Originally posted by dems4me
hire a maid? realistically if you get authorities involved nothing will come of it other than arguing and fighting and as a result I was worried about the kid getting the brunt of it... the kid should start learning responsibilities and having chores... if its just a matter of a litter box and dirty counters as was mentioned... there should be no problem paying a few bucks and teaching the kid responsibility. The father works (he's responsible) and the mother has problems with alcohol -- the root of the problem is the alleged alcoholism -- and only the alcoholic can decide to change and quit. Getting the mother to change her ways is out of the question -- only she can decide that for herself. This way the house will be somewhat livable -- clean litter boxes, and the counters clean and the boy earns an allowance :shrug:
:shakeshead: Dems, nobody is going to teach this kid responsibility. The father is not responsible, he's escaping. The boy probably knows that most people don't live this way, but he has no idea how to change it. Heck, Mom and Dad don't have any idea how to change it.
Mom drinks because her life and consequently her home is a mess. Her life and home become worse because she drinks. She goes home and sees the physical evidence of her disasterous life and she turns around and goes out to drink some more.
At this point, Mom has no idea where to begin. She can't do dishes, because the sink is piled too high. She can't move the dishes from the sink because the counter and table are covered in stuff. She can't clear the counter and tables because the trash can is over flowing, plus she would have to sort through the mail and other papers to decide if there is anything worth keeping. She can't sort the papers because the chairs are covered in crap and she can't even sit down and she can't take out the trash because the can outside is overflowing and she is too drunk to drive to the transfer station/dump. Besides which, the car is too full of trash and crap to put the bags of trash in.
It's a circle. It has no end or begining and it's spinning to fast to jump off. She needs intervention of some sort, but there is no one to do it. Social services won't/can't send someone in to show her where to begin. If it is bad enough to endanger the child, all they can do is take him away and order her to clean the house. But they won't show her how. Her parents probably never showed her how. Maybe her childhood was similar and her mother never knew how, or maybe her mother was one of these people who are just naturally organized and had no patience for those who weren't. :shrug:
I've seen/heard about this before where people get into this situation and don't know what to do. There are actually systems that can be found on the internet to address this problem. One of them is
www.flylady.net that will tell people where to start. There are stories on that site of people in situations much like the one in this thread. But nobody, no social worker is going to say, "Here's this website, check it out. I'll come back in a week and see how it's going." Or even better, print out the information and hand the woman a page and say, "Here, do this today and tomorrow, I'll have other instructions for you." And actually follow up and make sure she's doing something.
It'd be nice if social services actually had a person who would intervene in situations like this. There are probably lots of people in danger of losing their kids because they just can't get control of the housekeeping. But there's no money for it. My friends at Social Services are always complaining about hiring freezes. Plus, who would want the job of going into these houses and spending time teaching people how to clean. The rewards would be visable enough, but it'd be a lot of hard work, physically and mentally.
-- did you not have chores growing up :shrug:
