't pay for children under ten to attend a residential (stay overnight) camp. I asked her if she knew why. She said that it was because some sort of limit had to be established, and expressed dismay that, some time ago, she'd seen a 7-year-old child sent to such a camp. I theorized that being with other siblings should make a difference. She also thought that another reason was to limit the number of children so that the CAS budget could sustain this kind of funding. Our 8-year-old son hurt himself just before she arrived. My wife had asked him to pick up some grapes from the dining room floor, so he took off at top speed, slipped (probably on a grape), and smacked the bridge of his nose on the edge of a bench. Having no ice, we had him hold a package of frozen vegetables on it for a while thereafter. We explained all of this to her, and asked her to have a look at it. She said it looked okay. My wife wondered if we should take him to the hospital to have it checked in case something was broken. She didn't think that was necessary. It's now a couple of days later, and the mark is disappearing. We then recounted four other child injury stories for her. First: We told her how that same child, i.e. our 8-year-old son, got hurt a couple of months ago while playing hockey at a friend's birthday party. He was hit just above one of his eyes with the blade of a hockey stick. Second: Our 9-year-old daughter accidentally dropped a glass bottle of orange juice at a bus stop down town the day before. She then picked up the pieces, put them into an emptied shopping bag, and put the bag into a nearby garbage container. In the process, she cut one of her fingers. Not realizing how bad it was, we got on the bus. When we got off, though, she commented on how much it was bleeding. We went to the nearest store and asked if they had anything to put on it. A person looked at it, and quickly took her down to a special room in the basement. We followed as quickly as we could, and, when we got down to the basement and called out her name to find out where she was, we were immediately confronted by a security guard who tried to get us out of there in a hurry. We, not wanting to lose our daughter, held our ground until a lady came out of that mysterious room and told him why we were there. I guess he realized that we weren't a threat after that, since he stopped harassing us. It was only then that I realized where we were, and why the guard was so insistent. It was a jewelry store, and our daughter had been taken right into the work room where all kinds of valuable gems were lying around quite openly. Third: Our 19-year-old daughter, way back when she was about 4 or 5, swallowed a few necklace beads which had hooks on them. The emergency room doctor had her stomach x-rayed, and told us that they'd probably pass through quite safely since the hooks went far enough around so that their pointy ends weren't actually protruding. He turned out to be right. Fourth: Our oldest child, i.e. our 22-year-old son, way back when he was 2, dropped a glass container of some kind on the kitchen floor of the apartment we were living in at the time. He'd learned one of our rules very well, i.e. that he was to go to the person he wanted to talk to, rather than yell to him from somewhere else, so he walked right through those glass pieces to come and tell us. The problem was that he was barefoot. That episode ended up in a trip to the hospital, and with several stitches. She noticed one of our 9-year-old daughter's report cards lying on a desk, asked if she could look at it, and, as she picked it up, read aloud the name of the school she was at while in foster "care". She analyzed it for a moment, and then observed that our daughter was obviously having problems with effort. Having noted the name of the school, I mentioned that that was while she was away. Our daughter then said, in a very expressively confirming tone, "exactly!". My wife then brought her all of our children's latest report cards. She checked them out, and then complimented them on how well they were doing. She told us that she'd asked the principal of the Christian School if they'd be able to accommodate our 7-year-old son should the Treatment Centre eventually decide that he should begin attending his home school. She said that the answer was yes, but that the school would need lots of notice so that it could apply for a provincial grant of some kind (presumably to hire a special needs teaching aid). We then talked briefly about how the normal IPRC process tends to make such decisions too late in the school year. She asked how the registering of our children for Indian status was going. I showed her a pile of forms which we'd received from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. She looked through them and discovered that there are three different ways (depending on the age of the applicant) in which it needs to be done: one for those born after some date (April 17?, 1985?), one for those born before that date who are not yet eighteen, and one for those who are eighteen or older. She said that the forms looked simple enough, copied the information from my wife's status card, took the birthdays of our older children and the names of my wife's and my parents, and said that she'd fill out all thirteen forms (even those for the older children). We're also supposed to write a letter giving the reason for the application. She said that she'd do that, and added that she wouldn't use the CAS letterhead. She stayed for about an hour and a half, leaving around 3:45pm. Our 19- and 15-year-old daughters had to be in Barrhaven for an interview at 4pm (they've applied to do day camp counselling for a church there), and she, even though she had some work to finish up at her office, drove them there. They told us later that she continued to be cheerful, taking the liberty to playfully tease them a bit. As they were preparing to leave, she got to see what is for us a very frequent and cute sight, i.e. all of our little children crowding around them and begging to go along for the ride. They're just not used to being left out of the fun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 23:10:11 -0400 (EDT) Our social worker sent me an e-mail message on Wednesday, August 8. Her computer people have indeed made a change since the last time, but, in only half fixing the problem, they've made it worse. Her e-mails now say that they're from her short address, but, after retesting it, I've found that that short address still doesn't work. It's now impossible, therefore, for someone who doesn't already know her long address to reply to her. I'm glad I kept it in my address book. Her purpose in writing was to ask if it'd be okay for her to stop by on Friday the 10th, i.e. two days later, at 9:15am. This was a bit sooner than I'd have expected her next visit. I guess she anticipated this, since her message contained the additional explanation that she'd be leaving for her vacation as of the end of the week, and that she wouldn't be returning until September 5. This, therefore, notwithstanding any unforeseen circumstances, would be her last visit during the summer holidays. I replied that the time was a bit early for these lazy summer mornings, but that it'd be okay. I also mentioned my recollection that the Child Protection Team at the Children's Hospital was supposed to have reviewed our 3-year-old son's case near the end of June, and asked her if she had an update regarding this situation. She arrived about five minutes early on Friday, August 10, i.e. at about 9:10am, and only stayed for a bit more than a half an hour. Her stay, again, seemed more like a friendly visit than a snoop session, although I'm sure she quietly made plenty of more than casual observations. The unusual shortness of her visit was probably due to her attempts to complete as many tasks as possible before the end of the day, i.e. the start of her vacation. Although she didn't appear to e rushing things, she did mention the sorts of things she had to still do, as well as the fact that she'd been up until 2am doing paperwork. As soon as she came in, she noticed a big mark of some kind on our 3-year-old son's face. She asked me what