Friday Morning Rant

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Saw someone online refer to children wearing masks as “child abuse” and even though I’ve heard that expressed before it hit me differently this morning. So let me take a moment….You don’t have to like masks. You don’t have to agree that they work or make your kid wear one. Fine.

But what we’re NOT gonna do is act for one single moment like a child wearing cloth on their face is anything approaching the realm of child abuse. Flippantly equating these two things is an INSULT to victims of abuse. It makes me livid that anyone can think the two are the same. Child abuse, REAL CHILD ABUSE, happens every day and leaves lasting scars on the lives, bodies, and psyches of children. If you believe wearing a mask is the same as being abused, I’ll just go ahead and tell you you’re wrong. You are wrong and you’re stupid.

My work has brought me into contact with hundreds of children who have suffered real abuse in their lives. Don’t you DARE make light of their experiences by equating mask wearing to real child abuse!! Don’t. You. Dare.

If that’s how you really think, please open your home as a foster parent and try doing your part for real victims of child abuse and neglect instead of playing politics and having fake hysterics over masks.

Child welfare agencies in this state are DROWNING while trying to help and keep safe real victims of childhood abuse and neglect. My coworkers and I are trying to stem the tide EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. We are losing the battle and losing ourselves in the process.

Stop making the mask issue about YOU. Stop sitting in your comfortable homes, in your comfortable lives, saying such stupid things and GET OUT AND DO SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY PREVENTS CHILD ABUSE. But you don’t have the balls. Because if you did, you’d have to admit there are bigger problems in the world than cloth face coverings and if you admit it…heaven forbid you actually have to DO something to change it.

Heaven FORBID!!

Crossroads

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Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

Well. Here I am again at another crossroad.

I spent the past several years in a cycle of having my shit together, struggling, having my shit in disarray, and then feeling lost. No matter what I do I can’t seem to break out of it and MAINTAIN having my shit together.

I love my job, but its exhausting me physically, mentally, and emotionally at the moment.

I love my spouse, but they’re going through their own issues that I can’t sort out for them.

I love my family, but I haven’t been to visit them in a long time because getting a day off is tough and every time the weekend rolls around all I want to do is collapse in exhaustion.

So.

I’m back at a crossroad. I’ll always choose the path of happiness and sanity and having my shit together…but I still hate that I feel like I’m starting all over.

Just start.

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“A man is a man, no more, no less. The awareness of this fact marks the supreme moment of human dignity.”

The next four years stretches out before us all, full of possibility. There is the potential for good, and the potential for evil. I believe that ‘we the people’ have the power to decide how much good, and how much evil our elected leaders can accomplish. At the end of the day, they are human, and only have as much power as we give them.

Now is not the time to rest or relax, secure in the knowledge that you simply voted. Today is the perfect time to think about how you will begin or continue to hold your government accountable. If there are issues that are important to you, work for them. If there are causes you care about, promote them. If there are questions that you have, ask them. If there are ears that will listen, make sure they hear you.

As a citizen, you deserve the answers to your questions. You deserve to know that your elected representatives are working for you and not themselves. You deserve acknowledgement that you matter.

So, don’t stop now. Don’t sit down and wait until the next crisis or the next election cycle. Start here. Start today. Start with what you have. Start with hands shaking. Start with voice trembling. Start and don’t stop. Start.

Find out who your Congressional representatives are: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members

Check out ResistBot, an easy way to contact your reps: https://resist.bot/

Last but not least, register to vote: https://www.vote.org/

Sophie the Great

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So, about three weeks ago my husband and I did a thing.

Ta da!!!

We adopted a puppy!

Born on June 18, 2020, she is a blue dapple miniature dachshund. We’ve named her Sophia and we are 100% smitten!

She’s giving us a run for our money as we try to train her but she’s getting along great with our two cats and senior dachshund.

I’ve dubbed her Sophie the Great!

Every Superhero has an origin story…

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I wasn’t always a kick-ass child welfare social worker. While my journey into this line of work doesn’t start with a tragedy or a run-in with a radioactive spider, I think it’s worth reflecting on.

In 2009 I was a fresh-faced graduate, with my Masters degree in hand and my sights on a career as an elementary school teacher. I taught for a few years in a rural school district that always seemed one budget decision away from insolvency. Unfortunately for me, that moment came sooner than I expected.

