CPS has been the boogeyman for me since I was a little kid. My mom constantly told me that if I didn’t act right CPS would take me away for being bad. I never internalized that CPS would protect me or that CPS existed for my benefit. CPS was the authority that would ensure I was never allowed to have a family again.

Then I had kids.

If you read parenting forums (which I do, because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and feedback and learning what other people consider “normal” is very useful) CPS is DEFINITELY the boogeyman. If you don’t do well enough, your children will be stolen. If you do the wrong thing you will lose your kids and the nightmare of getting them back…. oh god.

I have known a bunch of people who had their kids taken by CPS. I grew up poor. That shit isn’t that rare. Some of them deserved it. Not all of them. The most abusive people…. never seem to fall into CPS’s net. They get ignored and glossed over.

CPS following up with our family when they did over the incident we had a few years ago… that was simultaneously FUCKING TERRIFYING and relieving. Because someone fucking turned us in. That means people are reporting me behind my back. (Relieving because the CPS investigator commented that I did not do anything wrong and kids make mistakes and we were trying as hard as possible to do the right thing.)

So when you say “someone will call CPS” that’s not hand wavey possible warning. That’s something that has literally already happened to us.

I don’t have to do anything wrong for people to call CPS on us. That already fucking happened. I did nothing wrong.

If you don’t understand why “people will call CPS on you” might sound threatening…. well ok. But in my brain telling me that my mistakes are things that will get me turned in feels existentially threatening. Is it also a possible reality? Of course. People might turn me in for everything and nothing. I don’t have to do anything wrong for CPS to be called.

That makes it really hard for me to evaluate how to alter my behavior to be correct. Because I’m not trying to do the right thing because it is the thing that solves our problems I am trying to avoid being punished.

Maybe instead of finding the right thing to do I will just stop admitting in writing how I fuck up. Oh that’ll help everyone.