When I was teaching in the public schools, the same things happened almost every day:

I rejoiced when my students did well.

I cried when my students faced insurmountable odds.

I laughed when my students were happy.

I was proud when my students worked hard.

I was angry when the decisions of adults made my students’ lives harder.

I was furious when my students were sent to school in rags and shards of shoes, while their parents had winter coats and, miraculously, money for cigarettes.

I was glad when CPS removed my students from dangerous homes, negligent/abusive/selfish parents, and filth.

And I was beside myself with disbelief and grief when my students were put right smack back into those same homes because a lying SOB abusive crack-addicted drunk who had baby-tantrums and took care of his/her own personal needs before feeding/clothing/loving the children in the house with anger management problems* and “addictive personality syndromes” promised** he/she’d do better next time.

Because, you know, people like that just do the same thing over and over again, and when “the next time” comes, they just screw up again. And who is the real victim? Who pays the price for our social and judicial systems’ inability to see through these people’s lies and whines and excuses and promises that mean nothing?

The children.

Shame on a society that puts the “rights” of an adult before the welfare and well-being of a child.

There should be no second chances for these people. One false move with a child, and that child should be removed from that “home” and put in a real home, with people who will feed, clothe, love, and care for those children before buying ANYTHING for themselves.

Few things made me madder than the sight of a well-dressed parent who sent a child to school in rags. And invariably, such people reeked of smoke and cheap beer.

And once a child is removed from trash parents and then put right back in the home again, do you really thing this child will dare “tell” what’s really going on at home again? Because if you think he/she will, you’re sadly mistaken. There is no safety for a child who knows that if he ‘tells,’ he’ll just eventually be put right back in the house with the perpetrator, and the perpetrator will be angrier than ever at being outed. The child won’t ‘tell’ again. Fear and threats are good silencers, and some of the worst people are the best at faking “rehabilitation.”

Take the children away. No second chances. Lock the parents up. Let them dry out ‘cold turkey,’ and I really don’t care if they sweat and scream. They didn’t care when their children did.

I do not believe that a home should be completely ‘child-centered,’ but a house wherein children are rendered second-class citizens, unfed, wearing dirty, tattered clothing, beaten, neglected, exposed to second-hand smoke and drunken/high parents on a regular basis, not taken to the dentist, sent to school with no lunch and no hope of any, who will then return, after school, to an empty house or a house with vicious selfish adults who will then take out any frustrations or “urges” on the child, isn’t a home. It’s not a house, either. It’s nothing but a repository for scum, and a child should not have to live like that.

Adults have choices in such things. Children do not.

Remove the children. Do not require them to EVER go back.

* euphemism for “things adults do when they are really nothing but big selfish arses. Also, adults with “anger management issues” are one of the ugliest sights in the universe. Grow up.

**the promises of such people mean nothing; they are lies, like everything else they say

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

I just put my very confused sweeper (What’s going on? Who is this woman? What is she making me do? It’s been too long; I don’t understanddddddddd!) back in the closet. There is a big persimmon pudding in the oven (Thank you, Cousin C, for the pulp!) and a large pork tenderloin in the crock-pot. The guest room is tidy, although I don’t have any other spot for that folded camp cot except right there between the bed and the wall and it looks awful and I’m really sorry about that but when my guests have little kids I NEED that cot and, and, and. . . . well, there it is, right in the way.

There’s a big stack of board games in the middle of the living room but I can’t put them away until Hub comes home from school because I am not seven feet tall like him and I can’t stand on a chair and do it because there are too many.

As for all the cobwebs I’m discovering all over the ceilings and door sills. . . . well, it’s almost Halloween so I guess I can tell people I bought them at Joanne Fabric and carefully distributed them throughout the house so they’d look authentic.

And the people said, “They do! Good job!”

Come on down, Miguel. We’re having a dinner party* tonight just for YOU.

*Dinner party at my house: jeans, t-shirt (something you can wear while sitting on the floor, and also don’t mind spilling BBQ sauce on), shoes optional, lots of conversation and laughter, BYOB (anything else provided; I don’t disapprove, but I don’t “supply.”) , no smoking, help yourself to anything in the refrigerator if it’s not already on the table, and the toilet paper is in the little cabinet over the toilet if the spindle runs dry and you’re, um, trapped. The roll goes “over.”

Bring friends.

I am greatly anticipating this evening!

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly