I dunno. Maybe I'm just in a funk (I think that's a 60's term.) But these issues that inflame so much passion in everyone this message board (and I'm one of you) seems so trivial. I spent the morning in Juvenile Court advocating for the best interests of four kids who have been removed from their mother's home TWICE since 2001 due to the condition of the home. This mom's history of maintaining a filthy home goes back to 1993, when the oldest child was born. At the last removal the police noted that there was dog feces found throughout the home. Their mother, at the first team meeting, stated that she had one thing she wanted to make sure everybody was clear on: That her dog didn't do that, her 5 year old daughter did. She now has two convictions for child endangering - and her kids back in her home under a Protective Supervision Order. She sat in court today and testified that everything is just great in her home and asked the judge to lift the supervision order.
Here are some of the things that I had to report to the judge after a year of services to the mother to improve her housekeeping skills: That this mom and her five kids are living in a 2 bedroom home, but only one of the bedrooms is usable because the second one is completely filled from floor to ceiling with boxes of junk. That two of the kids wet the bed every night, and mom doesn't use any kind of moisure barrier (or bed linens.) Her solution? She steam cleans their beds once a week and has the kids take a bath before school every other morning. That she had been told for 3 months that it was not ok to leave the bottles of prescription medications in a pile in the middle of the living room floor, that she had only recently agreed to put the medicine in an upper kitchen cabinet but stated that she intended to put it back on the livingroom floor as soon as the protective order was lifted, and that she didn't seem to remember that one of her daughters had previously had to have her stomach pumped after ingesting medicine she had found. (I dunno... I think I'd remember that myself.) The mom had only taken the children to about half of their scheduled counseling sessions (they had been sexually molested by two relatives, and the 8 year old boy insists that mom molested him, too) because she just didn't have time, however mom stated that if the order was lifted she actually wanted to start taking them every week because of their increasing emotional problems. Some unknown person had recently set fire to the outside of the house, but mom had no idea who did it. The family has no table of any kind so the kids eat all their meals off the living room floor (mom won't let them sit on the couch to eat) right where the 11 year old daughter lays the baby's feces-laden diapers. Mom doesn't think she needs anybody to teach her how to maintain a home. I think you get the picture.
Maybe what Grant (and all of us) needs to do is volunteer as a child advocate and see what kind of home conditions thousands of children in this country have to live in day in and day out. Maybe then we'd be able to keep a little residue on the dishes when they come out of the dishwasher, the way the broom is hung in the pantry, or the way the laundry is folded in perspective.
Dr. Phil revisits the topic of what makes a good wife. Grant and Kelly first appeared on the show because Grant expected his wife to live up to his demanding standards. He wanted a cleaner house, better meals and a sexier spouse. After seven years, his constant criticism and disappointment had her ready to throw in the towel on trying to become the "perfect wife." Dr. Phil’s first talk with Grant and Kelly caused quite a stir as thousands of viewers wrote in choosing sides. How are Grant and Kelly now? Has Grant abandoned his critical ways and his expectation of having a Stepford wife? And why is he no longer wearing his wedding ring? Talk about the show here.
