Sheba,<BR>In my post regarding my x leaving my s in the car, you asked what my lawyer though about contacting the Child Protective Services(CPS).<P>I did contact the CPS butr didn't give them my or x's name as I was quite angry at the time and didn't want to run around half cocked.<P>My lawyer said it was good idea not to involve the CPS or even the police unless the is immenient danger. He said by involving the authorities, you are actually opening a can of worms. <P>He said the spouse or x, usually makes counter charges, and that ends up with the authorities becoming more involved in your life. And like in the rest of our lives, we don't need any bureaucracies involved. He said after what may be a creditable charge by us, the authorities end up investigating us because of the counter charges.<P>He said he warns all his clients not to involve authorities whenever they have problems unless someone is seriously being hurt or it involves others, like neighbors.<P>He indicated he fought a number of high profile cases against the CPS for taking away children from their parent/guardian for poor reasons.<P>In the event of calling the police, most jurisdictions have a policy that in cases of domestic disturbances someone must be arrested. So if I call the police because my spouse won't leave the premises, and when they show up and she says I threatened her, guess who goes to jail ? ME! My lawyer said just go in the house and lock the door. They will eventually go away or the neighbors will call the police.<P>He said he gives the same answers to bar owners. He tells them not to call the police everytime time they have a problem, because they will then start thinking of you as a problem and will keep a closer eye on you, which will hurt your business. <P>The same would apply in domestic relations too. If you are always calling police on your spouse, how long do you think it will be before they catch you doing something wrong even though you may be provoked. Then who loses.<P>My lawyer/friend(he's going to coach my d's softball team) had a very low opionion of the CPS. I hope I don't offend anyone here.<P>He said that the Peter Principle is the governing force here. He said basiclly the CPS job has to be one of the worst jobs in the world. Your job is to determine if children should be taken from their parent/s.<P>When you try, the parent/s fight you, the children don't want to go, and its basically a no win situation. He said there is high turnover because it is such a stressful job.<P>Therefore the ones that do stay, may have trouble holding jobs elsewhere, so they are kept on. Then since they are longer term employees, they are promoted to supervisory positions and in turn hire more new inexperienced employees.<P>Again, I hope I haven't offended anyone. I'm simply passing along someone's else's opinion that has had experiences with this service.<P>He was also down on police, and I know there are some police wife's out there so I won't get into that!<P>So I think I will back away from the CPS unless I find her truly endangering the kids again. It would be interesting to see if she calls them and gives them my name.<P>Bob