caused it. I told her that I didn't know, and suggested that she wait and ask my wife (who hadn't come down yet). One of our other children then came to the rescue, informing her that it was because, during an outing to the local park, he'd hit his face on the slide. This appeared to satisfy her (my wife came down about a minute later, and she didn't reask the question), and also explained why I didn't know the answer. I often can't go along when my wife takes our children to the park since I have to stay home to do my job. She also noticed that our hall floor was sticky, correctly deduced that someone had spilled juice on it, and asked who was going to clean it up. I explained that our 13-year-old daughter had already tried to do so earlier, but that we had to wait for the floor to dry in order to determine if she'd gotten all of it. I further explained that cleaning that part of the house is normally done by our 19-year-old daughter, but, being as she was away at an overnight retreat related to job training for her upcoming two weeks of day camp counselling, she'd been unable to do it this time. Our social worker then recommended that we ensure that each of our children is trained to do each others' jobs in order to deal with situations like this. While she was here, she looked at our kitchen and told my wife that it was obvious that we were getting a lot of help there. My wife seemed a bit surprised by this, and asked her if she really meant it. She confirmed that she did. She asked our 7-year-old son, and our 11- and 13-year-old daughters how they enjoyed their camps. In addition to our children recounting all kinds of fun events, our 11-year-old daughter told her that her 13-year-old sister had joked that she hoped the CAS would be still snooping on us next year so that they could pay for it again. She responded to this by indicating, without qualification, that she would be able to pay for it next year. I'm not sure what to make of her answer. Was this a hint that she expected that the CAS would still be involved with us a year from now? Is she able to get funding for children who aren't in CAS "care"? I just don't know, but thought it unwise to ask. My wife asked her how many years of post-secondary education it takes for a person to become a CAS worker. Her answer was that she herself had taken six years to get a masters degree in social work. My wife asked her if any of her children wanted to become CAS workers. She said that that wouldn't be possible since they were both special needs children. I told her that I knew that one of them was deaf, and then asked what the other one suffered from. She told us that her son is indeed deaf, and that her daughter is autistic. I said that I'd heard of autism, but that I didn't know what it was, and then asked her to describe it. We talked about that for a while, and then my wife told her about some autistic children whom she knew. Figuring it was time for a bit of humour, I recounted an incident which happened in the psychologist's waiting room the day before (where we were for our monthly appointment). Our 5-year-old daughter asked a lady who'd just come out of his office "Are you an office person?". What she meant, of course, was "Do you work here?". The lady, however, didn't quite get it, and thought that she was being asked "Are you an awfulest person?". She responded, therefore, by saying (and there's no way to do justice to the expression in her voice via writing), "I don't think so.". It took me a few seconds to realize what the problem was. Once I finally did, I explained it to the lady. She then understood, and explained to our daughter that she indeed was an "office person", although her office was somewhere else. Our social worker did appreciate the humour in this story, and then commended our daughter for having come up with a way to pose her question even if she didn't know the most appropriate way to word it. She mentioned having received my e-mail reply, and told us that, as far as she knows, the meeting in June to discuss our 3-year-old son never took place. She explained that half of its members have left, and that they're now very under-staffed. She added that she'd check with some social worker (I can't remember his name, but she did give it) in September, that she'd tell him that she had no concerns, and even that, should a meeting be scheduled, she'd ask that we be invited to it. She told us that she'd be visiting us in September while our children are at school, i.e. when our home is quiet, because we need, once more, to go over that "Plan of Service" document. She reminded us that this must be done, by ministry mandate, every six months, and added that, although time didn't permit it, it should have really been done this month. She then further revealed that they'd failed their provincial audit, that three hundred families had to be seen, and that that meant that everything else had to be put on hold. Suspecting that what the ministry is looking for is massive amounts of documentation, and remembering her statement regarding her having stayed up half the night to do paperwork, I joked about how easy it is for legislators to institute all kinds of procedures, but that it's an entirely different matter for those who have to execute them. This observation seemed to meet with her approval. This evening (Thursday, August 16), an interesting thing happened when our 19- and 15-year-old daughters came home from their day camp counselling job. A lady from the congregation which is running the camp drove them home in her van. As soon as he saw her turn onto our driveway, our 7-year-old son came running, as fast as his legs would allow him to go, into our house screaming that the police were coming here. I've never seen him express such fear and irrationality before, and suspected that he was worried that he was about to be taken away again. Although he never said anything to confirm my guess, he did calm down as soon as I suggested it, assured him that it wasn't true, and told him who the driver was and why she'd come here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:09:44 -0400 (EDT) Our social worker sent me an e-mail on Friday, September 7. She wanted to drop by at 9am on Wednesday the 13th. I answered that Wednesday would be the 12th, and that the 13th would be Thursday, so, although either would be okay, she needed to clarify. She wrote that the purpose of the meeting would be to go over the "plan of service" document, as that needed to be done within the next two weeks. I asked if that was another ministry-imposed deadline. She asked how our summer was, and how our children's transition back into school went. I answered that all went well, and told her that our 13-year-old daughter is now attending the Ottawa Christian School. I wondered, when doing so, if this would mean that we'd have to sign yet another permission-granting form, since those forms very carefully name the child as well as the school, but, so far, no such form has come our way. I suspect that it's technically necessary, but that she by now knows that we wouldn't mind were she to ask the new school about our daughter. She wrote that she hoped a ride had been arranged to get our 8-year-old son to and from the hockey camp in which he was registered. I answered that no one had called, and that we ourselves were unable to get him there since, rather than being at the nearby community centre, it was actually at the University of Ottawa, and, also, because he was supposed to be there at 8am each morning. She replied on Monday, September 10. She wrote that she'd meant Wednesday the 12th, and, while doing so, humourously noted that the former ambiguity should give me a hint regarding her work load. I answered that knowing the exact date (and time) is more critical these days since my wife, who's again taking our 3-year-old son to the play group, needs to know when to stay home. I also asked what the status was regarding our Indian status registration forms, and suggested that this might be an additional topic for our meeting. She replied the next day, i.e. on Tuesday, September 11, to tell us that she'd be bringing the completed status forms, and that she'd be a bit early. A lady