The Smartest Man In The World

My wife and I had sixteen foster babies. We took on another child, a baby named Dean, not knowing what we were getting into. His parents would be the ones who needed the most attention. He came to us, three days old, and his butt was scrubbed red and raw. His mother never changed him in the hospital. She had been so squeamish that she just let him lay there in it.

“Chris,” Mary said a few days later. “I met the smartest man in the world today.”

“You did?”

“Dean’s dad. I took Dean in for a visit. He knows everything!”

“Tell me more.”

“He’s a few years older than Sally—probably about thirty. I started to tell him when Dean ate last so he would know when to feed him. He snapped at me and said, ‘Don’t give me any advice. I don’t need you to tell me how to raise my son.’”

“He sounds like a genius.”

Mary recounted more of his words of wisdom, “’And leave your daughter at home!’ he told me. ‘She makes too much noise, and that makes it harder to spend time with my son!’”

“Was she making a lot of noise?”

“Hardly any.”

Mary told the social workers he objected to her bringing April. She would still transport Dean to the office, but they had to have a CPS worker to do the actual supervision.

After a few months, the social workers planned a Family Meeting. We would talk things out, like rational beings, to map out Dean’s future when he returned to his birth parents.

We had no way of knowing, but this was a Jerry Springer Show without the cameras and bright lights. I hate reality TV because I lived it.

In a Family Meeting you gather people from both the maternal side and the paternal side, and they have at it. Part one of the Family Meeting is a huge bitch fest. Part two—everybody miraculously gets mature and hammers out details of who helps who, custody arrangements, etc.

It’s good for the soul.

Mary and I had relatives watch Dean and our daughter, April, one Sunday morning. We showed up at Social Services. I had never been there when it wasn’t crowded, and for some reason it reminded me of an army post. The bureaucratic side of the place was muted by the presence of children, but on the weekend there were no kids.

On the maternal side there was Stacey, her dad and her step-mom. In the paternal corner were Dan, the dad, his parents (Steve and Emily), and Rob, Dan’s brother. Mary and I sat in the neutral corner. Also along for the ride through the Valley of Reason, was Jolene, the lady who ran the halfway house where Stacey was staying.

The issue we had to resolve? Stacey was getting custody of Caroline, Dean’s older sister. She was about a year and a half, and Stacey would be taking care of her in the halfway house. If that worked out, Dean would go live with her too.

Steve, Dean’s paternal grandpa, began the meeting with a rundown about how obnoxious Stacey was—how she wouldn’t eat a burrito he bought for her. When he was mad he looked a little like Yosemite Sam with short white hair. Emily, his wife, mentioned how rude she thought Stacey was. Dan gleefully told about the time Stacey did too much speed. “Well, you were doing it too!” snapped Stacey. Dan thought it was a funny story, and he talked until he told the whole tale.

Rob, the Dad’s brother, brought things back to reality. He recounted Stacey’s drinking and the way she lost her temper. The drugs were a sideline—her main problem was alcohol. When she drank, she binged, and she threw things and hit Dan. “We can forgive you, Stacey,” he said solemnly. “But, you have responsibilities, and we will be watching.”

The conversation went downhill after that. Dan started making fun of the way Stacey leaned in her chair, crossed her legs, etc. Steve kept going back to the burrito incident, and Emily recounted the slights delivered to her by Stacey. Stacey’s dad grumbled that Dan wasn’t Mr. Perfect either. The rest of the crowd quieted down for a minute, but only a minute. Dan was still grinning as he launched a new verbal artillery barrage against his ex-girlfriend. Was he high on meth or just a twenty-four hour jerk? He was the latter at the least. The rest of the crowd got quiet, consumed by that embarrassed feeling when someone who is working hard to humiliate himself and had never learned the four magic words STFU. (That means Shut the Heck Up). One of his relatives later told us that Dan had trouble with self-esteem. Hogwash. He had great self-esteem, totally out of whack with his abilities.

Then came the intermission. The relevant stakeholders went out front and had a smoke or two. The atmosphere was chilly and not very talkative. Stacey walked a long ways away from everybody else. Her bitter expression was frozen on her face, like she had accidentally swallowed a spoonful of motor oil.

Back to the meeting, the social worker gave us some chart paper and some markers and wished us well. Jolene was supposed to moderate, but a new consensus had been reached. Everybody but me had decided that I was to be the moderator. I felt like a cross between a lion tamer and a kindergarten teacher.

Start the meeting with some ground rules, I figured. It was established beyond a reasonable doubt that Stacey was an alcoholic with anger management issues. I suggested we hold off on the criticism. We can do the walking freak show routine some other time.

Before she fled for higher ground, the social worker suggested that we start with some kind of word of inspiration. I suck at words of inspiration, so I asked if anyone would like to do that. Dan the man, volunteered. I’ll say this for him. Dude can utter a moving prayer on par with a thunderous, evangelical altar call.

I fumble-mouthed a little as I started talking. Are you nervous,” Dan said with a malicious grin.

Of course I am!” I snapped. “This is serious business.” He shut up for a little while, which shocked the hell out of me.

After that, we charted how Stacey would provide babysitting, who would help, how she was going to work at the local taco stand and how the baby would be provided for financially. Mr. Naiveté—me—wrote down that Dan, the dad, would be sending financial support. “Well, how am I going to do that?” he wailed/moaned. He was between jobs. We moved on, and that was that. Nothing about dad’s financial responsibility was written into the plan. Fine—there were other institutions designed to try and make Dad do that. Good luck.

The social worker came back and told us we should have also written something about Dan’s parental visits. So, we did. Meeting adjourned.

Mary had made friends with Dean’s paternal grandma. Soon the baby was transferred up to Northern California to live with an aunt who was going to adopt both children if things didn’t work out with the proud parents.

Stacey’s second fling with motherhood fizzled out. She got evicted from the halfway house for arguing and throwing things around. She went back to Dan and accompanied him on cross-country trips, along with the daughter. There was an incident, the police were called, and Stacey lost the daughter a second time.

Now the aunt had custody of both children. Meanwhile, the paternal grandpa gave Dean’s older sister a swat on the butt for not minding, so Dan reported his dad to social services. They wouldn’t let him see the baby anymore. And I thought my family was messed up.

Dan started calling and harassing the aunt. She couldn’t get him to stop and was worried that he would stalk her for the next eighteen years.

She gave up custody.

Dean and his older sister are now with an adoptive family. Nobody in the biological family will see them again.