Someone came into the child support office on a Saturday, or logged into their child support… whatever on a Saturday, to close both of the boys’ child support cases out because this has been happening since 2014 and should not be at risk of happening or actually happening each time we get our benefits renewed. The “chief ombudsman” of the child support office, Stephanie Neely, (job term used loosely, of course, because if her supervisor had to investigate her when she refused to close my youngest son’s case out at the beginning of the year in spite of repeated good cause waivers being approved until Legal Aid and the National Child Support Agency began to get involved and both HHSC and the OAG began to chicken out, she shouldn’t be in charge of anything and she should know that) e-mailed me to let me know that and apologized “for the stress that this may have put on me”. I shouldn’t have to beg for my children to remain safe while we access state benefits, especially because we take advantage of provisions that safely allow us to access state benefits. And as a matter of fact, as I have since perfectly made clear, I’m not going to beg. You’re going to do your job. If me making you do your job makes you more anxious to deal with me doing your job, you should have thought about that when you tried to make me beg for my youngest son’s safety in… what, December of last year? January of this year? You should have learned quick that the kind of hardball I’m willing to play to keep my children safe from harm isn’t the hardball that the state wants to play, and if that incites fear, again — maybe you should find a different job. As a matter of fact, I actually encourage you to do so. You should never have been put in a position that allowed your daily work to influence children’s lives.

I don’t mind if people come to fear me if it means that I make them do their jobs (or, even better, quit their jobs in some cases), and if it keeps my kids safe from harm, even better. My job as a parent is not to have you like me. My job as a parent is to be my children’s parent, and as it seems in this state, their protector.

When I found out that the boys’ child support cases were in the process of being opened by HHSC on Thursday (“with good cause claims upheld”, as I later found out), I filed complaints with the HHSC ombudsman, the child support office, and the National Child Support Agency… and I think it was that last one that managed to get my case attention on a Saturday. I didn’t go to all of the trouble of getting two good cause waivers, one for each of their child support cases, for the state to refuse to allow us to access benefits safely… and as for the reason that Bub’s child support case has a good cause waiver, it’s actually in my medical files even though I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here yet. At any rate, committing to filing those complaints daily until the state resolved this issue really seemed to do the trick, as I was e-mailed — by the “chief ombudsman”, who I had to unblock for purposes of this — letting me know that the cases were closed, the good cause claims were both upheld, and that everything should be back in non-enforcement sitting there by Monday. I should stop comparing my advocacy to Barret Wallace and Katniss Everdeen and just start calling myself a honey badger at this point, because I’m becoming less kind getting done what needs to get done… for the sake of my kids, but also myself. But especially for the sake of my kids. I should still be contacted by the HHSC Ombudsman on Monday, which I expect, because I want to talk about another issue that I’ve been having with the state — it’s the one that has to do with the state manual requiring (or “requiring”) something that is codified nowhere in Texas law because it does not exist in Texas law.

At any rate, I absolutely hate when this happens. It is significantly stressful.

But at least this time it has a good ending… this problem, anyway. I’ll take that. For now.