sent me an e-mail on Monday evening to ask, among other things, if our 3-year-old son had fully recovered yet from his abduction. I was pleased to let her know that he's doing very well now, even when, as happens on occasion, my wife and I are both out and he's only with his siblings, although he's still a little apprehensive whenever he's left only with others, e.g. when my wife has to momentarily leave him when at the play group. The very next evening, however, he had another brief nightmare which appeared to be very similar to those he'd had just after he was returned last November. This time, however, he didn't struggle too much, and I was able to calm him down after only fifteen minutes or so. Was it a lingering symptom of his abduction? Had he understood enough of our conversation to glean some kind of an understanding regarding what had just happened in the US that day? Was it just a normal childhood bad dream? I suspect we'll never know. Our social worker arrived at about 8:45am on Wednesday, September 12. My wife wasn't yet back from walking with our children to school, and I was still upstairs, so our 19-year-old daughter answered the door. Our social worker asked her why she wasn't in school, and she answered that she's now graduated. Our social worker asked her what her plans were, and she answered that she was working on her resume. When I came down, I told her that my wife wasn't back yet. We then briefly discussed the American tragedy of the day before, and then dealt with the Indian status registration forms. She'd filled them all out, but wanted to verify all of the birth dates. She'd even filled out forms for all of our older children, including the oldest who no longer lives with us. She then gave the forms to me, explained what needed to be signed by whom, and told me to give her a call when that was all done, at which time she'd pick them up, put them, along with all of the birth registrations, into an appropriate envelope, and mail them in. My wife returned home at about 9am. Our social worker told her about how she often sees her walking with our 3-year-old son in the morning. I didn't ask, but suspect it's when she's driving to work and my wife is returning from the school. In any event, she made special mention of how cute it looked to see him holding her hand as they walked. We briefly discussed how our 19-year-old daughter, who's no longer in school, is now able to help us with things like cleaning up after breakfast. I also told her that my wife no longer needs to rush home from the play group since our 19-year-old daughter is able to go to the school at noon to walk home with her 5-year-old sister. I asked her if she foresees the end of the legal process on October 26 (our next court date). Not quite understanding what I was asking, she answered that there always is the possibility of a procedural delay. She then explained that she'd be completing her paperwork by October 9, since she has an obligation to do so two weeks before the court date, but that, beyond that, she wasn't able to guarantee anything. She then added that she'd even be sending me a copy of what would be in those papers by e-mail so that I would be able to read it for myself. I then clarified that what I was really asking was if she foresees the ending of the supervision order, or if there's some reason that it might be extended. She answered that, as far as she knows, it will indeed be ending. She added, however, that she's hoping that we'd be willing to voluntarily accept continued CAS involvement. She explained that her reason for making this request was that she wanted to protect us from the in-take people, i.e. if on-going stays involved then any allegations go to them, whereas, if they don't, then allegations go to in-take. She added that we've all seen what happened when in-take got involved the last time, and that she didn't want to see that happen to us ever again. I told her that I'd already been thinking about this issue, and that I understood it. She then gave us a bit of background, explaining how the turn-over rate at in-take is rather high, how the experienced social workers tend to move over to on-going where they can take the time to build relationships with people, and how, therefore, their level of experience tends to be lower than it ought to be. I asked if the organization didn't realize that this needed to be corrected, being as they make a lot of very important decisions. She then described how a lot of the in-take people like the fast pace, the excitement, and the fact that they're working with the police. I then observed that this already indicates that there's a serious problem in that they've forgotten that they're dealing with children. She told me that on-going has no ability to influence what happens over in in-take. She told us that continued CAS involvement wouldn't be any more intrusive than it is now, but that it would require a worker change. I asked her if that was because she only did supervision order work. She said no, and then explained that it was because, as of the end of her recent vacation, she'd just been promoted to supervisor. She assured us that she'd still be involved, albeit one step away. She added that she'd still be doing our court papers since it wouldn't be fair either to the new worker or to us for her to delegate that job. She told us that she's selected a worker who has 28 years experience, who doesn't get ruffled easily, who speaks her mind and doesn't get intimidated, and who has a better sense of humour than she does. I asked if, when she speaks her mind, the new worker does so behind ones back or to ones face. She said that she always does so to ones face. I asked if, should she perceive a problem, the new worker would report it to us or to a board room first. She said that she'd talk to us about it first. Without telling her where I was going, I temporarily shocked her a bit by informing her that I'd actually told one lie during this whole process. I then explained that it was when I signed the settlement agreement back in January, since it declared that we (the CAS as well as the parents) agree that the children are (present tense) in need of protection. She began to explain about such a declaration being necessary in order to bypass a lot of the legal process and its associated costs. I told her that I understood that, but that it was still a lie. She then teased me, telling me that she hoped I'd lost several nights of sleep over it. I told her that our lawyer had told us to just consider it to be a bunch of legal rhetoric. She agreed that that's what it was. With that as the background, I then told her what I was getting at. I don't want us to have to sign any agreement like that ever again. I was concerned that we might have to do so in order to "accept" continued CAS involvement. She didn't think there even was an agreement which needed to be signed. We'll see. Perhaps there isn't, since it doesn't require a court order. In any event, I guess it also looks good to the court if the CAS can say that we're cooperating with them. We scheduled a meeting at 1pm on Friday, September 21, at which she'll introduce the new worker to us and ourselves to her. At that time, we'll all be reviewing that plan of service document as well as our compliance with the supervision order. She told us that she'd be writing all kinds of positive statements for the court, adding that she can clearly see that we're trying very hard to do what needs to be done around here. She described our job as being "24 7 plus" (in other words, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, and then some), adding that the reality of the matter is that it's difficult. She then asked if the maids still come each Monday (they do), and explained that continued CAS involvement would also mean access to assistance, e.g. funding for camps next summer. She expressed regret that our 8-year-old son was unable to go to the hockey camp, explaining how difficult and tentative it was for her to try to make such an arrangement just before her vacation began. I told her that I didn't like the attitude of the guy who called anyway. She asked if I was referring to a CAS or to a camp guy. I answered that it was a camp guy, and explained that what I didn't like was his attitude of superiority wherewith he proclaimed a bunch of commands which I, the slave parent, was to unconditionally obey so that he could do as he wished with my child. She said that she understood why I wouldn't like that, and suggested that we should perhaps expose him to a different kind of camp next summer. She left at about 9:35am, and drove my wife and our 3-year-old son to the play group. As she was preparing to leave, she told us that she was planning to gather together a number of her colleagues, and that they'd all be going to donate blood for the victims of the previous day's terrorist attack. