This is a long post about a personal experience I had with CPS in a different state, skip it if you're not interested, I will tie it in w this case at the end.
Not something I love to share because of the stigma, but.. When my daughters were 1 and 3 I went to work outside of the home for the first time since their birth. I chose a small private Christian daycare close to my office, even though we are not Christian, I thought it was a clean and safe and close spot for my girls to be 5hrs a day.
We speak Spanish at home, and in my circle of friends and family, we teach Spanish at home until the kids are around 3, then introduce English, and let most of their English come from preschool. It makes for a harder first month or two at preschool, but the kids are always caught up by kindergarten. I know some may not like that, but it keeps them bilingual and now I have 2 honor students so it worked for me, too.
I asked the manager at the daycare if they have any Spanish speaking staff, because it might be comforting to my one yr old, and she said "this is America..." i wrote it off because that still didn't affect the safety of my kids, but it rubbed me wrong. A week later, the same manager spoke with me about her concerns that we didn't go to church. I was nice about it and explained our religious beliefs ( nothing creepy, trust me). Next week I get a call from CPS that they VISITED MY DAUGHTERS IN DAYCARE AND DID A PRELIMINARY EXAM and see no immediate concern, but must follow up with a home visit.
So I was freaking out for 2 days and utterly confused, then the CPS lady came over. I don't know if she was supposed to tell me this, but she told me that the complaint was from the daycare and was for "neglect." My kids are and were well fed, clean, never missed a dr. Appointment, loved, pampered, spoiled, adored. I have tons of family that dotes on them, they had closets full of new and clean clothes, I am an OCD cleaner, fully stocked fridge...it was crazy. The CPS lady said that she could tell that the reasons given for the complaint seemed baseless, and that she was sorry she had to even come to my house, but it was protocol. I understood that, I was not mad at her, she was doing her job and her job is a very important one that hopefully saves kids from bad situations. I learned that when they visited my girls at daycare, they checked my girls "clothes, hair, and diaper area on the baby". Yes, diaper area, and the complaint was not even about sexual abuse, it was about me not teaching them English or taking them to church. I was not even mad, I was just confused and ashamed that I had CPS in my house. The lady was nice to me, she actually said that I take great care of my kids and that the visit was a big waste of her time, the case would be closed with no further reviews needed, but she also told me that by law the review and results would remain on file forever.
For the next six years or so, I was so scared of people randomly calling CPS on me. Terrified. I went overboard making sure they were always well dressed and well mannered and didn't even raise my voice to them in public when they probably deserved it a time or two. Because in my mind, if they came once, then if they were called again I could lose them. I know that is not the way it legally works, but any fear of losing my kids or being accused of being a bad mom paralyzed me with fear.
Nothing else has ever happened, and as they have grown, I think of it less and less. But once they went to public school, I made sure to get to know their teachers so they would know that I am a good and involved parent, I made sure if they went to grandmas and she took them somewhere that she brushed and braided their hair first, because I was terrified of having another 'incident' . My point is, in my case, the fact that someone filed a baseless CPS report against me hovered over me like a dark cloud for years. And it seems that IMO, if they had been called in the Celis family for a reason that was not serious or not factual, Becky, as a mom, might have reacted similarly. It's not like you just call all your friends and tell them CPS came over to look in your house, it is embarrassing and painful. if you are an innocent mother in that situation, it's almost like IMO you would try to overcompensate afterwards. It was my nightmare that if something ever happened to my kids, I would lose them or have people assume I was at fault. When my daughter was 8, she tripped over her shoes that she had left on the landing between our stair cases, fell about 4 steps, and broke her arm. The whole way to the hospital, I was thinking they were going to take her away from me because of that old report and because falling down the stairs is so cliche for covering abuse. Of course, they didn't, but my point is, a false accusation is awful for an innocent mommy.
Because of my personal experience, I am not judging the December case until I have learned more. What if (total speculation) the school called CPS because a teacher was concerned that Isa came to school sleepy because the parents let her stay late at her teen brother's week night games, and that particular teacher saw that as bad for her? Some teachers are wonderful and save lives, some call for stupid reasons. If the Celis family's December CPS issue was trivial and baseless, and Isa was abducted by a stranger, I couldn't imagine feeling more sorry for Becky, because now she has been labeled as a bad or suspicious parent in the eyes of the public . We all see things differently based on our own life experience, and this news just makes me want to sit back and learn more before passing any judgement.
If anyone actually read all that, sorry for the mini novel.
