Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Hi, and welcome to the Politics of Justice. It's me, Amy Austin.
[00:00:07] So let me start off this recording with a trigger warning. I should say that there's going to be discussion of molestation in these chapters. Unfortunately, it's something that I encountered when I was working as a guardian or representing parents whose children were in foster care.
[00:00:30] And I wanted to include that realistic depiction in this book.
[00:00:35] But it's a hard topic.
[00:00:38] It's a hard topic, and I just wanted to put the warning up front. I'll be sure to put it in the show notes as well.
[00:00:47] So when I left off, it was chapter 29. And now I'm at chapter 30, which is called Daddy's Little Girl.
[00:00:57] So, as we talked about earlier, Olivia's parents divorced, and Sheila is really trying to carry the burden of single parenting and a new career and her addiction problems. It's a lot.
[00:01:13] But Keith.
[00:01:16] Keith. Keith exists.
[00:01:18] So let's go to the first note in chapter 30.
[00:01:21] It says, and this is from Keith's perspective before I followed her to Michigan for three years. My mother warned me that giving in to this kind of whim would be the end of my marriage. And I might have listened to my mother if I'd had time to think. But law school was a roller coaster that never stopped during the year. We were always going to one mix or another. Her summer jobs, nothing like ice cream skipping we'd done in high school, were all consuming. I dropped out of her social life halfway through law school. There's nothing worse than going to all those lunches, dinners and parties at the big houses on Fairmont or North Park Boulevard. Her colleagues and I were as different as night and day. The attorneys she worked for were all white men with wives who didn't work. Brad or Chet or Chip were always shaking my hand and asked me what I did for a living. Was I a golf man? Did I belong to the skating club?
[00:02:09] When I said that I worked for rta, they started asking me about the big bosses when I didn't know them or when they looked at my hands and realized I didn't work enough for opinions, upper offices. They wrote me off and didn't take glasses to see that I didn't fit into her world.
[00:02:24] So I'm sure that the note there is.
[00:02:27] That is one of my favorite lines. It didn't take glasses to see that I didn't fit into her world.
[00:02:32] So I remember this world from back in the day. And there are a lot of white men partners at these big law firms. Their wives generally didn't work and the skating club. I'd forgotten about that. It was a.
[00:02:48] What is the word? I want. It was at the time.
[00:02:52] I don't even. This is so vague, but it was an exclusive club in Shaker that people belong to. I assume it was ice skating. It's kind of. It's so vague. It was so long ago. But there are similar clubs in Los Angeles, smaller clubs that are fairly exclusive, that people belong to, centered around an activity. I'll just say that I've been to some of them. They are what they are. There are many, many ways that people sort themselves and exclude others.
[00:03:23] And it was no different in Cleveland.
[00:03:28] So in this chapter, Keith is sitting, I think sitting in his apartment, and the phone is ringing.
[00:03:43] So with each. This is the next highlight. With each ring, my heart sped up. Then I stopped with each pause. After six rings, the answering machine picked up. I hung on Sheila's voice. Not home, I said, guilty that I felt nothing but relief.
[00:03:55] She's at that age, probably with some friends. Try again tomorrow. I nodded and walked back to my chair. I'd give it a couple of weeks, work up my courage. What if my daughter hated me, wanted nothing to do with me? That rejection would be nothing but my own damn fault.
[00:04:08] I guess he's working up the courage to call her. And actually, I'm thinking about this. So Oprah recently did a fairly controversial podcast, which she filmed in, like, a little studio, similar to how she used to do the show, talking about estranged parents. And one of the parents that people found the most sympathetic, I guess I'd say, was a father who his daughter hadn't spoken to him. And when she finally, she called him because she needed something, and he stepped up and got to therapy and changed his relationship with his daughter.
[00:04:41] But I think that it's interesting that fathers, okay, fathers get estranged for two reasons. Mothers are a whole different ball of wax. One because the child has pulled away, and the other because the father has pulled away.
[00:04:59] And I've often wondered what that's like. I once read a book about fatherless daughters, and it talked about life from a child's perspective. But I've always wondered what absentee fathers would say. And actually, until that Oprah thing, I hadn't had, like, sort of a clue. And he wasn't an absentee father in that way. But I hadn't had, like, a clue into what fathers think. Because if you.
[00:05:26] My experience is that if you talk to absentee fathers, they have a lot of excuses as to why their absentee fathers generally based on their feelings about the mother.
[00:05:39] But I have not met an absentee father who sort of takes responsibility for stepping out.
[00:05:45] But when I was practicing in Ohio, I noticed that often when men were done with the women, they were done with the children as well.
[00:05:54] And it's a shame, but it is what it is.
[00:05:58] So we moved on to chapter 31, which is called Behind Closed Doors.
[00:06:06] So, as we know, Olivia's in foster care with this kid named Jermaine, who is slightly older than her.
[00:06:16] And he is. His behavior is both immature and inappropriate.
[00:06:24] So the highlight is.
[00:06:27] This is Olivia's chapter 31. My body jolted like someone was walking across my grave.
[00:06:32] The small strawberry shortcake nightlight flickered on, bathing the room in an odd pinkish yellow glow. I'd forgotten to lock the door, like I'd been told what was there to fear. My mother had long ago told me that monsters weren't real.
[00:06:45] And the note is that writing these chapters were some of the hardest I'd ever written.
[00:06:51] And it is because it's.
[00:06:56] It's just.
[00:06:58] It's hard because I think the girls and women are, like, preyed upon. I mean, I'm reading a book now that talks about the incidents of assault and various. Various kinds of assault upon women. And it's high and it's a lot. And the perpetrators are, like, heavily majority men, over 90%.
[00:07:23] And yet, even though it's common, which it's horrible that it is, it's not. I think that there's a certain.
[00:07:31] I'm finding that it's unexpected in a way. I mean, you know, we talk about women walking with keys between their hands, but I think that there's a certain innocence that comes until it's violated.
[00:07:45] The last highlight was about.
[00:07:50] She doesn't know what's coming. And so when she thinks it's going to be the foster mother, it's Jermaine who's knocking on her door.
[00:07:58] And she says that sleep and its companion, oblivion were what I craved. And so that's sort of how she's getting through this experience.
[00:08:08] And it's a coping mechanism that many people use often in depression as well. But it's one way to get through an awful experience because at least for eight hours of any given day, you don't have to experience whatever's going on out there. That's awful.
[00:08:25] Chapter 32 is called Shattered Glass.
[00:08:29] And it is.
[00:08:51] So it's a. It's a. It's a Casey chapter.
[00:08:57] And she is.
[00:09:03] Oh, she's in her office and she's really, like, thinking about getting down to work, which is pretty hard.
[00:09:12] So she's talking to one of her clients, one of her poor clients, and she said, the client says, I'm supposed to testify. Buyers look taken aback. This is what I hated about juvenile Everybody loved to get down and dirty when it came to talking about other people's parenting. But they didn't want to go public.
[00:09:31] They take it back.
[00:09:34] In chapter 32, Casey is talking to one of the social workers about testifying, and she's encountering the fact that people don't want to testify in this case. It's one of the social workers who participated in the removal of Olivia.
[00:10:01] And it says the posted notice that most witnesses were afraid to testify in court. When it came down to it, it was actually the oddest thing. Like people like the idea of the justice system, like the idea of truth prevailing, but get terrified of being involved in the process. As a witness, I'm not sure, like, I could never quite figure out what they thought was going to happen. Were they going to. Thought they were going to be tripped up in a lie, that.
[00:10:25] That they didn't want to say the thing. So people will tell you all sorts of things, and he did this and they did that, and this happened to me or whatever, and you're like, okay, fine, but you're gonna testify that to that in court.
[00:10:37] And then silence. It's the oddest thing. And I actually don't know what people fear about the process, because if they are telling the truth and they have nothing to fear, I'm not talking about people who have the potential of jail or losing their kids or something, but just as a straight up witness in a case, I never understood what it was they feared. Maybe one day I'll figure that out or not, who knows?
[00:11:05] It's just something I didn't understand and I think was surprising when I came to it, because people, there's so much bluster in people when they talk about the justice system. And if the judge heard what I had to say, or if the truth caught out or whatever, and you're like, okay, here's your chance. The judge, jury, whomever, and for the truth to come out and suddenly silence.
[00:11:27] So chapter 33 is one of these sort of vestiges of me trying to write like other people. And I think I talked about that early on in these videos. And so it's called Washington Murmurs, and it's about the backroom machinations going on as they involve Sheila's nomination. I think I wanted the idea that what she was going through in juvenile court, like, how do I say this? Rumor wise. Rumor mill wise, like trickled, got to Washington D.C. somehow and was going to affect her confirmation process. You know, I was just. So I'm reading this book called Erased, which I don't recommend. It is so depressing. It's about like, it's about like just patriarchy in America and like how we're all like, effed in the end. Every once a year I read one of these books and I'm just like, oh my God, the world's awful. So I don't recommend the book.
