As some of you may know, we are the grandparents of a young lady sent to Casa by the Sea when she was 14. She spent 10 months there, and never once was able to talk with her mother (did not "work the system" adequately to raise above Level II). She was kept from the world, and had all her letters from us blocked when we continued our campaign of educating her mother on the true nature of The Program and desperately trying to retreive her from the jaws of WWASPS. My method of informing parents of potential WWASPS "students" is by anecdote. If I continually contribute the small daily occurences she endured at Casa, I hope to let readers evaluate my information and make an informed decision...which cannot be anything but "Run, Run, As Fast As You Can In The Other Direction!!!"
This adolescent was typically teen, but was a thorn in the side of her new step-father. His solution to The Problem Child was to convince the mother to send her off. Well, after nearly a year there, suffering psychological harm and abandonment fears, she was brought home, where...gosh, what a surprise...it did not go well. She now lives permanently with us, and is doing extremely well as a nearly-senior in high school. She speaks by phone with her mother from time to time, but stilted, difficult conversations with little mutual interest make these rare and quick contacts. If my recounting of our experiences (so typical of WWASPS survivors) can change things, maybe prevent a kid from being sent, maybe shutting down the places, then I have succeeded. Casa was shut down by the Mexican government after she left. Hopefully my constant calls to US and Mexican government officials, reporters, forums such as Fornits, as well as anybody else who would listen, helped make a difference
I DO find it hard to condone parents who send their kids off without the possibility of checking on them, but that's me. If WWASPS were really a boarding school, I'm surprised that ANY parent would send their kid off without checking daily...at least, weekly...on how things are going. Our kid just got her first job as a hostess in the fanciest Mexican restaurant in town (she 1/2 Mexican, so looks the part). Her first day of work, she wasn't home by 10:30PM, so I called to check on her. Second day, I at least just called her cell phone, so as not to embarass her with the restaurant staff. I simply cannot fathom having your kid go off alone. She is now 16, nearly 17, but WWASPS takes kids as young as 12 (7 at Majestic Ranch). Parents, don't you want to know which movie theater your kid is at, much less if she is alive and eating well in a foreign country?
WWASPS is evil. Some parents are evil. I always hope this mother (our oldest daughter) will "come to her senses" someday, but she refuses to learn just what her daughter went through, and has screamed at her to stop talking about it whenever the slightest mention of traumas at Casa are touched upon. Unbelievably, one of their phone conversations recently touched on how distressful it was for the girl to have her mother abandon her to WWASPS. [These issues are spoken of rarely, softly, and never contain the truly horrific experiences she tells me about late at night.] Her mother's response?
"If I had it to do again, I'd still send you there. You'd be deadorinjail otherwise."
Oh my God. It was a sock in the gut to discover that the mother was a cult groupie, still spouting WWASPS rhetoric and buzzwords. There is no hope left for her. Our family is fractured by WWASPS, but the remaining tight-knit group will just go on, without the Black Sheep parent who did not choose to parent. Rather, she chose to relinquish her role, and in doing so, relinquished the entire extended family from which she came.
If my experiences and anecdotes help keep a family together and sane, it is a good thing. This forum has space for all viewpoints, and I can display our bad times as well as fall victim again to WWASPS if a groupie choses to attack my postings. I've never noticed a WWASPie questioning politely my information. I'd expect inquiring parents to be able to handle my information with much more intelligence than a "...deadorinjail" maniac.
More power to Fornits.