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 19:01:20 -0400 (EDT) Our current and new social workers both came by at around 1:20pm on Friday, September 21. Their being so late was a good thing since I'd forgotten to remind my wife, before she left with our 3-year-old son for the play group, that they'd be coming that afternoon. She'd called me at about 1:10pm to let me know that she was visiting a friend, at which time I reminded her that they were coming, and, in fact, should have already been here. She left for home right away, but, of course, couldn't possibly get here on time. When I told our social worker that my wife would be late, and why, she said that it was okay, and, in fact, good, since she'd been telling her to take some time off for herself. She then hastily added that having our son with her meant that she wasn't entirely alone, but that still was a lot less work than being around all of our children at once. While I have my disagreements with the sentiments behind what she was saying, I kept quiet. In addition to giving us an opportunity to meet the new social worker, the main purpose of this meeting was to review both our compliance with the supervision order and the plan of service document. It was good that the new social worker was present for all of this reviewing, since it gave her an opportunity to learn all about us and our case in an informal setting, and via an open and lively discussion. We started with the supervision order. No physical discipline: She said that neither she nor the parenting instructor had ever seen us use physical discipline, and added that they've always observed us using good methods of discipline. As I've always done in the past when this particular subject has come up, I just stayed quiet. She's gotten to know me fairly well by now, and correctly recognized that my silence was because there was something I was choosing not to say. She asked, therefore, "You haven't used any physical discipline, have you?". The time had now come for me to directly face this issue, and I elected to do so, as always, by being honest in spite of the risk. While I can't ever either predict or control the outcome of an issue like this, I do know one thing, i.e. God blesses truth-telling. I still remain astounded by the fact that plenty of people, including plenty of Christians, have advised me to either conceal or subtly misstate sensitive evidence of this nature in an attempt to protect my God-given rights. I don't need to do anything of the sort, and, in my own strength, I'd blow it anyway. God is perfectly capable of protecting His children, including myself, but He only promises to do so if we're prepared to do it His way, and, in so doing, to trust Him. I also elected to do it with boldness, i.e. to begin exactly at the point where the family in Aylmer got into trouble. I first reminded her that the actual supervision order, as signed in the courtroom at the end of January, had been modified to read "no inappropriate physical discipline". She thanked me for the correction, acknowledged that I was correct, and explained that she was using her prehearing copy. I then told her that I'm fully prepared to use physical discipline should the need arise, and that I'd never promise to never use it. I then, however, did what all parents should be prepared to do, but, sadly, what most can't do, and what I'm sure wasn't done in the Aylmer case, i.e. give clear evidence that I'd never do so irresponsibly. I said that we must first be sure that we agree on what's meant by physical discipline, explaining that I wouldn't hesitate to sharply slap the hand of a baby if he were playing with an electric cord since his safety is more important than anyone's policy. I explained that we even need to agree on the definitions of other terms, since there's a huge difference between a slap and a spank. I explained that a hit is when a parent strikes out in anger, and that a slap is when a parent reacts out of frustration, but that a spank is a carefully thought out act designed to call a child back to reality. I then told them that I didn't believe in either hitting or slapping a child, but that I'd never agree to not spank, adding, though, that I only ever use spanking as a last resort. I told her that a parent should never discipline his child when he (the parent) is angry since he'll probably act irrationally, and that it doesn't even make sense for a parent to get angry in response to his child's bad behaviour since it's his job, and not his problem, to correct his child. I told her that it doesn't even make sense for a parent to get frustrated when correcting his child since we all know that correcting a person's behaviour is a long and slow process. I told her that there's no need for a parent to create additional problems just because his child has one. At that point our new social worker interjected that "we" (the CAS) don't support the use of objects for spanking. I told her that I absolutely agreed, adding that I'd only ever spank with my hand since that gives me direct feedback regarding how much pain the child is feeling. Our 19-year-old daughter then came into the room and asked them if they knew the last time she was spanked. They asked her when it was, and she answered that it was so long ago that she couldn't remember it. Our social worker, who doesn't miss a detail, then said "but you're saying that it did happen", and our daughter said "yes". Our social worker then said something which I found to be somewhat surprising, i.e. she hypothesized that this condition was perhaps put in because of the incident wherein I'd injured our then 2-year-old daughter by throwing her against a bedpost. I'm fairly certain that the "no physical discipline" condition is imposed on everyone, but this statement of hers would seem to imply that it mightn't be. In any event, it reveals that she apparently has no problem with my willingness (reluctant as it may be) to spank our children. If people would only get off their "I have my rights" platform, even if those rights have been granted by God Himself, and replace it with a responsible living message, they just might find themselves confronted with a lot less hostility. Back to that incident: First, for the benefit of the new social worker, I stated that that occurred way back in 1991, and then recounted how I've always accepted full responsibility for it, and how I myself had even personally taken her to the hospital right away, and given them a direct answer when they asked what had happened to her. Our social worker then said that our complete honesty is one of the things she really appreciates about us. I then added, referring back to an earlier issue, that that was one time when I was angry and had reacted without thinking. To set the record straight, I told her that the CAS report was wrong in documenting that my foolish action was aggravated by an argument which my wife and I had just had. I told her that I remember that incident very clearly, that it had nothing to do with an argument between my wife and myself, and that we didn't even have an argument that night. She didn't ask, so she never did find out what had made me so angry, but, for the record, I'll document it here. The church we were attending at the time had just embarked on a program to teach its members how to better evangelize. That evening (it was a Sunday) the evening worship service was replaced with the showing of a film wherein a famous expert on the subject was demonstrating how effective evangelism is to be