[00:12:30] But while I was reading it today, she was talking about how long the confirmation process is, and it's usually several months and how Amy Coney Barrett, when nominated for the Supreme Court, was confirmed in 40 days or something. And it's one of the swiftest confirmations ever.
[00:12:48] But in reality, the confirmation process, even taking out the whole obstructionist part, that's really come to the fore in the last, I don't know, at this point, 20 years maybe. Oh, God, okay, maybe it's 20 years.
[00:13:06] His is a lengthy process and usually people who are like aiming to be confirmed have to meet with people in the judiciary and their own senators, if they're not on the committee, like take them down and introduce them around and like try to, you know, put a human face the name and get people on board with voting. And this is just in the Senate, you know, the advice and consent in the Senate is required for federal appointments. And so just trying to like swan around and meet the people so that they like, are willing to confirm you for this lifetime position.
[00:13:37] All federal judges are lifetime appointees, so the pay is not as high as a lot of other lawyers, but it's a lifetime federal job. You know, Doge ain't going after that. And actually there's often a shortage because there's a lot of cases and the number of judges increases slowly. I mean, obviously the Supreme Court has increased none, but they do increase the number of federal judges, but it's very slow flow. There's a backup, but the process of getting appointed in many cases is highly political.
[00:14:11] So it takes a minute. And I really wanted to emphasize that it's not just like you walk in, you get nominated, you do your hearing and you see that. So on C Span you'll see the hearings or if they're more controversial, on various TV outlets, but that's just the culmination of all the meetings and glad handing and backroom dealing. And I wanted to bring that in in later books. I Don't do this anymore. I don't put in any of that background information.
[00:14:42] But it was the first book I wrote, and even if it's not the first that was published. And back then, I was not so great about what to leave out. We'll just say that. Let's just say that I'm better now. Better now about what people want to leave out. So chapter 34 is an Olivia chapter. It's called She's Not My Mother. Basically, Olivia's like, I think the foster mom's taking up from school. And it's one of. It's a new school, the third school she's at so far that year, maybe the fourth, I don't know at this point.
[00:15:11] And people are like, oh, your mom's here. And she gets this, like, huge feeling in her chest that this woman's not her mother, and it doesn't matter as far as these kids are concerned. But it, like, really matters to her that the life that she's living is foreign and it's mistaken for being normal. And she really struggles with that.
[00:15:34] So chapter 35 is called relative Placement.
[00:15:41] So at the time, I was practicing and I assume now, but obviously I don't keep up on things that I'm not involved in.
[00:15:51] It was always preferable that children be placed with relatives over being placed in foster care. That did not, like, often happen initially because the placements were considered an emergency.
[00:16:05] And so therefore they were placed right away, like in emergency custody. And then sometimes they were. So the emergency placement didn't last long because, as I mentioned before, it's like temporary, two, three days. I don't even think it's more than a week in most cases.
[00:16:19] And then they move them to, like, a more permanent placement with somebody who's a regular foster care parent.
[00:16:29] But long story short, often a relative placement was preferable, but finding the relatives, identifying the relatives, seeing if the relatives wanted to take the children, and seeing whether or not the relatives could take the children took. Took a minute. Like, I mean, in all fairness, like, there's a lot of things, it's the system that I don't think were right or fair.
[00:16:57] There's a lot of things with the system I don't think we're right or fair.
[00:17:03] Okay. There are a lot of things with the system that I don't think were right or fair.
[00:17:08] But I will agree that. That taking some time to find a relative who was willing to take the children was something that was a positive thing. Because if you could be with your aunt or whomever it would keep you in the family system.
[00:17:27] In some cases made the visitation of the parents, depending on the parents situation and reason for the kids being taken easier.
[00:17:37] And it wasn't such a foreign placement.
[00:17:40] So at this point they're looking for a relative. And in this case, and this actually happened often with single moms, in this case, the father is being chosen for a relative placement. Fathers, if the parents were not together, fathers were often considered.
[00:18:01] There are a whole lot of various situations obviously with what they were doing, but notifying them was often difficult and finding out whether or not they take them. But in this case they find out that Keith is available.
[00:18:20] Unfortunately not in the greatest way at this point. He's being served because, okay, so the mother's parental rights are affected, but also the father's parental rights are effective affected. And in this case, since they were both, they were married, it makes it easy because there's a presumption that he is the father under the law.
