Calling the DCFS Hotline? You Didn’t Read it Here!

The headstrong young teenager didn’t believe his mom when she laid down the rules for the time he had to come home at night.

Now, in all honesty, this kid isn’t too much different than others his age, as the teenage years are a time when they all too often tend to believe they can “skirt” the rules.

In some cases, when they’ve been allowed to do as they pleased as youngsters, this “skirting the rules” isn’t so much of a surprise, but when various household laws have existed over the years, one wonders how crazy the hormones have made the kid behave.

Mom would lock the door at the curfew hour and Mr Know-It-All would have to sleep on the front porch.

Uncomfortable?  Yes, but the lack of real shelter wasn’t changing his behavior.  And then one morning in a fit of frustration, Mom took the hose to wash down the porch and all things that were on the porch.

I’m not giving any names or home addresses for this action to be reported to the Department of Children’s Services, as this dousing of the teenager would most certainly be classified by them as child abuse.

But I know better.  I know the trouble this kid had been raging on the household believing, he told me, that he had rights, that he could pretty much do what he pleased.

An unexpected cold washdown brought him to make apologies to his long-suffering mom and to, so it seems, realize that the rules of their household are in place, not to violate his person but to establish, in part, a sense of order.

Will you report this scenario I’ve shared to the Department’s  hotline number?  Don’t bother, because I’ll simply say, when they contact me, that  I made the whole thing up as I like telling a good story.

But while you’re thinking of contacting DCFS, ask them about the kids in their system called Protective Custody, you know, the ones they remove from families and place with foster parents, but who run away.

What entity should be responsible for this missing kid other than the agency that claims to provide protection?

“Well,” say those who speak well of the system, “they can’t watch a kid 24/7.”

I beg to differ!

Parenting is a 24/7 operation and while our eyes and our ears cannot be expected to have round-the-clock vigil,  our soul is required to be on the job – always.

If the foster kid is one who doesn’t come home at night, if the foster kid is one who meets dudes on the internet and you know that – there’s really no surprise when that kid, supposedly in protective custody, goes missing.

Now, the mom with the hose on the front porch is clearly to be classified as a villain by the authorities.  However, the foster mom with the runaway teenage girl, without any kind of detrimental classification, simply had another kid placed in her care.

Uh, for the record, I made this story up, also.