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They also have a policy where you don't need to face your accusers. Someone posted on Quora how she suspects that a neighbor who got pissed at her falsely ratted her out to CPS. Put her through a living hell. At least being able to face the accuser, and not having them make anonymous complaints would reduce some of these issues if there was accountability.
Sometimes who the "accuser" is is not so straightforward. In our referrals in all cases the person who wanted the referral asked someone else to do the "dirty work" since the referrals were all undefendable and ultimately ruled "unfounded."
My wife and I run a well-organized, moderately affluent household with two children. One of them is on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum. We received three "referrals," all of them being deemed "unfounded."
The first referral was at the instance of the Director of Pupil Personnel Services, who heads up special education decisions. She wanted to "mainstream" our younger son, who is on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum. My wife and I of course vehemently disagreed. My wife went back to the school the next day to seek a meeting with the principal. They didn't want to talk to her. The Director of Pupil Personnel Services asked the school psychologist of the elementary school, a nervous 27 year old, to make the referral. The excuse was that when my wife said she was "upset" by the events that transpired she was therefore unfit to be a parent. I was referred for being willing to entrust the children to her. The agenda in this case was that the Director of Pupil Personnel Services was trying to offload a student who was expensive to educate.
The second of these was for my placing the older, non-impaired son on the stairs to lecture him on not bullying people smaller than him. He was spontaneously "interviewed" by the school and asked if his parents had ever done anything to "scare" him. He told them this story. The school psychologist wrote "put on the stairs" down as "pushed down the stairs and would not allow my by now hysterical son to correct the report. He realized he had put his ability to be raised by his parents at risk.
The third was from my younger son getting a hickey my older son delivered as a joke. Both the second and third cases resulted from my older son's mischievous sense of humor. On his first day of school in 7th Grade, also the middle school principal's first day, my son wore a tee shirt from a high school where that principal previously worked. He thought it would be funny. That principal had no sense of humor and the joke badly backfired.
She retaliated by asking other school personnel to the second and third CPS complaints. We eventually met with the school superintendent, who hinted that we were right in our suspicions.
One wonders if perhaps poorly trained and paid social workers are prepared to deal with these profound issues. Appropos to the thread, one also wonders why people who can't raise children have them.
If those poor people can work at least part time, thats what id want.. If you cannot work for legitamet reasons, they have organizations and government assistance if needed
While some people have worked their way through college at a restaurant, you need to be aware that restaurants are one of "those" jobs. Your hours and days can change every week. You may be on call for any shift at any time and told you will be fired if you don't show up. Managers in these kinds of jobs don't give a hoot about your class schedule. All they're interested in is if you can and will show up to work. Likewise for working a second job.
I was able to do this from 1981 - 1984 and attending the University of Houston..... a state school.....
I don't think ANYONE could do the same now with the way tuitions, books, fees, etc. have skyrocketed......
I was also very lucky to have managers at both restaurants who were willing to assign me a set schedule that I could work my classes around..... Again, not something that would be at all likely today.....
Even though I never had children, since the last recession, I have worried and wondered HOW the kids coming up and out of school are going to make it in this new normal.....
so many posters in here.... and really, across the net, are such proponents of people bootstrapping themselves out of poverty.... after all, that's how THEY did it!! but this new normal makes that so VERY much more difficult than it was back in "our" day.....
Agreed. I worked for a convenience store full time while I did a semester in college and my boss was very understanding about my hours. However, I was only making $5.50 an hour and was living in my truck while I did this because the money was far too little for me to pay rent with. At least then I was able to afford college. Nowdays, that $5.50 (or minimum wage) wouldn't even cover books, let alone rent and tuition.
At the other end of the spectrum, I also had a restaurant job for about 6 months and it was amazing at how much risk the manager put his customers, making us come to work when we were ill. We had one waitress who was diagnosed with scarlet fever and another who had pink eye, and both were required to come to work or get fired. We also had a cook who accidentally cut off the tip of his thumb and the manager refused to let him leave to get treatment. I remember working at Kinko's when I had the flu and the customers were asking the manager to send me home. I had another manager at a bank who wanted me to work despite an active case of shingles on my face that were open and weeping.
So when you hear about people working when they're sick, that's the reason. And if you can't even get time off if you're sick, forget trying to work around a school schedule or a second job.
I was also very lucky to have managers at both restaurants who were willing to assign me a set schedule that I could work my classes around..... Again, not something that would be at all likely today.....
That's just not true. All our kids and their spouses worked through college. We have part time employees that are college students and we schedule them around their classes as well as give them time off to study for exams.
That's just not true. All our kids and their spouses worked through college. We have part time employees that are college students and we schedule them around their classes as well as give them time off to study for exams.
That is your experience. Are you trying to say it is universal, or even common? I've had plenty of jobs that were very inflexible. I could not go part time in my current position to go back to school. I would not be allowed to do so. My present employer expects me to structure my life around my work hours, which were dictated to me as part of the package of my employment. I might find a job where, if I got it set up that way upon hiring, I could work part time around a school schedule...but it would get me pocket change, not enough to live on by a long shot.
And let's look also at the fact that if you are young, you're expected to get a certain amount of help from your parents and include their tax info on your FAFSA. So what if you are estranged from your parents and they won't provide that data, I wonder? How does that work? I am lucky, I was in my mid-20s and past the age where that was necessary when I first went back to school. But from age 18-24, I had no idea how I'd get into college.
You know what I see as one means by which a lot of people, especially fit young men, try to get out of poverty? The military. I was an Army wife, and let me tell you...people act like our soldiers are all patriots and heroes, and most of them are just young guys who had few other options. The military culture and environment is like being on another planet. And it doesn't really do a great job of preparing these men for life outside of it, despite having many programs intended to do just that. Honestly I feel like the military is the most extreme example of working for welfare. But not everyone is fit to do it.
That is your experience. Are you trying to say it is universal, or even common? I've had plenty of jobs that were very inflexible. I could not go part time in my current position to go back to school. I would not be allowed to do so. My present employer expects me to structure my life around my work hours, which were dictated to me as part of the package of my employment. I might find a job where, if I got it set up that way upon hiring, I could work part time around a school schedule...but it would get me pocket change, not enough to live on by a long shot.
Of course it's not universal, but it's certainly not impossible as was implied in the post I replied to. People also work full time and take classes at night. What about online classes? Right now I know 3 fathers working full time plus volunteering 2-3 nights a week plus working towards their degrees online. Life.
That's just not true. All our kids and their spouses worked through college. We have part time employees that are college students and we schedule them around their classes as well as give them time off to study for exams.
I am guessing that you and yours are the exception rather than the rule in today's work climate.......
And let's look also at the fact that if you are young, you're expected to get a certain amount of help from your parents and include their tax info on your FAFSA. So what if you are estranged from your parents and they won't provide that data, I wonder? How does that work? I am lucky, I was in my mid-20s and past the age where that was necessary when I first went back to school. But from age 18-24, I had no idea how I'd get into college.
If your parents don't help you then you're pretty much screwed until you reach the right age, unless you're a single parent or are married.
If your parents don't help you then you're pretty much screwed until you reach the right age, unless you're a single parent or are married.
Ah, but the poor aren't allowed to have sex, or at least certainly not allowed to have babies they can't afford, so that can't be the solution.
Wait...
Yeah I just see a lot of folks who want to judge and tell others how to live their lives really and not understanding that there are a million stories with a million variables and it is pointless to nitpick people's lives to bits just so we can avoid helping the downtrodden, and justify that we're not jerks by saying it's their own fault anyways.
Life is complicated. And fortune is a fickle b****.
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