done. This supposed expert, rather than using his great skills to get people to realize their need for a Saviour by becoming convicted of their own personal sinfulness, was boldly and blatantly coercing them into giving him the right answers to his questions, and then, equally boldly and blatantly, telling them that they were now saved. He was, in effect, leading them right down the garden path to Hell. You bet it made me angry! The fact that "my church" (at the time) was fully endorsing this Satanic practice enraged me even further! Just thinking about it now still infuriates me! May God grant that I'll never be able to live in peace with those who do such things. I shouldn't be alone with young children: She told me that she remembered that this one had been reworded, and reminded me that she was using her prehearing copy of the agreement. She almost skimmed over this one, merely stating, in passing, that I'd complied with it. I stopped her, though, admitting that there have indeed been times when I've been alone with them. She responded, defending me, saying that those times were short and out of necessity. I confirmed this, and then added that it was a stupid condition. She then explained to the new social worker that this condition was there because one of our young children had once gotten out of our house, and that it was felt that my being blind contributed to that incident. I told her that I'd finally give her the background to that incident, and then explained how it had absolutely nothing to do with my blindness, but, rather, everything to do with the fact that I'd gone upstairs to take and deal with an urgent call from work. I even dared to add that she herself could probably empathize with this. I then told her that the CAS never did document what I did after that incident, and then revealed that I'd purchased a cordless phone so that I could remain right with our children while handling work issues. She then explained to the new social worker that there was also one other incident when I'd lost track of one of our young children, but added that she knew it was because my wife and I had misunderstood one another (she'd taken the child with her to the store, and probably really did tell me, but I either forgot or didn't register it). I then told her that, rather than faulting me, they should have been impressed that, even though I'm blind, I noticed that the child was missing so quickly. I further added that they should've been further impressed with the fact that, upon realizing that one of our children was missing, and having no older children at home to help me, I didn't hesitate to immediately call the police for help. Participation in parenting course, and intervention by its instructor: She said that she recognized that we'd stayed with it even though we didn't think we needed it. She noted that the parenting instructor had observed that we always carry through with our threats (I forget the word she actually used). I told her that it's crucial that one never make a threat which he isn't prepared to back with action, and that it's equally crucial to never fail to carry through with a threat if its associated warning isn't heeded. I added that this approach must begin right from birth, and, if the child gets the message at a young age, then words are usually all that's needed. The new social worker asked me what I thought of the course. I told her that it was an excellent course for those who had no children yet, and even for those who already had their first child or two, but that it didn't teach us much because, after having raised thirteen children, we've already seen and learned quite a bit. I added that she should see this as quite a strong commendation given that we were ordered, under protest, to take it, and given that we went into it expecting the worst. I then went a bit further, explaining that, while it was a good course, it really wasn't able to properly resolve problems because the instructors weren't permitted to confront people with errors in their values. I explained that it's impossible to truly correct a problem if all one ever does is modify behaviour because the underlying attitude which is the real cause of the problem is still there. Our social worker mentioned that there are those who believe that enough behaviour training will eventually change a person's values. I told her that I didn't believe it. I told her that, even though it's a much longer and harder path to travel, I much prefer to work on training our children's attitudes, often letting the rough edges on their behaviours go so that I can use them to assess their attitudes. I added that one of the reasons that there are so many problems on university campuses is that most parents foolishly only train their children's behaviours rather than their attitudes. She said "well, there at that age, too". I said no, explaining that it's only because those students, being away from home for the first time, and having had no proper values training on which to draw, are finally able to freely express their true inner desires without having to worry about anyone trying to stop them. I told her that I trust our children whenever they're away from home because they have the right attitudes and values, rather than just the right behaviours. Monthly appointments with psychologist: She noted that we've been having an appointment each month with him. I told her that he even came by here one evening last month to check for himself on the state of our house, as well as to see all of our children together at home. This seemed to impress her. She asked if any formal assessments have yet taken place for those of our children who were specifically named within the supervision order. I said no, but that, since he's regularly seen some of them during our monthly visits, he may already feel that he has sufficient data. I then suggested that she should really discuss this issue with him, rather than with me, since he's the expert in that field. She told me that she and the psychologist had briefly discussed the possibility of all of us (he, she, us, and the new social worker) getting together at his office. She said that each had left the other a number of phone messages, but that they still hadn't managed to actually get in direct contact with one another. Consents for access to schools, doctors, and children: I told her that we'd agreed to these because we have nothing to hide, but that we still didn't like them, especially the one granting private access to our children, because we know that social workers can, and that disreputable ones often do, coerce children into saying what they want to hear. I added that I know for a fact that the in-take people did that to our own children, which didn't give me much confidence in her. She said that she recognized that we'd agreed to things we weren't comfortable with, adding that she hopes we feel that she conducts herself responsibly. I confirmed her hope. The new social worker asked if our children had to change schools when we moved. I explained how we're now in a new public school district, but that, even if we weren't, they would've changed schools anyway since we're now within easy walking distance of the Christian school where we really want them to be. Following school and medical recommendations: She noted that no one has been making any recommendations for us to follow, except, of course, the staff and therapists at our 7-year-old son's school. She then added that she knows we've been following their recommendations. I said that that's nothing special since we've always been doing that. She told me that I should stop trying to keep her from writing down good things about us. Conditions specifically pertaining to our 3-year-old son: She explained our situation with the Children's Hospital to the new social worker. She described all of his awful symptoms while in foster "care", explained how the hospital experts had concluded that they must have been due to negligent parents, and then said "but the real reason was that he needed to be home". She then added that he's had no such symptoms since he's been home, explained how the child protection team at the hospital is much smaller now than it was