[00:18:40] So the issue is notifying him.
[00:18:43] Now notification service and notification are their own bailiwick. And in this case the sheriff is notifying you.
[00:18:59] So like the sheriff is like this vestige of like English common law. They have a lot of purposes. One is like service of papers, One is like evictions. Some is like law enforcement, but they have like, like a lot of like ancillary things. And in Cuyahoga county the sheriff did service like service. Process server was a process server, was the main process server, which actually to be honest, much better than California where you have like whole like process servers industry.
[00:19:32] Like, like people, people will take shit from the sheriff, whereas they might ignore like Joe who showed up in his car with some papers, which is often why it's portrayed on TV that you've been served like as a dupe because people will avoid service. People generally don't avoid the sheriff because it's a guy with the gun. And like they don't mess around like that.
[00:19:51] Miss it. Moving on.
[00:19:54] So the sheriff has showed up at his aunt's house. So the thing about Keith is that he's. I don't. He's not itinerant, but he's one of these guys. Actually I know quite a few people this and maybe this is like an east coast quality. Like they don't change their address. So their address is always like their parents house or their aunt's house or something. And they like actually like live somewhere else. But they like. Or they move like every couple of years. But they don't change their permanent address from like there, there Are like some relative's house. Never understood, like, why you just not would have your own address. But I know a lot of people do it.
[00:20:26] I don't have a why.
[00:20:28] Like, I just don't have a why. Maybe because there was subletting in New York City. Like, I have so many questions.
[00:20:34] I don't know my address is my address.
[00:20:36] All that said Keith. Keith's address is his aunt's house. And since that's his, like, permanent address, this far as the government is concerned, she's the one who served these papers about the foster care and the Olivia being removed. So Cora calls him and she's like, the sheriff came here with some papers. And look, the sheriff's never.
[00:21:00] As far as conviction goes in law enforcement, the sheriff showing up is never like a positive thing. Like, the sheriff has come to see you. So she's like, come over here and get these papers.
[00:21:13] So it's he. So he gets the papers and the highlight is.
[00:21:25] So he keeps, like, Sheila's number in the back of his wallet and he's sort of regretting not trying harder to keep in touch with Olivia. So the highlight is. I dialed the number I kept in the back of my wallet, wishing I tried harder to get in contact with Olivia. I listened to the phone ring, Wonder if Sheila would even pick up. Sheila's home number had been unlisted for years.
[00:21:45] Seeing the folks from her old neighborhood when she visited, there was one thing. But getting phone calls from wayward relatives who wanted money because they thought she and all lawyers were rich. Or free legal advice because that's what family was for. For favors like fixing parking tickets because they didn't know the difference between a lawyer and a court clerk had been trying on her nerves.
[00:22:04] I knew the diatribe backwards and forwards, but Olivia always kept Aunt decora apprised of their phone number.
[00:22:10] Today was not a day for social niceties.
[00:22:13] Sheila, what in the hell is going on over there? I just got some papers from Ani Kora's house talking about Olivia being in foster care. Good evening, Keith. Sheila said. It's so nice to hear your voice. You haven't seen your daughter in what, three or four years? Do you have a job yet?
[00:22:27] Cut the bull. Acting like your shit don't sting. How in the hell did Olivia end up in foster care? I didn't wait for an answer. Are you planning to get her back or drink yourself into oblivion? Oblivion?
[00:22:37] How dare you? Who in the hell gave you the right to pass judgment? Didn't want to leave your mama's house didn't want to keep a job. That's when I left. Your lazy ass didn't step up and do the manly thing and take care of your daughter.
[00:22:48] Don't start talking to me about raising a child. You aren't here day in and day out to deal with the everyday stresses. Is she fitting in? Does she have enough friends? Is she eating too much junk food?
[00:22:57] What to tell her when she cries that her dear dad doesn't love her? So don't come in here like your father of the year. Sheila said so. Unfortunately.
[00:23:09] How can I say this unfortunately?
[00:23:13] And this is a note. All the unresolved issues come up here during this conversation, during a heightened time.
[00:23:20] It's. It's one of those things they talk about when they talk about, like, couples counseling and the reason that couples argue and often all the crap that people like, the resentments and all that bubbles up during an argument. So they're not even arguing about what they're arguing about. They're arguing about all the past crap that hasn't been resolved. And that happens here. But Keith's really sort of having none of it.
