Pick up where we left off-------->

Disney World!!!!!

So that year we work really hard to attempt to make it happen. We put in overtime when we could and pinched a lot of pennies. Every other check or so I would get a little extra money to put toward the trip so I set it up online to pay small payments for the tickets. We were determined that this was gonna happen.

Before it was actually time for the trip it occurred to me that my youngest sister who was just a little bit older than my oldest son has never been either. So my wife and I decided that we are ahead of where we needed to be in order to go and invited my mother and younger sister to come with us.

We did it! We manage to make enough money that year and went to Orlando Florida for a week, during which we went to Disney World three of those days. It was a great vacation. This trip to me was important because I really wanted them to have the experience as children. After you become an adult and responsibilities pile up you don't get that back. It was one of the moments where as parents we felt like winners. I mean it's not an easy thing to make happen especially with the family this size.

The thing is, is that we did this trip and it was so perfectly timed that you would swear it was on purpose.  Because after a week in the hot sun and the long drive back to NC we were all exhausted and pretty much went straight to bed. My wife got up early for work but I still had another off.  Not long after she left one of my is knocking on my bedroom door saying the police were here. I ask did you answer the door? The officer then replied we have a warrant to search the premises as he's as he's walking through my bedroom door to reveal that I did the one thing that I hardly ever do but occasionally might sleep nude.

You're probably thinking that's too much information. But it's actually relevant because what they were there for was apparently" Child Pornography"! Okay I know you're probably thinking at this point what the f am I reading? I assure you it's not like that. Keep in mind I do have teenage boys living at home at the time. They had my entire street blocked with a lot of cop cars. The SBI (State Bureau of Investigation) were running this operation. While they're doing their investigation they pulled my oldest son aside and talk to him for a bit and then they asked him if he knew why they were there and he broke down apologizing.

Okay

Before I go any go any further we need to rewind about three months so you can see the picture completely instead of creating a picture like officials did that day.

So three to four months before the Disney World trip my second youngest son witnessed my older two boys "experimenting". He tried to tell me one morning as they were getting ready to get on the bus, but if you knew my second youngest son you'd understand why I hastily told him to hush. He was a very hyperactive loud child and he was saying it loud enough for the entire neighborhood could have heard. I didn't tell him to hush in order to cover it up, but for the fact that it was really embarrassing and didn't want the whole world knowing family problems like that.

I didn't know the best approach for a situation like this one. But I did approach very strongly with anger. Shouting at the boys after school that day in the living room. Angry about the oldest being gay and asking if the other one was going to be gay too.? He replied that he did not want to be. I was angry and didn't fully even know how to handle the situation. I tried not to pitch too much fit about the gay part but stressed that the incest is illegal not to mention the reputation that they would have. I did not whip anyone but I did punish them by grounding them from going to the park and took video games and devices away. I then made my oldest son start sleeping in the living room upstairs while his brother stayed in the bedroom downstairs.

Okay situation handled? Or is it. While in Disney World it was nearing the end of the three-month groundation. My oldest approached me and said that he wanted to rebuild the trust so he needed to let me know that if I look at the PlayStation there is porn on it that he's been looking at. Ask me to remove it before giving it back to him and swore that you would not do it anymore. Honestly porn on the PlayStation was reason enough to put him back in trouble but I was just excited that he came to me to tell on himself just so we can start rebuilding Trust. I felt like that was a big step in the right direction.

Now back to SBI.

After they said what they were there for I immediately remembered that I haven't even got a chance to clean the PlayStation off yet. But they still took all of our computers cell phones video game systems. If it had memory they took it. (All items were eventually returned with nothing criminal found)They were there for the pornography, but while they were outside questioning my oldest son he broke down and said yes he knows why they were there it was because of what he's done to the "boys". So basically I knew about the one-time event that had recently happened. Apparently there were more events that happened at our previous home with the others.

So at that point DSS got involved and I'm telling you I've lived in a shitstorm ever since. Basically we had to struggle to find two separate places for the older boys to stay. We had very little options but did find 1 place for each of the two While the other four remained under our roof but with extreme living conditions. We had to put their bunk bed in our bedroom with us. The female child was still allowed to stay in her room as long as we put an alarm on the door so if it was to open it would make a beeping sound.

We were not allowed to leave the children home alone or with the oldest daughter who was fifteen at the time for any period of time or any reason whatsoever. Because my wife and I both work first shift but mine started at one time and her started 30 minutes sooner along with the kids has getting on the bus schedule what's going to cause a 30-minute window that they would be here by themselves in the morning. My wife had to make changes with her job in order to go into work late every day. I assume most of you have had jobs and are aware that that's not something most employers really work with people on. Only in the movies.

We had to take the kids to therapy sessions. We had to go to parenting classes. We had to see therapy sessions ourselves. We had to go to the criminal court dates for the oldest two boys. We had to go to the Department of Social Services to have what they call safety assessment. Basically a safety assessment is when you sit down and come up with a plan of step by step what you will do if the situation occurs. We also still had to continue court dates to make sure that we kept custody of the children by proving that we we had zero involvement or knowledge of the sexual activities that took place.

We did it all, everything that was asked of us and then some. At some point during this time the older two we're taking from the placements that we had for them and put into group homes separately from each other and we were receiving zero information about them. Before they went to the group home they did have court dates and would you believe that the DA was trying to try my oldest as an adult. Now he was 16 at the time of the case opening. But he was only 15 at the time of the occurrence. We went to figuring it up and he was only eleven or younger with the other cases. And they were trying to try him as an adult and with a possible 60 year sentence. They did leave it in juvenile court & they ended up only getting a year of probation and having to stay in a group home till they turned 18.

