There always has to be that one crotchety person who spoils the fun for everyone. That’s exactly what happened when a stranger grievously misconstrued a funny parenting tweet and initiated a human trafficking investigation.
Following a recent potty-training incident, Alex McDaniel did what many of us parents do. She turned to Twitter.
In a tweet, she jokingly offered to sell her three-year-old son, and while the majority of us would laugh at such a comment, some uptight curmudgeon with no appreciation for a sense of humor decided to alert Child Protective Services.
McDaniel shared her story on Magnolia State Live where she recounts her experience.
“A day or so before the anonymous caller contacted authorities, I tweeted a funny conversation I had with him about using the potty, followed by an equally-as-funny offer to my followers: 3-year-old for sale. $12 or best offer.”
Funny, right? Well, one person definitely didn’t think so.
A week following the posted tweet, she was greeted with police at her workplace requesting to question her in reference to a human trafficking investigation after a stranger reported her online comment.
“The saga began when a caseworker and supervisor from Child Protection Services dropped by my office with a Lafayette County sheriff’s deputy. You know, a typical Monday afternoon. They told me an anonymous male tipster called Mississippi’s child abuse hotline days earlier to report me for attempting to sell my 3-year-old son, citing a history of mental illness that probably drove me to do it.”
She goes on to cite that because of this report, she was required to immediately pull her son out of school so he, too, could be questioned as protocol dictated.
“So I went to his preschool, pulled my son out of a deep sleep during naptime, and did everything in my power not to cry in front of him on the drive back to my office.”
It didn’t stop there, as she describes the week following as “hellish.”
“I prepared for a home visit in which my case worker would inspect my home and the possibility of more interviews with my son.”
Thankfully, after working with an attorney, the case was dropped “in the matter of days.”
McDaniel holds no ill-feelings toward CPS, but rather praises them for their efforts.
“CPS has a hard job, both in the nature of what they do and the day-to-day demands of handling each case. Everyone has a job to do, and I don’t blame them for doing what they felt they had to do in this case.”
If anything, she’s upset over “the idea of anyone using an agency designed to protect Mississippi’s most vulnerable children as a weapon to take someone down for no legitimate reason. Time and resources that should have been spent on children and families who genuinely need it were instead dedicated to a tweet, and all because someone out there probably got bent out of shape that I don’t see the world the way he does.”
Agreed.
After the incident, McDaniel later returned to Twitter to provide further detail into her experience as she says, “Twitter hit a new low for me this week and I’m not about to stay silent about it. Here’s Why.”
Twitter is a safe-haven for us parents to shed light upon the ups and downs of parenting. It’s our outlet to commiserate and laugh, not be on the lookout for unsuspecting people lurking in the shadows waiting to file unwarranted, misguided complaints.
There’s a reason weekly roundups of ‘funny parenting tweets’ exists. We laugh. We relate. We can’t get enough.
If we parents don’t have Twitter to humorously lament over the struggles and unpleasantries associated with parenting, then what the hell do we have?
If we need to start censoring ourselves and include a disclaimer to our tweets to appease the humorless people of the world, besides needing the character limitation increased, I’m out. Thanks, but no thanks.
Whoever you are who took it upon themselves to call CPS on this mom, please pull that stick out of your ass and learn to laugh. If you can’t, then do us all a favor and stay off Twitter.