only a half a year ago, and reiterated her commitment to check with them regarding their opinion of our current status. I also reminded her, remembering by now that she was working from an outdated copy of the actual agreement, that the hospital's demands were removed since we felt, and the CAS lawyer agreed, that the hospital should fend for itself rather than be allowed to use the CAS as a means to remotely impose its wishes. At that moment, my wife and our 3-year-old son finally arrived home. Our social worker introduced the new social worker to her, explained that we were reviewing the supervision order, and told her not to worry because I was consistently correcting her whenever she said something wrong. Our son remained quite quiet, even though our social worker, off and on, tried to encourage him to talk to her. I think, and told them so, that he was a little worried about the new social worker. My wife mentioned that they'd walked home from a place which is about 3KM from here. Our social worker looked at our son, and asked him if he needed a good rest after walking that far. My wife then clarified her statement, explaining that she'd walked while carrying him on her shoulders. Our social worker then told her that she probably needed that rest. The truth, of course, is, although neither of us said so, that we carless people learn to walk great distances without getting too perturbed. Conditions specifically pertaining to our 7-year-old son: She focused on the condition stating that we were to ensure that he's always provided with adequate supports so as to avoid unnecessary injury. I told her that this is one area wherein I disagree with the experts. I explained that my own experience, growing up as a blind person, puts me firmly on the side of letting our son take risks. I explained how there was no shortage of people who were constantly telling me what I couldn't do, and, had I listened to them, how it would've held me back. She said that the experts themselves disagree on this issue (which at least means that she understands it). I said that, in this case, I'm guided by my own personal experience, which I consider to be far more relevant than some experts' opinions. I further explained the need for him to develop good reflexes now while he's lighter, so that, when he's heavier, he'll have those reflexes to protect him from accidents which will then have much more serious consequences. She then said, in support of my position, that we're still in compliance with the condition since, when we let him take those risks, we're always right there to deal with them should something go wrong. That was it for the supervision order review. Next, she turned to the plan of service document. Since a lot of items are in common between the two, we really only dealt with those which we hadn't already discussed. Indian status applications: She filled all of the forms out for us a few weeks ago. We and our older children have signed all of them in all of the right places. I've put them, along with all of our children's birth registrations as well as our marriage registration, into a large envelope. The only thing left is that I (still) need to write a covering letter explaining what they need to do, and in what order, at which time she'll pick up all of the papers, put them into a proper envelope, and mail the whole thing off. I told her that I wasn't in a good position to write that letter since I don't have a working printer. She suggested that I e-mail her the letter, and that she'd print it. She told my wife that she's made a lot of progress with respect to this issue. Neither my wife nor I understood what she meant. My wife asked, and her answer was essentially that we'd learned to accept that which is our right to have. I suppose that's true, but it still doesn't seem right to live on government handouts. At the root of it is our fundamental belief that government handouts, not withstanding a few exceptions, are wrong. Even if it's our right to have them, therefore, does that make it right to accept them? Continue seeing the psychologist: She asked me if we'd be willing to continue seeing him. I told her that we don't have any objection, since he's good, except that it costs us money. I explained how I hoped to get all of it back from my medical plan, but that my experience to date is that that hasn't been happening. She said that, at least insofar as children's assessments were concerned, she'd be willing to look into CAS funding should it be necessary. She then asked me what our financial situation was like. I explained to her that we're now spending more than I'm earning, and then gave her the background to this situation. I used to work a lot of overtime in order to break even. A few years ago, my manager at the time realized that the industry was changing, and that people with my kind of job would no longer be able to claim overtime. He asked me how much money we needed, and, after we discussed the issue further, he changed my salary so that it was just what we needed. Everything was going along just great until we had our legal expenses, as well as our monthly house and weekly cleaning expenses. Although I didn't say it, I hope she realizes that we put ourselves into a seriously risky situation in order to rescue our children. I then gave her some more background. I explained how we decided to buy this house in order to increase the chances of getting our children back since we were sure they wouldn't be returned were we to have stayed in our old house, even though we knew that it'd put us into a serious deficit situation. I explained how I'd hoped that my stock options (the replacement for overtime) would correct the situation since they were rather valuable at the time, and how, by the time I could "exercise" (get access to) them, they'd become useless. I told her that I've recently converted our mortgage into a home equity line of credit, and am now borrowing more against it each month. It's only a matter of time before the bank catches on to my pattern of paying the interest, waiting a week or so, and then borrowing it right back again. Our financial situation isn't good at all. This is the first time such a thing has happened to us, and I don't know what to do about it. The new social worker asked me if my job is secure. I told her that I didn't know because no one is given any warning before he's laid off. I explained how even the really good people are getting laid off these days since the company is canceling whole product lines rather than just the less valuable employees. Cleaning service: She asked if we'd be continuing to use our weekly cleaning service. I said that we would, but that it's costing us $125 per week, or $500 per month, which is really far more than we can realistically afford these days. She told us that the CAS can provide cleaning services, but that they only do so for those who are on social assistance. She said that she'd look into having a special exception made for us. New goals: She asked us if we could think of any goals which should be added (I guess bigger plans look better than smaller ones). We couldn't (not that we tried). The new social worker, catching on quite quickly, asked us if we should set a goal to get the CAS out of our lives. I chuckled about that one, knowing that it's not even a reasonable possibility at this point, and why. I told her that that's of course what we'd like, but it's really only because of the truly rotten things which some of its employees have done to us. She then modified her suggestion to a goal of increasing the positive aspects of continued CAS involvement. How could I say no to a goal like that, since the onus is wholly on the CAS itself to meet it. The new social worker then suggested that a tangible way to begin to achieve this goal would be to continue to pursue CAS-supported activities for our children. We told them how much we and two of our daughters appreciated the equestrian camp they went to this summer, and that we'd appreciate similar support next summer. I added that we'd prefer to be paying for it ourselves, but, given our current financial situation, we can only afford necessities. She said that she understood. That ended the formal part of the discussion. Our social worker, without asking, went upstairs to look for our 5-year-old daughter (whom she knew was home since she only goes to school in the morning). She knows us well enough now to do that, and it also provides her a polite excuse to have a look at the rest of our house. She'd assumed our daughter was sleeping, but found her awake, lying down beside her sleeping 13-year-old sister. I told her that our older daughter had stayed home from school that day because she'd felt quite sick (she was only able to return to school yesterday (Thursday the 27th)). She told the new social worker about the time our daughter had pretended to sleep in order to avoid coming down to say hi to her. I interjected that this is different since it's a school day. As the social workers got up to leave, Our social worker and our 5-year-old daughter chatted for a bit. Our daughter showed her what she's been working on in school. She showed her her sound book, which is a pamphlet which shows which sounds each letter makes. Both social workers tried to talk to our 3-year-old son, but he, maintaining his silence, just wouldn't give in. They left just before 3pm. