🧸 My Son Didn’t Need Saving. He Needed His Mother to Be Respected.

“I no longer trusted the school with my child”

When my son was five, his school assigned him a mentor. I only found this out because I got called to the school one day.

Not a counselor.
Not a trained specialist.
A janitor.

And no, before the accusations of “elitism” come rolling in, that wasn’t the issue.

I was a single mother, yes—going through a divorce.
My son’s behavior reflected the season we were in. A season of adjustment, yes. But also of detox, healing, and new strength forming.

We were doing the work. Together.

What I couldn’t ignore was how this decision was made without ME.

Even more terrifying, the staff member had talked with my son and my son had never mentioned it. My son NEVER stopped talking unless he was eating, sleep, or cartoons were on. Hell, he even talks in his sleep.

And, we had been bootcamp training on child safety since he was two. 

So no, I did not like this at all. Any of it.

1. No One Asked Me.

There was no conversation.
No phone call.
No permission.

And as a GenX mother, that didn’t sit right.

We grew up in a time when permission slips were pinned to our shirts because adults knew the weight of parental authority.
You didn’t touch a child—let alone make decisions about their emotional life—without consulting the parent first.

2. Where Was the Oversight?

I wasn’t raising these questions from a place of fear—I was raising them from professional awareness.

At the time, I was working directly with abuse Survivors.
I was under the direct supervision of a licensed clinical social worker.
I submitted reports to the board of directors, our program director, and our funders. 

Why would I accept less when it came to the adult assigned to my five-year-old son?

Who was supervising this staff member?
What were his credentials?
What guidelines were in place for one-on-one access to small children?

I felt my mama bear instincts kick in—and when they do, it’s never personal.
It’s protective. It’s ancestral. It’s holy.

So I Left.

Within a month, I packed us up and moved us to the next city.
A place where my single motherhood wasn’t pathologized.
Where it wasn’t seen as a gap to be filled by an unsupervised man.
Where we were just a family. Not a problem. Not a project.

At RosasChildren, we share this because many parents—especially Black mothers—have experienced this quiet dismissal of our authority.

And we are here to say:

• Being a single parent is not a weakness.

• No one is entitled to access your child without your knowledge and permission.

• Your instincts are valid—even when you’re the only one asking questions.

We don’t owe anyone blind trust when it comes to our children.

We demand transparency.
We require accountability.
And we reserve the right to say no—even when no one else is saying it.