Due to budget issues, my district laid off every teacher on its payroll at the end of one school year. Once the budget crisis passed, most of those laid-off teachers were rehired. I was the new kid on the block and my school and when the budget forced them to cut positions, I was the one who got the axe. I hadn’t been there long and I was fairly expendable,

Thus began a few years of employment roulette. I spent a few years bouncing from one daycare center to the next, trying to earn enough income to pay my hefty student loans. My next-door neighbor, knowing my situation and my teaching background suggested that I submit applications to be a case manager for my state’s Department of Children’s Services.

Me? Work for the state? Help families navigate the child welfare system? Nope.

I decided not to apply for a job with such ENORMOUS responsibilities immediately after being laid-off. After all, I had a teaching degree and high hopes that I’d be able to get hired back to a teaching job. Alas, it was not to be.

After being laid off, I applied for more teaching jobs than I could count. One position I applied for was accompanied by a nice confirmation email that stated “We appreciate your application. 397 people have applied for this position and we will be interviewing a small number of candidates, blah blah blah…” Needless to say, the teaching job market was a dog eat dog business. I ended up being the dog that got eaten.

So, after spending a while making slightly above minimum wage working in a daycare and not making any headway with breaking back into teaching, I decided to bite the bullet and apply for a job in child welfare. Three months and two interviews later, I was hired on making more money as an entry-level case manager than I did as a Masters level teacher.

Seven years later and I’m a team leader of a group of 7 other foster care case manager. During my time at the department, I have worked 5 years as a front-line worker and two years as a supervisor. I have helped over 100 children find permanency with either their biological family or an adoptive family. I love what I do even on the hardest days.

I don’t have a social work degree but I have a heart for helping others and enough curiosity to never stop learning. I hope I get to continue this work for a long time.

Burnout is real.

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“Some days simply lay on you like stones.”

Patrick Rothfuss

Yesterday was one of those days when, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t seem to pull myself up out of the quagmire of negativity that has been trying to reel me in for weeks.

I was exhausted, so I skipped the gym. I was starving, so I ate junk food. I was feeling down, so I stayed at my desk most of the day. I gave in to the vices I normally resist and then hated myself for it.

Ugh. It just wasn’t a good day.

I’ve been fighting burnout for a while. My last attempt at a vacation was over a month ago but instead of a relaxing few days off around my husband’s birthday, I ended up with the stomach flu and spent the entire time feeling like garbage that had been run over by a semi truck. Before that, I had a week off over the holiday in December…but my father unexpectedly passed away on Christmas Eve and I spent the days planning his funeral with my mother and brother and eating my feelings.

Since coming back to work in the new year its been busy busy busy. Social work is not a profession that ever has a “slow season” but it definitely has a busy season. Summer time is always a hellish brutal time of year for my coworkers and I and this year has been no different. I’ve been feeling completely and totally BURNT OUT since about early March.

This morning on, The Marc & Kim Show, (my local radio show, which I LOVE listening too, btw!) the hosts were discussing a news release about how burnout has now officially been classified as a disease by the World Health Organization.

Let me just tell you…. I 100% BELIEVE THIS IS TRUE. I feel it all the time. As a career field, social work has a super high burnout rate. The only effective way I’ve personally found to combat this (and NO way is 100% effective, FYI), is to take time away, travel, and engage in some deliberate self-care. This is not something I’ve been able to do lately and I can feel it in my *bones* that I’m burnt out.

According to the article linked above from USA Today, burnout is “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”  Symptoms include: feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy.

I am SO there.

Which is why I am extremely grateful that my husband and I have a vacation coming up soon! We are returning to the island country of Jamaica this year and I can not wait. I need it. He needs it. Burn out is real and its strong.

If I want to continue this wonderful career that I love, I need some self-care time along the shores of the Caribbean Sea.

Last year, we went to Negril. This year its Montego Bay, baby!

  • Calgon take me away!

Make an Impact!

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The choice is ours. So, what kind of difference do YOU want to make on the world around you?

For me, I am always striving to leave the world a better place than I found it and to do what I can to lessen the suffering of those around me. Sometimes accomplishing that task requires as little effort as sharing a smile. Often it requires going above and beyond for another human being in need, even without the promise that my actions will ever be returned. Occasionally, my actions aren’t even appreciated by those I’m helping.

Still, that won’t stop me from keeping my heart open. I hope that you approach every day with an open heart, and willing mind, and an attitude of generosity.