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 15:40:41 -0400 (EDT) On Wednesday, October 3, a lady offered to drive my wife to a morning Bible study. Our 3-year-old son didn't want to get into her car. Whenever my wife brought him near the car, he began to struggle, cry, and cling tightly to her. Both of us tried to ask him what was wrong, but he wouldn't answer. She ended up leaving him at home with me, where he remain quiet for most of the morning. I took him with me to the school to pick up his 5-year-old sister at lunch, and, while we walked, I asked him again why he didn't want to go with his mother. This time, he told me that he was scared to get into the car. On Saturday, October 13, our 3-year-old son began to talk to his 19-year-old sister while spending some time alone with her late in the evening. He told her that he was scared of the Children's Aid, that he was scared of cars, that he was scared of the police, that he was scared that he'd be taken away, and that he was scared that they'd take his mother away. He normally likes cars a lot, naming each different kind of vehicle as it passes (car, bus, truck, van, taxi, etc.). Perhaps it's just cars which are in our driveway and/or those which he's being asked to get into which scare him. On Wednesday, October 17, my wife took our 3-year-old son with her to watch our 15-year-old daughter run. He saw a police car while they were on the bus, and told his mother "there's the police that took us to foster care". He went on to tell her that he wanted to kick the police, and that the police are bad people. She told me about this after they returned home, so I asked him if he saw a police car while on the bus. He then repeated his earlier statements, telling me that they're bad people, and that he wanted to kick the police car. Our social worker phoned on Friday morning, October 19, to ask if she could drop by that afternoon. I told her we'd be out between 12:30 and 3 for parent teacher interviews at the Christian school. She said that she'd be by around the end of her work day, and would be bringing us our copies of the court papers for our hearing on the 26th. She also told me that she'd be e-mailing me my copy shortly. My e-mail copy arrived about two hours later, and she came around 5pm. Our 5-year-old daughter proudly told her about making her first phone call, and then I recounted the full story. My wife and I had been out the previous Monday to take our 7-year-old son for his regular appointment with an ophthalmologist at the Children's Hospital. Our 5-year-old daughter, after lunch, was home alone with her 19-year-old sister. Around 2:30, she quietly went to the phone, picked it up, and pressed the digits of my cell phone number which she'd memorized some time ago. To her delight, we answered her call, and talked with her until we finally arrived back home. We added to her fun by telling her exactly when to come down and open the door for us. Our daughter was so excited to tell our social worker about that event that she repeated my cell phone number to her several times. Our social worker then asked her if she knew her own phone number and address. She did, proving it by reciting them. I told her how important it was to know them because, should she ever be lost, she'd need to tell them to the police so that they could help her get back home. Our social worker then made sure that she understood what I'd just told her. She then showed her her business card, and asked her if she could read her phone number. She proudly read and spoke each digit. She brought with her three copies of the court papers: one for us, and one each for our 15- and 13-year-old daughters. She told us that the lawyers had been faxed their copies on the 11th. She told us that she expected the hearing to be merely procedural, and that she herself probably wouldn't even go. My wife said that she'd rather go to the play group with our 3-year-old son, so I asked her what it'd look like if I went but my wife didn't. She said it shouldn't matter. I said that I'd be going because it's an opportunity for me to learn more about such processes. She also brought us a copy of our latest plan of service agreement. As she handed it to us she stressed our new social worker's item on emphasizing the positive aspects of continued CAS involvement. She also brought the printed copy of my cover letter for our children's Indian status registrations. My wife and I both signed it, and I gave her the pile of signed registration forms, full birth registrations, and our marriage registration. She confirmed, in an e-mail to me on Wednesday the 24th, that everything has now been mailed. We were all sitting around our dining room table with her while our 21-year-old son was making dinner. He served it while she was still here. Everyone was having lots of fun, and began to eat as his/her plate arrived. We offered her some food too. She said that she'd like to eat some except that what we were eating (tacos) didn't fit into her diet. After dinner, our social worker tied our 7-year-old son's shoes for him. While doing so, she noticed that his socks weren't the same colour. She jokingly asked him if he's colour-blind. I told her that that happens a lot around here, and, especially with him, finding socks which properly fit his braces is more important than finding ones which match. She saw definite proof that we don't fake anything when expecting a visit from her. One of our children had swept up a bunch of stuff on our kitchen floor into a pile, but had not yet transferred that pile into a garbage bag. She noticed it, and we explained that the child who'd done that had had something more important to attend to. She told us that we should teach our children the importance of finishing a task. She told us that she'd ask a Pinecrest Queensway resource person to contact us who's good at suggesting housecleaning tips. She confirmed, in that e-mail to me on the 24th, that she's now done this, and the lady left us voice mail yesterday (the 25th) morning. We've yet to return her call. She told us that she'd have to contact in-take to see if the CAS is able to provide us with a cheaper (than Molly Maid) housecleaning service. My wife, upon hearing the word "in-take", said that that didn't sound to good to her. Our social worker told her that it's just a process, and assured her that no harm would result from it. She told us that she'd contacted the Child Protection Team at the Children's Hospital and spoken to her contact there. She reminded him that the meeting in June never took place, and told him that our supervision order is being terminated. He said that he didn't think there's a problem, but asked her to speak to Dr. Gray (female), the psychiatrist who'd seen our son while he was in foster "care". She still doesn't know if we'll be taken off their list, but told us to feel free to direct the hospital staff to her if they ever give us a problem. We had what was supposed to be our last day in court this morning, Friday, October 26. Our hearing