AITA for saying I told you so to my case worker and embarrassing her in front of her co-worker?

A Reddit user (16M) recounts a tense exchange with their case worker during a monthly visit. After being removed from neglectful parents alongside their younger siblings, the case worker insisted on keeping the siblings together in foster placements despite mounting challenges. Eventually, the user and their siblings were placed separately, and all began thriving in their new environments.

During the visit, the user pointed out how successful the separation had been, saying, “I told you so,” which embarrassed the case worker in front of her colleague. Now, the user wonders if they were wrong for their bluntness. Read the full story below…

‘ AITA for saying I told you so to my case worker and embarrassing her in front of her co-worker?’

I (16m) was taken from my parents by CPS over a year ago and so were my siblings (14f, 13f, 11m, 9f and 8f). They never took care of us like parents were supposed to and teachers in school finally started to notice.

Eventually I was interviewed and I admitted our parents left us alone from young ages and went away without leaving us money or food, how we never really had enough food, how I didn’t know where my parents were and hadn’t seen them in two days when I was being interviewed, how we did get sick and hurt and they were never around to help us. My parents couldn’t be found so CPS rounded us up and took us to a foster family. Within a few days we were placed with another family. And then a week later another one.

My parents were found eventually and they didn’t care that we were taken. I knew they’d feel that way. I was the only one of my siblings who wasn’t behind in school when we were taken, but I had been when I was a lot younger. They realized some of us were underweight and others had some health issues that needed to be addressed. There was a lot of trying to get us healthy and better.

But the other thing was our case worker. She was determined to keep us together even when none of us cared about that. The foster families we were staying with all said it was too much with all of us and mentioned my siblings fought too much and I wasn’t helping.

The last family we were all with actually said it was like we didn’t love each other and they felt nobody would be able to handle keeping us together. I told our case worker a few times she should just separate us and figure out visits if she really wanted us to see each other but she told me we’d regret it and she kept telling others that we’d fall apart if we were taken from each other.

Her boss ended up stepping in and we got placed in different places. My siblings all went to different families while I was put in a program to give me skills and help me to be independent. Since I was so much harder to place long term. My case worker hated it and she was always saying I better hope it didn’t end badly because it would be so sad for us to lose our family connection.

Even though I don’t ask for it I get updates about my siblings and they’re all doing really good. We’re all in individual therapy but we haven’t seen each other in months and I was told everyone seems to be doing better apart. I think the person from CPS I was taking to said they were all thriving in their new homes.

My case worker has been a pain in my ass about this stuff when she does her monthly visits with me. And she visited yesterday and she had another case worker with her. She said it was going to be just like a normal visit and she said I was doing surprisingly well given the circumstances and I told her my siblings were too and we were all doing better apart and nobody was missing each other or sad we were separated.

I did the I told you thing with her and pointed out how I was so right and even brought up how different she was being. She went all red and told me I didn’t need to have such an attitude with her and how dare I embarrass her in front of her co-worker. The other case worker told her they needed to leave and looked all mad. She told me she was sorry about the way things went. But my case worker was pissed at me.. AITA?

Check out how the community responded:

Square-Minimum-6042 −  The other caseworker was probably a supervisor who was observing your caseworker’s interactions. Sounds like you picked the right time to speak up again.

MrsInTheMaking −  Lol. Imagine being an adult working in social services and this triggered by a kid that LITERALLY told you so. Youre 16. You have a brain. Also, I feel like if you’re a good social worker, you’ve seen kids react differently to their terrible upbringings and bonding is absolutely going to be affected. I guess it’s admirable that she wanted to keep you together but she literally wasn’t listening to you.

jummy006 −  Caseworkers are trained to try to keep families (siblings especially) together. Being a prior foster parent, I can agree with you that it’s NOT always best to keep the siblings together for a variety of reasons (too many kids, co-dependency issues, trauma bonding, etc.).

No you weren’t wrong and not all caseworkers are good. There are a lot of bad/mediocre ones to be honest. Good luck to you and your siblings. Keep your head on a swivel and don’t let any foster parents take advantage of you because some of them will for money (the monthly stipend they get for housing you) or for their s**ual fetishes.

Fragrant-Reserve4832 −  That case worker was being investigated. You pointed out to her how wrong she was and how she’s not even representing herself the same now. She’s in deep s**t and you were the window that showed her failings.. Nta.

theory240 −  NTA. Ain’t nothing wrong with telling government flunkies they are idiots, I was in the system 50 years ago and, from your description, it doesn’t seem to have much changed and I’m sure the bureaucrats running it haven’t gotten smarter!

When you need to take them down a notch or two, well, do it. They can’t really DO much of anything to you, you don’t have long left in the system, start planning your escape… You don’t get a soft landing at 18, you get a boot in the ass.. Be ready! Good luck!.

radiantbabe20 −  I mean, if you can’t handle a little ‘I told you so’ in your job, maybe consider switching to a less competitive field—like knitting or cloud watching! 

Boobookittyfhk −  NTA…. I am a social worker. I totally get where you’re coming from because I also was raised and foster care, was adopted, and I came from a very a**sive dysfunctional crackhead family. I think that has put a more realistic view on how ideal with my kids (my clients at work).

On the one hand, she was just doing her job. It is well researched that keeping siblings together and trying to foster relationships is the best standard in almost every state. It’s not so much for the short term, but it helps develop some relationships and support systems when you age out of foster care. There are certain options and regulations she has to try out first before she can dismiss it; otherwise she’ll get complaints from everyone else around her that she didn’t try everything for you.

The issue is that despite everything you’ve been to through, your experience, and personal knowledge; you’re still a kid in the eyes of the court. Kids in foster care have to grow up much faster and mature, in some ways, faster. their opinions don’t have as much weight because you have a bunch of adults with savior complexes, thinking that they know better than you do even though they’ve never been in that situation. Do you have a guardian ad litem or a CASA representative?

Your caseworker is definitely an a**hole for calling you out. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been yelled at by a teenager. I work at a juvenile detention center called a c*nt at least twice a week by kids who I know respect me (most mostly on d**g testing day). I will redirect and try to calm the situation down and help them cope, but I never make them feel bad about their feelings. You have had s**tty examples your whole life on how to cope with things and she should be understanding about that.

Similar_Corner8081 −  NTA From a former foster kid ignore the CPS worker. She must have been out of her mind. How are you going to place all 6 kids in one home that’s not even realistic. Good for you and you weee right.

Dranask −  Sometimes care workers forget the world isn’t perfect and that you can’t make it so. You can only make it as good as you can. NTA your care worker hopefully learns from this, though I doubt it she’s already shown she’s thick skinned.

Sudden-Pomegranate95 −  NTA. She wanted to be a hero over something she had zero idea about even when she was repeatedly told she was wrong. She embarrassed herself by not listening to the kids she’s meant to be helping. Glad to hear you’re all doing well. I hope all of you thrive in your new homes and live long, healthy and happy lives.