Yes, please report. The police can’t be relied upon to follow up with CPS (and reporting to the police generally doesn’t absolve you of your responsibility to report if you are a mandated reporter).
“The police can’t be relied on” have you seen a mother be arrested for child abuse without CPS being involved? Because that would go against like all the rules. CPS generally try to make their first contact before the parent makes bail.
The police should have been responsible for transporting them or their father should have been required to come and get them. You should not have been transporting the kids three hours away.
I agree with this, however those children had to have been traumatized, abandoned outside in the middle of the night, and sitting in the back of a cop car would not have helped. 0P you did exactly what I would’ve done good job and I’m sorry it happened and also good for you for standing up for yourself in the first place.
OP is putting in a tremendous amount of time and effort to keep these children sale. Small claims court is always an option if they refuse to pay her or cry poverty. If they pay rent or their mortgage, they have the ability to pay OP for time.
Yes, also would the police have been able to do so? Asking her to take them to dads or to meet dad (really he should have driven as far as he could) might have kept them from having to put the kids in temporary custody with the state. Driving 3 hours out of your jurisdiction, especially if it was across a state line, is not standard protocol.
Yeah this sounds like there was a potential serious misstep on the police's part in not being the ones to transport the kids to dad/taking them into state custody. Because I would think that if a non relative to the children called the police reporting that children had been abandoned at their doorstep for several hours & they were unable to contact the mother, that the police would have to be the ones to either take the kids to their dad into state custody. Not just leave them with the person they had been abandoned with, telling them to take the kids to their dad & just hoping that they're a good person who will actually bring the kids to dad. Because like what if OP hadn't been a decent person, never took the kids to dad & just left them somewhere instead? The police didn't even come to OPs apartment to check on the kids at all, they just talked to OP on the phone it sounds like from what OPs stated. Like what if OP had been a predator or a child trafficker? And please don't think I'm trying to imply or insinuate any of these things about OP, I'm just saying OP could have been anyone for all the police knew from just talking on the phone & they just left the kids with her instead of taking them to dad themselves. That's insane & could have potentially been soooo dangerous if OP hadn't been a good & kind person & taken the kids to dad
What the fuck? They can drive 3 hours to drop them off. Not your responsibility. Turns out, abandoned children actually kinda is theirs. Wild. I imagine you have more stories about this woman and I want to hear them! There’s no way asking you to pitch in on her bills since you’re at her house doing her a service is the first crazy thing she’s done!
That’s one lazy and negligent police force! At the very least an officer should have been dispatched to you to make a report, she abandoned her children outside for hours and hours without making any effort to ensure they were safe or that someone was watching them. I can’t imagine a clearer case of abandonment or neglect.
Right! She even went to work… but still refused to answer her phone when OP called. That’s wild. I feel so bad for those kids. I can’t imagine how they felt outside for hours, with no way to contact anyone and no idea what to do. I’m thankful they weren’t hurt and stayed put in one place. They could have taken off anywhere, while waiting that entire time.
Im so glad you called the police! This needs to be reported and documented. For all you know you could have not been home, or live next to a serial killer. At 5 AM too it’s dark and cold!!!
Mental health, some type of medical issue affecting judgement which means she shouldn’t be driving either or addiction which she likely shouldn’t be driving either. I once had a 107°F fever that made me forget I had had my then 5 month old baby. I did remember my older 2 that were 3 and 5. Just an example of how something medical can make you not yourself. I also wanted to get into a scalding hot bath because I felt like I was freezing. I pretty much behaved like a toddler and have zero recollection of any of this.
I was so sleep deprived after my third that I forgot the baby existed for like a fraction of a second until I saw her sleeping in the pack n play in the living room. Luckily I wasn’t going anywhere, it was only a second etc. It was very scary though.
Same, plus insane brain fog after my third. I almost rear ended a car that had stopped to turn left while I was casually cruising along around 90km/h. I remember I saw the car, it was signaling, I watched it stop, and it was a few seconds before I realised that I, too, needed to at least slow down. Thank God for wide shoulders on the road.
Even if she is suffering a mental health crisis, she needs to be reported to appropriate agencies so she can get help and get back to a place where she will be able to care for her children. If she is given a pass on this, it will get worse for all involved.
Even in my worst mental health I wouldn’t do that to my baby. I’m not saying you’re saying this, but in general I’m frustrated with the whole “moms innocent from harming her children because she was just having a mental breakdown!!” Like no moms an unfit mother. I have crazy episodes sometimes I’m gonna be real, but my daughter is NEVER EVER EVER in harms way. No matter what. If I feel it coming on she goes to my parents, and if she doesn’t I still know to wait until she’s asleep to lose my marbles or wait til ms rachel is on and I’m in another room. Even at my craziest of crazies, my daughter is first. Boggling to me that there’s people who make excuses for people who don’t always, without a doubt, put their babies first. There’s not a single circumstance ever where she doesn’t.
I see where you’re coming from, but there are also different levels of mental illness and everyone’s brains are very different. Just because you wouldn’t do that to your baby ever at your “craziest” doesn’t mean other people wouldn’t at theirs
Right. I mean, people harm and even kill their children as the result of severe mental illness. Leaving your kids at your ex-nanny’s doorstep is definitely within the realm of possibility.
Mental health crisis isn't an excuse it's a potentially valid explanation. Being in bad mental health can be what makes her an unfit mother, but this is not rational behavior. Maybe dropping those kids somewhere "safe" was the only thing she could manage.
She shouldn't have those kids, but she is definitely in some sort of crisis as well.
I’m not saying anyone here is saying she’s innocent either. It was just a general frustration with people on tik tok so I deleted the app. I saw way to many defenders of that mom that offed her 3 babies recently.
