Someone's Always Perfect

As a mother to two young girls, my perspective on things has changed greatly since BK (before kids). I have certainly come to realize that being a parent is incredibly hard. I know parents always love to tell their children "I hope you have a child just like you, so you can see how difficult you are." Yeah, its really true. I see actions by my kids and my reaction thereto, totally echoing what I did as a kid. As such, I know it can be difficult for them to change bad habits, because they don't really know they are doing it, I know I didn't. At the same time, I have to struggle not to overreact to things, to control my annoyance and anger. Its not easy and sometimes I slip a little, but nothing hurtful or really bad. However, I've recently been given reason to try and work a little harder at my reactions, as you never know how something is perceived by another, the person who seems to be, or at least thinks they are, always perfect.

A co-worker of mine also has a young daughter in daycare, a little older than my youngest. She recently had a fall at home, where she was running in the house and hit a living room table, causing a bruise above her eye. No cut, just a bruise, which made it look like a shiner (although typically "shiners" are below the eye). She didn't think anything of it, but did tell her daycare teacher to keep an eye on it, just in case it worsened.

A couple days later, she gets a call from the daycare that someone had reported the child to Child Protective Services, concerned about possible abuse. CPS had then contacted the daycare to follow up, as required by law. Fortunately the daycare was as shocked as the mother and totally backed up the parents, saying they had absolutely no reason whatsoever to suspect abuse. CPS said that since the bruise was above the eye, rather than below (as above indicates fall, while below suggests 'hit'), likely there'd be no further follow up. The Daycare administrator called the mother to let her know what happened, just in case there was further follow up. All were pretty surprised by the event and the daycare said they had no complaints to them by any teacher or parent.

Given that I had recently become involved in an alleged sexual harassment of a student case, I knew a little bit of the law and could tell this co-worker that if it was daycare teacher that made the report to CPS, the teacher was also supposed to tell the daycare administrator. Under law, the daycare has to report suspected abuse, so the daycare would need the teacher to tell the administrator as well or the daycare could be cited. Since this didn't occur, it was more likely that another parent called CPS (figuring it had to be someone around the daycare, as otherwise how would CPS know where the child was). The mother was still quite angry that some parent, who knew nothing about the situation, saw one bruise and made an abuse accusation. This parent didn't talk to the teacher or the daycare administrator, just made an unsupported accusation.

A week has gone by with no new contact, so everyone believes that CPS just closed the investigation without the need for further follow up or opening a case file. The mother is relieved because, like most parents (apparently except this one perfect parent), she has occasionally yelled at her kids, pulled them by the arm to get in the car, spanked a behind, all (at least in my humble opinion), typical parent actions to discourage bad behavior by the kids. Naturally she's concerned that once you get on CPS' radar, that anything you do can be interpreted badly.

My own daughters get bruises now and again and Elise actually had a similar one on her face due to a bathtub slip, so this story is all too close to home. I'm not perfect either, and I would never think of reporting someone to CPS without some further question to the daycare or at least asking the parent. Heck, I've seen kids at the daycare with bruises and it never once occurred to me that their parents were abusing them. I guess some parents are lucky and are not only perfect themselves, but have kids that never fall and hurt themselves, get bruises or cuts, or otherwise aren't perfect.