The older of the two was definitely the one who initiated these behavers. He only ha around 20 months till he was 18 and out.

The younger of the two had roughly 44 months till he was 18. He was taken for the role that he played that happened at least 5 years before. We know this because they said it was at the tailor and we had been living in this house for about 5 years. That means his offence happened when he was 9 or younger and this is all coming out when he was 14. It was later discovered that even though he was under a court order to be in sexual therapy, he went over 6 months where they stopped taking him. Why? Because they had transportation issues!! What!! The group hope had transportation issues! That don't fly if its  parents, But a government Department of DSS it is like no big deal?
 

So we're nearing the end of our Court. It's almost over where we don't have them breathing down our necks every move we make.
When all of a sudden get another spin to switch things up again.

We had an anonymous phone call made on us saying that we were neglecting our children and we were doing drugs around our children. Ill point out the this "Anonymous" call came in while we had been under close DSS observation for a year. Typical crap people might try to say when weaponizing DSS for personal gain. Or in my personal theory, when DSS is at a dead end and need something else I believe the will make the call. In North Carolina the call can be made "anonymously". They don't have to give any information about themselves, meaning they will never have to be in court to be able to witness and say that yeah you were doing such and such.

Bad luck for us we did do some drugs. The rest of the allegations were false. Our children had no idea that we ever did drugs. They tested us, they tested the kids, the kids passed but we failed. Tried to explain that anytime we did any drug that we had a babysitter and we didn't do it at the house. Obviously we weren't out of control because for a whole year we were around DSS, Therapist, Parenting Counselors, Lawyers, Judges, Group Home House Parents, etc and nobody not one time suggested that we were off in any way.

I am a great dad, far from perfect but still a great dad. A drug addict still has the ability to keep that side away from his/her children. I have a disease as people used to say if I had cancer, would they take my children for me having it? Yes, but only if the cancer was so bad that I couldn't keep my parenting responsibilities up.  So why would addict be an automatic family shredder? My being an addict should never have been a justifiable reason to destroy my family. Since all this started we've received compliments from some DSS workers on how we work and manage to still get all these therapy appointments ,.etc . Not to mention Football, Band, school events.

My question is how many addicts actually get a babysitter whenever they has a backslide? How many addicts make sure their kids are fed and their bills are paid before they get anything for them self drug-related? How many addicts make sure their entire family goes to Disney World for a week just so they're sure their kids get to have amazing child experience before they become adults?(that trip was the last family vacation that we got to do as a complete family)

Our kids never went without anything they needed they didn't always get the things they wanted but most of the time they actually did. Like I said before people would always say I don't see how you can do it. But we did it. Now as I said we did though we failed the drug test so DSS immediately took the four children from us extending this case that has been on for a year now, adding another two years. In that two years we had random drug test hair follicle and urine. We had to do so many weeks of parenting classes, substance abuse classes, therapy in the next County over, multiple court dates and continue to keep our home safe for children where they would come and make sure that your smoke detectors and such work.

I'm telling you we missed one therapy appointment that entire two years and it was toward the end of the two years. We called in advance to let them know that that appointment would have to be missed. Apart from that one instance everything else went perfectly.  We didn't miss a class we didn't miss any substance abuse classes we didn't fail not one more drug test and we was always at every court date.

A real big slap in the face , my first wife's mother passed away shortly after the two older boys went into the group homes. DSS used the no contact order that the two boys had against them in ref to their siblings, they were not allowed to attend the funeral. Yeah you read it right, they were not allowed to attend the funeral. Their Grand Mother, their dead mothers mom. They did not bring them at a separate time to have their own closure with their grandmother in the funeral home. They did bring our other 4 kids but was running about 25 min late. The preacher gave an announcement to everyone that was there, letting us all know that he received a call from the DSS worker transporting the grandchildren to the diseased and that the funeral would resume when they arrive. Talk about feeling small. The day after the funeral is when they decided to tell my second to oldest son that she died, just before he got on the school bus! What the f kind of people do that to a child.

It still took us two years after the Anonymous phone call so a total of 3 years we've been dealing with DSS at this point. Finally it's over we have four out of six of the children living back under our roof. All of the children that are back are happy. The oldest daughter is applying for college and starting work at Wendy's the other two boys are getting ready to get driving permits. Our youngest was starting Middle School. Everything seems to be going well for the most part. If you read my first post about "the phone call that saved my child from who knows what" that happened about now at this point with having the kids back in our custody.

Looking back, I was often talked down to as if I was a perv letting these things happen, I was told that if there was no involvement then why didn't I call the police when I found out about it. I think back to the punishment that they received buy me and I feel that as a parent, it was taken care of. Of course we would have kept an eye out to be sure it wouldn't have repeated. As far as calling the police, that's one I'm lost on. Can anyone tell me where the parents jurisdiction ends and the police jurisdiction begins. Most of you probably think to yourself "felony's". Well one we have all heard our kids say "Mommy , he hit me" Do we call 911 and have assault charges placed on our child. How about stolen candy, larceny? I mean when it comes to law it seems like this area is still not clear. About a year after that we got another surprise Anonymous call. That's another story I will continue…

Also I will soon write about helping my oldest get a license and a job. Against DSS wishes. When he turned 18 the dropped him off at a homeless shelter...

True Stories

Getting all this out of my head

feels like, justice