[00:23:44] And he says, are you drinking? And she says, hell, yes, I'm drinking. I need a little rest and relaxation in the day. Maybe a cocktail or nightcap, but I'm no drunk. This whole mess in juvenile court is mysterious stake. You know, they don't like to see black people make it in Cleveland.
[00:23:59] So she's like, sort of like, put deflecting, using this. I don't call it conspiracy theory because it's true, but using the idea that black people getting ahead is an anathema to the society in which we live. And that is actually, like, indeed true.
[00:24:19] But she's also really, truly, like, not doing the best thing here.
[00:24:26] So like. And he says, I couldn't falter. Logic. The daily newspaper was filled with black leaders taken down by extramarital affairs. Unpaid taxes. Look what the FBI tried to do to Martin Luther King. What happened? I asked, conciliation in my tone. Sheila's voice lost its impatience. Olivia's guidance counselor got a little overzealous. She's one of those young white girls at a school, you know the type, going to save black folks from themselves. I did know the type. I'd met them when Sheila had been in college and in law school. I'd have preferred a life without those people, but Sheila had sought it out, and this was the result. Oh, this is like all the issues, like, it was like all the issues, like, bubbled up in A paragraph.
[00:25:03] Because, like, how do I want to save this? Okay, so like the white savior type on one hand. And like, there's a bunch of movies about that. Like, the young white person's going to go into the inner city school, whatever, like it is, and save the black people. That's like one whole, like, trope.
[00:25:22] Then the next trope is about people being taken down and FBI or the CIA or all the conspiracies, some of which are true, about how black leaders get taken down for minor things.
[00:25:39] A recent example is. Oh, my God, which woman is this? The one who was recently indicted for a mortgage fraud for buying a house using a mortgage. So most primary mortgages assume you're going to occupy the home.
[00:25:57] Because if you buy. If you get. So if you buy a house and you don't plan to occupy it, the mortgage rate is actually higher. This I know from rental property.
[00:26:07] That said, people will buy a house that they do plan to rent out using a mortgage that they are going to do just to save on the mortgage rate. It doesn't mean they're going to default on the mortgage or whatever.
[00:26:19] So whichever prosecutor I think was in wrapped up in Donald Trump, had done that. She bought some house for her niece, I don't know, some other relative.
[00:26:26] And that is considered mortgage fraud. It is a popular kind of mortgage frog. And there's some deep irony in being, how can I say this? Pursued by a president who indeed is subject to his own felony convictions for fraud, among other things. Okay, so all that said, it is known to happen to people in the black community that they're pursued for things that white people otherwise get away with.
[00:27:00] And I'm not saying fraud is great, but a lot of people engage in like, low level, minor fraud.
[00:27:05] And some people get away with it and some people don't.
[00:27:10] So all of that. And then there's like the third issue of some people, some black people I have met live a life that doesn't engage in that broader world, whether it's corporate or whatever, any of those environments where they're unlikely to encounter people who don't treat them well.
[00:27:32] So this is like the trifecta of like black community tropes, you know, trying to get ahead and being pushed down, being accused or convicted of things that otherwise you can otherwise white people would get away with and being too big for your britches. And therefore this is the result.
[00:27:50] And it's sort of not fair because the whole meritocracy seek out education argument in America encourages people to go forward, but that doesn't mean you're going to be treated as well. And that's just one of those things. It's just one of those things.
[00:28:14] Anyway, so in chapter 36.
[00:28:20] Hold on.
[00:28:23] It's an Olivia chapter.
[00:28:25] And it's actually. This is so interesting. It's about the visit from the social worker.
[00:28:31] And I, when I worked as a guardian, I think I sometimes would visit at the same time as a social worker just to, like, minimize the disruption in a child's life with, like, adults they don't know sort of coming in.
[00:28:47] But the.
[00:28:51] What that gave me is an opportunity to see what a quote, unquote, social worker visit is, because I think so one of the issues that comes up when we talk about foster care, especially when something happens to children, is that because social workers are overburdened in this system.
[00:29:09] Underpaid, overburdened, have a huge caseload. Often they're understaffed. We could go on the there whenever something happens. One of the biggest flame, the biggest blame is, like, leveled on social workers because they don't have enough visits. They lie about their visits, whatever that is.
[00:29:29] That trope is, like, well played out. Especially, like in movies or on TV or any of, like, cop shows, shows that deal with those sorts of issues.
