Lots and lots of people wish they could have someone listen to them. People talk to me all day long. They talk and talk and talk. I listen and when I am ready to respond, there is a general disgust about what I have to say. Hear me, Hear me, Hear ME!
What is it that I want to say? Just because you went to LAW SCHOOL does not make you a superior human being. Lawyers are not inherently smarter than "normal people". The truth is a commodity that can be traded and manipulated. The best argument wins.
This is pretty much like real life as well. Everybody has something they wish to sell. Important as dialogue might be to conflict resolution, it is a dying art. We live in the age of the sound byte. Say whatever you must in order to win the argument. Truth be damned.
OK, so why all the vitriol? Court of late has been a battle of the diverging truths. Mother assaulted by child's father. She is arrested when the police arrive at her house. Dad makes the call but flees. Mother swears that she was not assaulted by him, but in the same breath tells me that she knows that he is convicted of a domestic assault and is now in prison.
Dad agrees to a home visit by me and the GAL. He has an emergency and calls off the visit. I talk with him about this and he comes "clean". His house is a mess and he can't have us over yet. He also cancels his in-home visit with the therapist assisting him with reunification with his daughter. Now I have to provide this new information to the judge. Frustrating.
Sex offender dad calls me from prison. He just lays into me. Does not want to hear what I have to say. He has an agenda. His agenda is to puff himself up and to let me know that he will prevail- no matter what I do in this case.
Mother of same child calls me minutes later. She hates the program she is in. She knows that the judge has already told her she must do this. She just wants to get back to her old lifestyle. This is a lifestyle that has lead to five of her six children being placed somewhere else. It is almost hopeless.
Judge orders me to remove a child from her father's home. Remove the child because the mother alleges that he is violent. Alleges that he is abusive. This mother has been asked for documentation. She has failed to provide that information. Moms have drugs problems and have their children at home with them. Dads have to be saints in order to have their children living with them. Better a foster home than a father's home. Ouch!
1 comment:
My very short time in social work completely burned me out. There is so much frustration with every aspect of the business of "helping". From the clients pain to the system that often hurts more than it helps. I was so youn then and completely alone. I had no capacity for protecting myself. I owned their hurts like my own. Now that I'm probably better equiped emotionally there's no way I would commit myself to that pain. Now I just wish the people that are supposed to be there for me would take a minute to listen. ~deb
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