I don't like social workers.
No offense to good social workers out there, but our experience has not been very positive.
About a day and a half after Jocelyn was born, she started to have seizures and had to go on medication. This was the first sign that something more was wrong than could be explained away by birth stress. The doc was very honest with us about it, and the Wife broke down and started to cry. There was a social worker hovering in the background who just about pounced on her with "How do you feel? Do you want to talk about it?" I have just found out that the chance of my daughter surviving has gone down significantly, how do you think I feel about it? And why would I want to share that with I person I have not even met before?
Needless to say, with the exception of one, throughout this whole process I have not met a good social worker. They seem to hover around waiting for you to have an emotional breakdown so they can swoop in and save the day. And they expect that I can't wait to share my innermost feelings with a total stranger whom I will never see again. Or they are spies looking to see if you can't deal with your baby so the heavy hand of the state can snatch it away. Perhaps I am a bit paranoid, but it isn't paranoia if they are out to get you.
The one we did like was very unassuming, gave us her card and said to call if we needed anything. We are not going to call, but I appreciated her low key approach.
I see the Social Worker like the Grim Reaper. You know it's bad if the social worker shows up. It's a cue that the news is going to be bad and you will be upset. In fact, if they do show up, you probably should get upset, otherwise they might think you are some non-feeling monster and start looking into you more closely.
In these cases, it is the job of the Wife to be emotional while I play the strong, supportive husband.
1 comment:
The Wife knows that once she starts crying, the mood in the room changes considerably and the information flow screeches to a halt while all the experts feel bad that they have upset you. The wife feels foolish for crying before the end of the meeting, because she still wants to hear everything, and knows that they will send in the social worker at the first sign of tears instead of finishing the consult. The dear husband always looks annoyed and rolls his eyes at the first sign of tears because we both know that the information will now stop and the consoling will begin, and he usually shoots a "coudn't you wait" look at the wife, which she often wonders how this gets interpreted by others in the room. Oh, and to all the social workers who continue to call the house, my head is not in the oven, and don't worry, we don't use gas, if it was it would just get really really hot - LWG
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