Help me preempt a call to the cops.
June 22, 2018 6:29 PM   Subscribe

Help asap please. A coworker wants to call the cops on a family across the street from her house. I think that is a terrible idea that can only end horribly.

She is exasperated by their child, age four or five, who cries loudly outside for hours. Coworker says she cannot hear her tv over the child.

The family is Hispanic, and coworker suspects the child is autistic. We are in an upper midwestern industrial-agricultural city with a history of tense relations between law enforcement and minorities.

Coworker is a white, nominally liberal academic advisor and history teacher, single female with no kids. She has stated many times she does not like kids.

I am trying to convince her that this is not a great moment to call the cops on brown people. She is desperate for peace and quiet. A former coworker and friend of both of us is currently the first African American mayor of our city. She might be willing to seek his advice.

She takes offense easily. She is also the sort of liberal who thinks minorities would do better in college if they would just try harder. She ia also extremely unlikely to talk to them because "they're just being assholes."

Help.
posted by Caxton1476 to Human Relations (28 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Child crying loudly outside for hours may be neglect or it may be parents doing the best they can or it may be both. The right people to check this out would Child Protective Services - it is their job to investigate and determine if this is really a problem or not. I know people image that CPS sweeps in and tears children out of the arms of their family for minor offenses but in my experience they tend to under react not over react.
posted by metahawk at 6:36 PM on June 22, 2018 [34 favorites]


If it were me, I would attempt to locate the local mental-health crisis/referral line and start there instead -- they can likely find help for the child and family. (What exactly would the police do? Arrest the five-year-old?) If you're in the US, Google "[city name] mental health crisis" if you're in a big city or "[county name] mental health crisis" if you're a bit less urban, then look for .gov URLs. If you're outside the US, try your province/territory/country name. Or MeMail me with your location and I'll help find the local crisis/referral line.
posted by lazuli at 6:37 PM on June 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


Is the child alone outside?

If she is concerned, why doesn't she want to call CPS? Not necessarily saying she should, but is there some reason she's skipping straight to the people with weapons?
posted by praemunire at 6:37 PM on June 22, 2018 [10 favorites]


Honestly, I would just ask her, kind of bewildered, what she thinks the cops are going to do. Cite the family for a violation of the noise ordinance? "The cops are not going to come to your house to cite a five-year-old in her own yard." Call CPS? "Playing outside while an adult watches from a window is not child abuse." Don't argue with her about racism, just make it super clear that you are laughing at her and that the 911 dispatcher and cops and CPS will laugh at her and that she is being a ridiculous person about the non-problem of "a child playing outside." I bet she is super sensitive about the idea that she is super sensitive and will shut up about the whole thing.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 6:43 PM on June 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


Best answer: As for how to approach her when she's touchy, empathize! She can't sleep, that's horrible! You're just trying to help her find the most effective solution, because OMG seriously crying kids keeping you from sleeping are the worst!

I absolutely agree that one should not be calling the police on minority families right now, so I agree with your principles, but don't mention them when talking to her. To her, you are just trying to help her find the most effective solution to her problem (which has the advantage of being true -- CPS or the mental-health line is going to be way more effective than the police for a crying, possibly neglected child).

I'm not sure if it's California-specific but the last two counties I've lived in have had child-abuse helplines specifically designed for parents at their wits' end, I think sponsored by the local county government's child welfare departments. That might be another avenue to try -- they may have other ideas for whom she should contact.
posted by lazuli at 6:43 PM on June 22, 2018 [18 favorites]


She is desperate for peace and quiet.

Also, suggest wifi headphones so she can watch TV with them. Act like it's kind of weird that she hasn't considered headphones already.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 6:45 PM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


Actually, I think it would be legitimate to be concerned about a four- or five-year-old alone outside for hours crying, if (big if) that's what's actually happening.
posted by praemunire at 6:45 PM on June 22, 2018 [48 favorites]


CPS doesn’t check immigration status if that’s a concern.

I’m a situation like this, unless there’s harm actually happening or plausibly imminent, will refer this over to CPS anyway. And yeah, CPS isn’t just going to remove the kid; there’s real strict criteria for stuff like that. This is why we have CPS, so that citizens don’t need to figure this out on their own.

I have a non-neurotypical kid and have had CPS called on us before, for a situation that from the outside could be construed as warranting a call to CPS. CPS followed up, noted that we were enrolled in all the services we qualified for, and just generally checked up on us.