[00:29:38] That said, when I would go to the visits with social worker, what I did find is sometimes, and I didn't go on a ton of these, so I can't, like, speak is like, and obviously this was not my job. So these are people who are driving around all day in their own cars. I mean, they get reimbursed, but, you know, it is what it is, visiting children.
[00:29:58] And I found the visits kind of cursory. So often the foster parents and as I mentioned before, who are being paid for the privilege, where they wouldn't pay the parents for this, often I don't say, like, dress the kids up, but made sure the kids were clean, their hair was done, like, all of that to give this perception that they were doing, they were doing the most. They were doing the most.
[00:30:21] And the social workers who. Who had a relationship with the foster parents, often because they would place, like, subsequent children there, so they had like, a different kind of relationship with the foster parents. Even though their goal was to, like, advocate for children, I think it's conflict of interest, probably often had this relationship. So when the foster parent, like, trotted out like, like, world's best behaved child, then they could indeed, like, buy into the show. So in this case, Linda, who's Olivia's foster worker, is like, do Your hair, like, make sure your hair is done. Make sure, like, your clothes are done.
[00:31:04] And she. So she trots out Olivia, who looks well put together and well cared for.
[00:31:13] And the social worker doesn't aim to talk to Olivia alone. She sort of is like, okay, you look good, whatever. And then she goes outside, I believe, and talks to the social worker, but it doesn't delve. So Olivia now has this, like, awful thing that happened to her.
[00:31:33] And I think he was even thinking about talking about it, but there's really no opportunity because it was more of a dog and pony show and less of, like, a true assessment of how the child is being cared for in foster care.
[00:31:51] So let's go to chapter 37. So chapter 37, we're back to the.
[00:32:03] My Philip Morgellon thing, where it's called the confirmation.
[00:32:11] So she's out down there, like, in the offices doing, like, the handshaking with this thing. And one of the senators says, oh, I'm so sorry to hear about your troubles.
[00:32:26] And it's a very, like, old boy sort of focused environment. And Sheila's anything but a good old boy.
[00:32:35] And they make it sound like the likelihood that she is going to be confirmed is up in the air. And Sheila's got a lot going on, and her inability to, like, juggle all of it successfully while also having, like, a habit is deeply problematic. I don't know if when I wrote it, I wanted you to be sympathetic toward her, to understand her fight or to put her feet to the fire. Maybe all three. Maybe all three.
[00:33:13] Personally, I don't have a lot of warm feelings towards Sheila, but I know writing an unsympathetic heroine is not the best.
[00:33:26] So we get to chapter 38, and I think that'll be the last chapter because we're getting on in time called Doth protest too Much.
[00:33:37] And so Sheila is now going to meet with her own.
[00:33:46] Her own the guardian. Lynem, Sheila's. Excuse me, Olivia's guardian line of the Guardian. Lanham in Sheila's case.
[00:33:52] And it's a woman named Sherry Otis who has her own thoughts. Everybody has their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. And she's a little worried about how this is going to go.
[00:34:10] So the guardian is there and she says they trudge up the stairs because they live on the second floor in this two family house they live in. I trudge up the stairs rubbing my face with my hands. It was overwhelming trying to convince well meaning folks in the Cuyahoga County Justice Department juvenile system that I could do what I'D already done for years, raise my daughter. And that's sort of the standard. Like people come and I mean, I don't know if I did this as a guardian, I'd have to really like do some self examination there. But I'd watch parents try to convince me that they could do what we expect parents to do, which is raise their child.
[00:34:48] And in the cases where it was about poverty, I was not doubting their issue to raise their child at all. I was there to just do the thing that I was like statutorily obligated to do, which is like do an assessment and make a report.
[00:35:02] But it was, it was sort of sad in a way because okay, if you adopt a child, there's like home studies, there's all these things you have to do and all these like hurdles you have to jump to adopt a child. But if you just want to have a baby, you can just have a baby. But at some point in this like system, sometimes parents, mostly mothers, have to try to then convince people that they're able to raise their children.
[00:35:28] And it's one of the sort of the saddest things to ever witness to watch people do something that they'd already done. Whether they'd done it well, whether they've done it flawlessly, probably not. But do. I don't know if any of us can be or should be held to that standard. I think the standard is are you doing it good enough?
[00:35:48] And Sheila feels like the double burden of having to try to convince people that she's doing what she had done all along.
[00:36:00] By the way, judged. The book I'm talking about is free on every book platform. Grab it wherever you read.
