I am very lucky that even in this extreme of a storm I had some angels to help me weather it.

For the first few weeks of supervision I was assigned supervisors from an agency in Long Island, since CFS (the NYC agency) had no availability. When CFS took over things got better. Some of the issues I had with the Long Islanders were culturally based, while others were personality based. Apparently in Long Island kids don’t pee in parks. They also don’t take impromptu Uber rides with no car seat available, nor do they run in the playground sprinklers in their underwear. It turns out NYC kids are a special breed, and so are NYC parents. My husband did a great job convincing the Long Island supervisors that we did not do all these things with my daughter all her life, and they were gullible enough to believe it.

CFS was a huge relief. First I met Ayisha, who I instantly felt comfortable with. It was a hot summer day and we took my daughter to the playground in Central Park. The sprinklers were on full blast and there were at least 20 kids darting back and forth in various degrees of clothing. I stripped my daughter down to her underwear and let her run. She whizzed back and forth through the water with endless energy and shrieks of happiness. There were no comments from Ayisha.

20 minutes passed. “Mommy, I have to pee!”

My heart stopped. She was soaking wet and having the time of her life. I couldn’t seriously take her home right now. I cautiously looked over at Ayisha and asked if she had any issue with me taking her behind the playground to the brush. She just looked at me and shrugged. “Where else is she supposed to go?” I breathed a huge sigh of relief and my daughter and I took the 5 second trip over the low playground wall. Just as we returned back to the hot playground asphalt, we looked over to the left and saw a little boy pull his penis out and pee a curved stream of yellow liquid toward the crowd of kids. It was almost like he was trying to attract an audience. His mom sat next to him and nonchalantly looked at her phone. Nobody batted an eye.

The best part about Ayisha is that she was the only one that my husband was scared of. She was a genuine and caring person, but definitely had a “don’t fuck with me” energy about her. He never told her what to do, never sent her ominous texts about my daughters “safety”, and was never rude to her. I felt like Ayisha was my bodyguard, and I actually felt safer dropping off my daughter while she was with me.

A few days later I met Carolyn. She was very sweet and actually interested in having a dialogue with my daughter. Carolyn was a child psychologist as her full time job. It was a Saturday afternoon and my daughter and I received an invitation from a very nice new neighbor to come downstairs to a birthday party. My neighbor had four kids and we were destined to have a fun-filled afternoon. I was planning on telling my neighbor that Carolyn was a friend visiting me from out of town.

The only problem was my husband. During this time CFS had not fully caught on that they were not required to ask his permission for everything, and Carolyn reported back to her superior that we would be going downstairs to a birthday party full of kids.

“I just heard back that she is only allowed to go on playdates with one parent and one child”

#$@&%*!?!?

His whole entire mission in life was only to hurt me. Everything he did, every breath he took, and every action was geared toward creating more pain for me. He did not care if it created grief for his daughter, he did not care if he looked like a maniac in front of CFS.

Luckily I was not the only one that noticed this. It took about an hour of back and forth, but CFS decided not to listen to his ridiculous demands. We went to the birthday party with no incident and had a great time.

About a week later I met Melanie. She was the main social worker on my case. Melanie was literally an angel sent from heaven.

I walked into the lobby at my usual time to wait for my daughter to come downstairs, and saw a woman with very kind eyes waiting for me. She greeted me with a smile and apologized for not having had a chance to meet me earlier. By this point I was used to giving new supervisors a rundown of my daughter’s behavior so that there were no surprises.

“She pees outside, sometimes she shits in her pants, she’s used to sitting on my lap in a cab, and she really, really wants to nurse.”

“Of course she does, shes 4.”, Melanie replied.

Wait, someone actually knew this? There was actually a person in this world that understood that this was normal 4 year old behavior, and wasn’t going to condemn me? It was a miracle.

We had a great day with my daughter and I got to dump my story and my grief on Melanie. She listened with compassion. She told me I was doing a great job holding it together, and that I was strong.

She was not overbearing. She did not follow me. It seemed as though she instantly knew that I was a good mother. We had similar philosophies on life and raising children, and nothing I did was the least bit strange to her.

Over the next few months my husband incessantly tortured the supervisors in a weak attempt to maintain control. He would perpetually text at odd hours with ridiculous demands and pry for information. He would constantly talk to them in a condescending tone and slam the door in their face. He would record them in hopes to get one of them to say something bad about me. But to his disappointment, there was nothing bad to say.

It didn’t take long for the supervisors to see the situation for what it is. They soon stopped listening to his ridiculous demands. They became my biggest cheerleaders and we sat together on pins and needles waiting for the forensic report to come out so that supervision could be lifted.

Uncategorized