CPS typically ain’t baddies.
posted by furnace.heart at 6:47 PM on June 22, 2018 [21 favorites]


Involving CPS is, in some ways, worse than the cops. Once CPS is in the relationship with you and your child, it's hard to exclude them after. I feel like a calm visit from her or a friend of hers is in order unless she feels personally threatened. I think she needs some outside perspective before going to the big guns. Having a friend come over and experience the situation would be a minimum first step before calling the cops.
posted by Foam Pants at 6:48 PM on June 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


Best answer: People who have A Big Thing about not liking kids are also uniformly bad at making judgments about a child's age, the volume or duration of the disruptive thing the child is doing, whether the disruptive thing is developmentally appropriate or not, and the quality and responsiveness of the adult supervision of the child during the disruptive thing.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 6:49 PM on June 22, 2018 [73 favorites]


Has she ever talked to the neighbors? Or is she just leaping immediately to "I'm annoyed, therefore the police must come fix it!" She should try talking to the neighbors first. I know I'd appreciated that as opposed to the police just showing up, and I'm a white woman.
posted by Weeping_angel at 6:57 PM on June 22, 2018 [8 favorites]


Things to consider:

Time of day (a five year old crying outside at 4pm is different that 2am)

Visability of parents (are they watching from inside or is no one home?)

Does she know anything about the child or parents (school enrollment, employment status, parental stability).

Kids cry, and are loud. That's normal. Kids cry to go outside and to go inside. Kids on the spectrum get distressed.None of that warrants a call to anyone for anything. Unless there is information we don't know, this is headphones or earplug issue.
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:01 PM on June 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


Please go over and speak to this family yourself!

(I mean, determine first if there's truly an issue, but if a child is crying outside alone...)

Approach the family with kindness, respect, and compassion. I'm sure even with the right demeanor it will still be the most awkward conversation of your life, but you can afford to be uncomfortable if it helps de-escalate the situation. Make sure it's safe, bring a friend to translate. If you can do it, please do it.

PS - Erm, I would not label your coworker liberal because to me that implies kindness towards others different than ourselves. If your coworker labels themselves as liberal, please keep appealing to her empathy? And reach out to the family privately if you can.

Especially this week, thank you so much for caring that this is resolved the most peaceful way possible.
posted by jbenben at 7:02 PM on June 22, 2018 [8 favorites]


I don't really think there's a good solution to this, so I'm not suggesting this as an "ideal" approach so much as "a possible approach," but would you feel comfortable offering to talk to the neighbors on her behalf? I really don't think you should have to do this, and of course you should respect your own comfort levels here, but it's a possible alternative to her calling the cops or CPS.
posted by DingoMutt at 7:03 PM on June 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


(d'oh, jinx jbenben!)
posted by DingoMutt at 7:04 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Whether or not the disruptive thing is developmentally appropriate -- and a child screaming for hours on end on a regular basis does not seem like a particularly good situation -- it *is* disruptive. While calling the cops is obviously not a good answer, 'kids make noise so she's gonna have to suck it up and deal with it' also isn't a good answer, and if the child truly is outside, alone, and making very loud noises of distress for extended periods of time, it is probably the case that speaking to the parents is not super-likely to help; I'm sure they're not thrilled about the distressed screaming, either, and would probably do something else if they could.

OP, are you a near-enough neighbour to have assessed the noise in-person? If this is a truly ASAP/cop-call-imminent situation, directing her to your area's CPS helpline could at least give her some action to take.
posted by halation at 7:04 PM on June 22, 2018 [9 favorites]


Response by poster: Update... she has texted our mayor friend for guidance, which I think is good.

There is a hospital-based child services group that she might reach out too, as well.

She responded well to the suggestion that the best people to deal with this are unarmed. She loathes Trump and mentioned that she wouldn't want the family subjected to his sympathizers.

Oddly she also chose tonight to complain about another neighbor live trapping feral cats and taking them to a no kill shelter.

She apparently hates headphones.
posted by Caxton1476 at 7:40 PM on June 22, 2018 [8 favorites]


Then I suggest she try a fan or a white noise machine.
posted by brujita at 8:26 PM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


Can you offer to let her sleep at your place for a few days? I know it's a stretch for a coworkerly relationship, but it sounds like she's irritated at EVERYTHING right now because she hasn't slept well in some time, and I think some sleep for her would materially help her look at the situation level-headedly.
posted by batter_my_heart at 10:00 PM on June 22, 2018


Is your coworker going through something else?

Your updates describe a person profoundly uncomfortable about something else and lashing out at others. I have a heap of suggestions that include good boundaries for you. In short, if you really want to help her, help her help herself with whatever is really going on while maintaining some congenial space between you.

I wouldn't want to be the next person she starts complaining about, and if this is a motivation of yours that maybe you haven't groked... reach out for help navigating your interpersonal interactions with her. I'm sorry she's upset. It's been a horrendous month for a lot a lot of people. Be kind, remain aware. Try not to get caught up.
posted by jbenben at 10:40 PM on June 22, 2018 [7 favorites]


I'm an adult who dislikes children and is sensitive to noise, and to me this sounds like she's having some kind of exacerbation of a mental health issue that's making it hard for her to deal with noise and other stressors.

It's good that she's figured out not to send someone with a gun. If what she's describing is accurate, I'm guessing the kid has a disability and the parents aren't getting adequate support for it, and they need to talk to their local Department of Human Services and get some help there. CPS is a much better option than the police, though I'd start with her calling Human Services herself and see what the options are.