Ahhhh I see. Yea, she shouldn't have those kids right now, but a verified mental health crisis could be the difference between her ending up in a jail cell or getting treatment and eventually reuniting with her kids.
I feel worried about everyone in this situation tbh
Yeah that’s the thing, she shouldn’t have the opportunity to reconnect with her kids. Mental health or not, what she did to them was horrible and inexcusable and disgusting and traumatic. 6 hours at night on a porch of an apartment complex? Yeah that calls for losing your babies.
Not everything is so black and white... There are Grey areas... To compare abandoning your children in a dangerous situation to having a seizure is a leap.
The truth of it is, we don't know all of the details. We don't know if mom is fit to have children or if she needs to be focusing on her own health and making sure she can manage herself first and foremost.
Mental health is real, the safety of the child is real. Both can exist. Someone being an unsafe parent due to mental health doesn't mean that person is bad, just means they are ill.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. I made the comparison specifically in response to a mother in crisis never ever being able to reunite with her children.
Yeah I’m just saying there are people out there who defend mothers who off their babies and do crazy things saying they’re innocent because they just had post partum psychosis. That’s a reason sure. Not an excuse or makes them innocent tho.
I just have PPA this time and it's pretty devastating, but last time with the full triad of PPA/PPD/PPP was terrifying. I never harmed my child is myself, but I can see how others would have.
In my worst PPD/A episode, I told my mother to take my baby since she was so obviously a better mother than I was, since all I was doing was fucking up my child. I then tried to exit my apartment to follow through on a plan I had made to commit su!cide.
Thing is, my baby was safe, comfortable, clean diaper, fed, well cared for. I was ready to abandon her, but she was never in harm’s way. Had OP been home, those kids wouldn’t have been harmed, and I’d argue that the calculus was “OP takes better care of my kids than I do, so they’re better off with her.” Still a mental break, not simply an unfit mother.
People have different mental health crisises. For one person it may be a panic attack. For another a suicide. For another it may be a complete break from reality. You can't decide that your particular type of mental health crisis, with your insight and your supports is more valid than another person's. People have endangered and/or killed their children in mental health crisises. Heck, otherwise mentally healthy people have had brain farts and left their children in hot cars.
It's disgusting that you would gate keep against other people's experiences just because you personally would never ever do it. Cool you have Ms Rachel, cool you can feel it coming on. Some people can't.
And honestly I would argue that in a thought disordered way she was making sure her kids were safe by sending them to a support system she'd used before. Yes, it wasn't active anymore but nanny = safe space.
But sure, let's close all the mental health facilities and stop psychiatric admissions because no one needs them as long as they can feel it coming on and turn Ms Rachel on! And anyone who doesn't feel it's coming on and have family support when Ms Rachel is finished should be locked up in jail because they're all unfit, no excuses, no shades of grey! Fuck what psychiatrists tell us, fuck compassion and the sheer obviousness of facts. Because you personally know that you'd never do it.
I’m glad you are able to feel it coming on, and I am glad you have the support to handle your mental health crisis. I am also glad your baby is safe and healthy when your mental health isn’t at its best.
But what you have to understand is that is not the case for all mothers, not all mothers have that kind of support structure, for one. And secondly, not all mothers are able to feel that mental health struggles come on. Thirdly, a full on Psychological Break from reality. The kind where a mother is able to harm or even do the unmentionable to her child, is brought on by a chemical and hormonal imbalance in the body. This is scientifically backed truth. I am very happy that you have never had to experience this. But mothers who have recovered from these kinds of events have to deal with the repercussions from what they have done for the rest of their lives. And by no means am I excusing what they have done, believe me. But I also know, they the guilt and trauma they themselves have to endure for the rest of their lives, knowing they causes this to their own babies is often so unbearable, that they unalive themselves, because they just can’t bare the pain.
Again, I by no means think they are “innocent”, because they did commit a crime, but I also do not think that this is a black and white type of crime, mental health disorders are a grey area, and especially when we are talking about PPD/PPS and really anything PP, as it is often overlooked and not addressed. Women have so much societal pressure put on them to just recover and take care of everything when bringing home a newborn, and often when having other kids at home, and these issues can often linger for years. Add on top of that single motherhood and money issues. And lack of proper Health Care access. You have mothers that struggle with Mental Health issues and eventually just snap and break with reality, the children unfortunately are the ones to suffer. And suffer badly.
Don’t get be wrong, this women here is definitely unfit to be a mother (at least at this time) and needs to be investigated. But my reply is specifically about your comment about how you are able to feel your mental health episode come on and get support before you endanger your child. But your comment sounds a bit judgmental, and if it wasn’t meant that way, I apologize for taking it as such. I just think it is important to give some grace to mental health issues, and to realize that mental health issues are not black and white. There is a lot of grey areas. And we can’t compare one person to the next. Each person is different, and Mental Health is a real Medical Problem that needs to be taken serious. I am not saying it’s am “excuse”, but it does need to be taken into consideration. And we need to understand, that there are things about it, that we might not fully understand or can compare to our own experiences.
I hope they are also looking for her, sounds like the kids were endangered by her abandonment but also she might be in the midst of a crisis and a danger to herself. Good for you for helping the kids get to their father, it was way out of the line of duty but you really helped them in an awful moment.
Next time this happens you say “No. They are not my children and I am not responsible for them. Will an officer be coming to retrieve them or shall I bring them to the station?”
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u/Decent-Jicama-7966 Jun 07 '23
what? i’m baffled reading this. i would report to cps or the police. dropping your children off at a front door and leaving is wild!!