was adjourned until 9:30am on Thursday, November 16, over what amounts to a silly procedural technicality. The children's lawyer, having many much more important things to deal with, and being entirely content that her clients are where they should and want to be especially given the CAS's uninhibited willingness to terminate our supervision order, didn't come by to speak to our children. The CAS lawyer, being fairly new at her current job, and not being familiar with us and/or our case, flatly stated that she'd be unwilling to proceed until the children's lawyer had spoken directly with each of her clients so that she could be absolutely sure regarding their current position. I like the word games lawyers play in courtrooms. When speaking to this matter during the hearing itself, she took advantage of the fact that we have lots of children in order, presumably, to protect her reputation. She stated that she didn't have enough time to see "all" of the children. She also added that they all "most likely" want the supervision order to be terminated. After the hearing, she introduced herself to me as Julie Guindon, and we made a tentative appointment for her to visit us after school on Tuesday (the 31st). Our 22-year-old son drove me to the hearing and stayed there with me, while my wife indeed did go to the play group. When informing the court clerk regarding who was in the courtroom, our lawyer, speaking very loudly and clearly, made sure that everyone understood that my wife's absence was due to the fact that she considered spending time with her children to be more important than sitting through a procedural hearing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 17:27:05 -0500 (EST) We received a phone call from the Indian Affairs department on Thursday morning, November 1. The guy remembered us from when we were there several months ago to get my wife's status card, and was calling to tell us that the application forms for our children had arrived. The ones for those born after April 17, 1985, are being forwarded to my wife's band in BC for processing, and that should take about three months. The ones for our older children will remain here with the federal people, and will take about a whole year to be processed (they apparently have that big of a backlog). The one potential glitch is that our 17-year-old son will likely be 18 by the time his form will be processed, which means that it'll need his signature then even though it didn't need it (and doesn't have it) as of the far earlier time when it was prepared. A car "accident" occurred somewhere near here on Sunday afternoon, November 4, and the damaged vehicle was parked across the street from us. When the police came, our 7-year-old son wanted us to lock our door. I asked him why, and he answered that he was scared they'd take him to jail. A few minutes later, he asked us if we knew why he didn't like the police. I said no, and asked him why. He said that he was scared that they'd take him away again. A few more minutes later he asked us if we knew why he wasn't scared of the police any more. Again, I said no, and asked why. He said that it's because they're nice to people. I asked him if he figured that out by watching them; he said yes. I asked him if he'd like to come out with me and say hi to them; he said no. I asked if he was still a little scared of them; he said yes. At two separate times later that day he came to tell us that he was still a little scared of the police. The new children's lawyer came by at about 4:10pm on Thursday, November 8. She stayed for about a half an hour, and, with our children, sat at our dining room table. After introducing herself and telling them why she was here, she asked each of them what his/her position was. I don't think they understood the exact question which was being put to them. It was whether or not they wanted the supervision order to be terminated, whereas they answered regarding where they wanted to live. In spite of this misunderstanding, she saw a bunch of cheerful children who gave her a very clear and unanimous message. The older children said things like "if they ever want to put me back in foster care again then they'll have to kill me first". The younger children mistakenly thought that she worked for the CAS, and told her to get out of here. She explained to them that she didn't work for the CAS, and asked them if they wanted to live somewhere else or stay here. They then told her that they wanted to stay. She had an opportunity to see how unconstrained our children feel when they're at home. Some of them were a bit bored with the formalness of the whole thing, and, in an attempt to inject some humour into her visit, asked her things like "why do you have such big eyes". My wife and I talked with her for a bit before she left. She explained to my wife why the hearing had been delayed, and told us how glad she was to be coming in on the end of this case which was clearly going to end on a very happy note. We explained to her how our children's ordeal had, especially insofar as the younger ones are concerned, made them afraid of the police. I concluded her visit on a humourous note by telling her a joke which I'd just been told the night before wherein a smart blonde humiliates a proud lawyer. Today, Friday, November 16, was our last day in court. It's a day off school for a lot of our children, so my wife has taken them out for a fun day (including a trip on the O-Train), and our 22-year-old son drove me to the courthouse. We were a bit early, and so was the children's lawyer. She told us that we were fourth on the list, but then went and did something which made us be first. Our children's position "in favour of the application" was put on the record, the fact that the CAS had filed "an affidavit in favour of termination" rather than "a notice of motion" was identified as being documented at tab 15, and a formal declaration stating that our supervision order was being terminated was monotonously rendered. With that, the next case was called, we quietly left, others quietly entered, and life and time went on, seemingly oblivious to this brief and incidental interlude. It seems rather odd that the end of this prolonged ordeal, driven by a twisted system so full of bureaucracy, delays, tension, hypocrisy, injustice, antagonism, distrust, slander, deceit, hatred, and heartlessness, which inflicts such intense heartache, sadness, lostness, turbulence, hopelessness, and destruction upon those whom it purports to be helping, should be so uneventful and unemotional. The cold sterility of its conclusion is still resounding with deafening harshness within my being. I'm not the kind to even think of holding some sort of pride-filled victory celebration, but a wise word or two from the judge aimed at preventing this kind of tragedy (in our case, may God be thanked, it was only a near tragedy) from ever happening in the future would've been nice. At a time when our nation is so concerned about protecting itself from foreign terrorism, it does absolutely nothing to protect its citizenry from its own terrorism. Another important element which is missing from this whole process is that of proper wound-healing. This is especially important with respect to an issue such as this since its wounds injure the souls, rather than just the bodies, of its victims. How wholesome and long-lasting it'd be were the CAS, when wrong, obligated to render a sincere apology and admission of guilt. This not only would help them to help themselves become a much better organization, but also would give us the opportunity to truly complete the process by extending to them the olive branch of true forgiveness. These things being said, true as they may be, and putting our own feelings as well as the system's weaknesses aside, the truly good news is that, at least in our case, justice, though its wheels turned slowly, really did prevail. Our children are finally out of danger, and we're now able, once again, without the threat of undue interference, to raise them as we deem best. Since they really are God's children, may we unceasingly do so in a way which is pleasing to Him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------