I’m going to write this up. Because it seems important.

CPS came to our house yesterday. They were checking up on that incident I’m being cagey about from last summer. First: the fact that it took them 8+ months to follow up is a sign that the system does not have time for low hanging fruit.

The caseworker was a really nice dude. He had a soft spoken voice; he was incredibly non threatening and warm. He is clearly someone who works for CPS because he wants to be able to help kids who are in trouble.

He asked us a lot of questions and he liked our answers. He closed the case and agreed with the person I spoke to on the phone way back when I self reported this incident to CPS last summer: “Sometimes kids do things we wish they wouldn’t and then we have to educate them as to why they can’t ever do that again.”

My kids were scared to talk to him then confused and relaxed after they did because “I don’t understand why he cares if I like X grade…”

The questions weren’t scary or intense but the questions for us as adults were thorough. I feel he asked questions that should be asked for the protection of children and I don’t feel upset at all for being monitored in this way. I’m glad there are folks to check up on kids how he did.

It was kind of funny how he relaxed a little after we explained about our non-binary kid.

I want to relate more details about the questioning because I feel like it was well done, but that would be skirting the privacy of my kids and that’s the barrier I’m trying to stick to.

But I’ll say that as a parent, CPS was absolutely lovely. They were checking up on the safety of my kids and they were not threatening in any way. I do actually feel glad that there are people in this world who will just show up to make sure my kids are ok. Given my background that seems so wonderful.

It’s not a bad thing to be monitored. I’m not ashamed of how I’m handling issues. I feel very proud that when I’m asked about discipline I can talk with great detail about how I handle issues and I feel confident that I’m doing the best that is available to me. We talk. We do time ins more than time outs. Outside voices go outside.

It’s not that we never fuck up. It’s that when we do… we do intensive education about why it needs to change next time.

This is the best we can do. And it’s not terrible in the scheme of things. The fact that I self reported the issue and put both of my kids in therapy (we actually had the appointments scheduled before the incident! It wasn’t a reactionary choice! It was proactive but it happened at exactly the time when we needed it to) and family therapy and worked more on education stuff…

What the hell else can you do?