Wow...I'm Still In Shock

[Shalom]

I was reading this thread the other day, and something scary occurred to me last night as I was trying to get to sleep.

How can I prove my kids are mine?

(One's 3½, the other's 9 months.)

I mean, I have photo ID, my wife has photo ID, but what do my kids have? Birth certificates and vaccination records, and I don't carry either around with me; nor do either of them have any physical description on them. What happens if my son starts with the "I'm being kidnapped" routine? (Not that he would ever do that, but theoretically.) Worse, what if I'm out somewhere and some lunatic comes at me with a cop and starts screaming that I kidnapped her kids? Of course in an ideal world she'd be either ignored or charged with making false statements to the cops, but we here all know what kind of world we really do live in. I've heard all sorts of horror stories about out-of-control CPS agents, and it's at least theoretically possible that I'd have to prove my relationship to my kids. But how do you do that?

I remember a few years back they were offering a program where you brought your kids in to be fingerprinted; maybe that would help, I don't know. Just one more thing to worry about.

[Raventhistle]

Shalom- Do you carry pictures in your wallet? I would do that and have their names written on the back. Hopefully your older child can call you daddy or your wife mommy. There is the fingerprinting thing, too..but do you get a card or something to carry around for that? Or would you have to go through a couple of hours at the station while they looked it up?

Either way, it is scary to think about if you think about it too much.

[crashhelmet]

*ponders the legalities of doing this whenever i start teaching*

I teach out of my own home and it's a part of my "home surveillance system" so it's legal. It just happens that I have cameras that don't point at typical places, like doors and windows.

CH

[chrisfabo]

Reminds me of the time I was chatting with some of my fellow Sophmores in high school. I'm in a military family, USMC father. I picked up quick you don't backtalk or anything.

Anyways, I was laughing and joking with my friend, in a free period, and apparently used the phrase "he had me against the wall'. I say this, because it seems a Teacher heard.....I get home, and CPS was waiting. X.X I kid you not. He was quick to be annoyed at how stupid a call it was, we were clearly not a messed up family...

I made a point of lodging a complaint about the teacher for that class, as it was clear she had knee-jerked BADLY.

[Kristev]

You shouldn't have. She didn't know and was only doing her job.

[Amina516]

You shouldn't have. She didn't know and was only doing her job.

She didnt have to LEAP (not jump) to conclusions though. Thats a ridiculous waste of resources.

[Exaspera]

How can I prove my kids are mine?

Tattoo your SSI number on their butts! Easy!

[chrisfabo]

To be fair, this teacher had been a thorn in my side for a good chunk of my high school years. She didn't believe in ADA and Learning Disablities. AT ALL. Thought 'Tough Love' was the solution. Dad had confronted her a number of times, so I think there might have been some motivation to...'misconstrue' my conversation.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Oh hell no! If my kid did that to me, two words would pop in my mind:

Boarding School!


LOL, jk. (or maybe not jk....hmmmm)

Wow, that poor mom. Bet she needed a strong drink once she got home!

Boy, that sounds like one of my fanfic short stories there . . .actually that's pretty much the plotline for one of my short stories that's been posted online for several years now . . .and I think I recall Brenda uttering those same words.

[MrsEclipse]

To be fair, this teacher had been a thorn in my side for a good chunk of my high school years. She didn't believe in ADA and Learning Disablities. AT ALL. Thought 'Tough Love' was the solution. Dad had confronted her a number of times, so I think there might have been some motivation to...'misconstrue' my conversation.

I had teachers like that, too. Thing is, I went to a special school for students with disabilities. Why, yes, the world is a crazy, insane place. Why do you ask?

My only encounter with child services was when I was younger, my brother went to school with marks on his face he got in a silly but innocent way, and he was questioned about it. The teachers didn't believe him, the counselor didn't believe him, they called Child Services, we had to go through a whole rigmarole to get them off our backs.

Mom was pissed, because they should know what a good mother she is. She was in that school every other week fighting tooth and nail to get us both the accommodations we were legally entitled to, that they didn't feel like giving us. Come to think of it... maybe they were just looking for an excuse to get us fostered into someone else's school district.

(Lol, actually, the public school system abused me more than anyone else put together, but for some reason it doesn't count when it's a public institution. Weird.)

[Pairou]

I did that once. I was still in a stroller. My mom wanted us to stay put (my sister and I) and I started going "No mommy! Please, not today! I'll be good, don't hit me again!" She whelled us around and ran out of the mall, my dad close behind.

Yeeeaaahh. At least 15 years later nobody will let it drop. Mind you, I never once did it again.

[Bagga]

My wife and I took my stepdaughters to the cinema to see a film they desperately wanted to see. The girls were holding our place in the queue while we went to the restroom, but then mum went to buy tickets for the more comfortable reserved seats, so we didn't need to stand in line, we could go straight in. I went to the girls and said "Come on, girls". The eldest, 13 years old and hated me, said in a loud scared voice "Who are you?"

So I told her mum, and we immediately returned home and the cost of the tickets was deducted from her pocket money.

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My wife, who worked as a community centre manager, once overheard a child say to a care worker, "Don't you shout at me, I'll report you to the Child Protection people!"

The child in question was a badly behaved four-year-old!!

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Some of the knee-jerk tabloid politics in the modern world skews the "balance of power" in a very counter-productive way.