Can you talk to her about how she's doing with her mental health? "You seem to be having a lot of trouble with stress recently, what's going on?" that kind of thing?
posted by bile and syntax at 6:33 AM on June 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


Has she taken the obvious first step of going outside and asking the kid why they are crying?
posted by corb at 7:05 AM on June 23, 2018 [9 favorites]


corb just articulated perfectly and concisely the answer that I've been trying to come up with in my head and haven't been able to. These are her neighbors. Unless she already has an antagonistic relationship with them, Step One needs to be talking to her neighbors. One of the big problems I have with the way a lot of people (especially middle-class and higher white people) interact with society is that when they have a problem they jump straight to involving the authorities rather than just talking to people first. Yeah, it's going to be an awkward conversation—whatever, sometimes shit is awkward but it's better than going right to bringing in officials who might conceivably (even if it's unlikely) take the child away from its family or shoot and kill someone.

CPS and the police and lawyers and the like are for situations that are beyond an individual's ability to manage civilly on their own. There's nothing here that says that this is that kind of situation. Your coworker needs to steel herself for an awkward conversation and just talk to these people. If she has already decided that "they're just being assholes" and jumps straight to CPS or the cops, then she's the one who is being an asshole. She needs to at least try to work this out on a human-to-human level first. That's what I would gently but firmly try to get across to her, if I were you. I would even offer to go over and have the conversation for her, if it's too much for her anxiety or whatever. That's something I've done for people in the past.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:44 PM on June 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


These are her neighbors. Unless she already has an antagonistic relationship with them,

I don't care how awful this co-worker is, any slightly reasonable person will be antagonistic towards people who habitually lock/leave a 4-5-year-old outside alone to cry and scream alone. if she didn't dislike children, she'd be twice as upset as she is. That child is also her neighbor.

if she's going to engage with these people she'd have to be a very good actor: oh I'm so glad you're home, this poor child is alone in your yard very distressed, I heard her crying from inside my house, do you know who her parents are? who do you think we should call? and not a lot of people can carry that off convincingly. certainly not this woman, as described.

my understanding of CPS is that in order to be doing the right thing by calling them, you have to understand you could be setting in motion events that end with this child in foster care for the next 12 years. CPS doesn't have to make that happen, but they can: just as police don't have to shoot you every time they're called to your house, but they can. the idea that CPS doesn't make mistakes in multiple directions and doesn't treat minority families differently from others is fantasy. this does not mean it's obviously wrong to call in this case. but she should think about that.

Has she taken the obvious first step of going outside and asking the kid why they are crying?

approaching/parenting a stranger's child on the assumption that it's not being cared for and if you don't step in, nobody will, feels like a shocking overreach to a lot of people if the child is still on its parents' own property. however, in this case that assumption is probably correct. Engaging with or attempting to comfort this abandoned young child seems obvious to you, and to me too, but it apparently wasn't obvious to the child's parents or other family members any of the times this happened.
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:42 PM on June 23, 2018


I was sort of assuming that "cries outside unattended for hours at a time at such a volume that I can't hear my TV when I'm across the street and inside my house" was a bit of hyperbole on the exasperated coworker's end of things. If not, then yeah this sounds like a fairly serious situation that may merit involving CPS, although I'd still try to talk to someone myself first. Also, that kid probably has a bright future in opera.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:17 AM on June 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


Also though, I feel like it's not really an overreach to talk to the kid directly in a situation like that, when nobody else is. When you're four or five, every adult in the world should ideally be somebody who is looking out for you and who will try to help you if they see you have a problem. Saying "Oh, it's not my place to help, someone else will have to take care of this," in the face of a crying child just strikes me as incredibly callous and alienating.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:19 AM on June 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


Also also (jeez, sorry for the serial commenting) when I said "already has an antagonistic relationship" I meant a pre-existing track record of their being buttheads when talked to about normal neighbors-trying-to-get-along stuff like noise or their dog pooping on your lawn or a tree that's pushing against your fence or whatever. Just having a problem with something doesn't mean you have an antagonistic relationship, otherwise nobody would ever be able to talk to anyone else about any problem ever. An antagonistic relationship is when you say, "Hey, do you think you guys could keep the music down a bit? I have to get up early for work tomorrow," and they say "Fuck you buddy," and turn it up.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:23 AM on June 24, 2018


Response by poster: Quick update - no resolution yet, no phone calls to agencies or the like, our friend the mayor has been dealing with a death in his circle.

Further context on her state of mind - she is in the midst of a kitchen renovation that's not going super great, so her home is a mess and she is an extremely tidy person; she just learned her central AC unit has maybe a year before it needs replacement; she expressed frustration with lack of dating success; her parents are in various health struggles; and the weather here has been bad in 10 different ways. So, she is stressed already. I think she needs a bit of sympathy, and if that leads to steps taken in a calm, measured way, that's maybe the right way?
posted by Caxton1476 at 9:46 AM on June 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


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