Shadowing Practice: 2.03e Lost Custody Commentary - Effortless Original English - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Okay, this is the commentary for Lost Custody, the Dear Abby letter.
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Okay, this is the commentary for Lost Custody, the Dear Abby letter.
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This is an interesting letter.
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It reminds me of my old social work days.
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Before I became an English teacher, I was a social worker.
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And I had various jobs.
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I worked with runaway teenagers, homeless teenagers for a while.
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and I also worked for a short time in a government agency that would deal with custody, right?
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We would investigate children who had been abused and decide,
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you know, should the parents have custody or should the government take custody or should someone else have custody?
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To be honest, I hated that job and I quit pretty quickly.
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I did not last very long in that job.
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It was a horrible job.
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But no, I did have some other very nice social work jobs.
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In general, social work was fine, but that job in particular was pretty terrible, as you can imagine.
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A lot of terrible situations for the children, and sometimes I didn't agree.
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I didn't think that, you know, the government should take custody of some of the children.
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Anyway, really kind of a terrible situation.
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But anyway, in this letter, we've got this mother, young mother, and she's worried about losing custody of her child, her son.
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Now, some of the people who write Dear Abby, you will see, they're a little strange.
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Sometimes the letters, you know, they're kind of funny too, actually, sometimes.
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It's a little bit like watching Jerry Springer.
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Jerry Springer is a TV show here in America, and they get all these really crazy Americans with all these horrible,
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terrible problems, and they get on the show and they argue and yell at each other.
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Well, Dear Abby is not that bad, but there's still a little bit of that in some of these letters where you're kind of thinking, you know, wow, these people are strange.
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I thought this was strange, for example, when the woman says in the second paragraph,
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on our honeymoon, Derek told me if I ever divorced him that he'd make sure he would get custody of our son.
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So that seems like a bad sign, doesn't it?
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They're on their honeymoon.
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They just got married.
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And already the husband's threatening her and saying he's going to take the son if they get a divorce.
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Also from that sentence, I think we can realize that they already had a son when they got married.
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So she must have gotten pregnant and had the baby before they got married.
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or else they wouldn't be talking about this on their honeymoon, right?
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So anyway, that's a bad sign, right?
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They're on the honeymoon and they're already, he's threatening her already just on the honeymoon.
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So, uh-oh, bad sign.
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And then his mother, the mother-in-law, also threatened her saying, I'll tell the judge that you're an unfit mother if you ever try to leave my son.
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So, uh-oh, these are warning signs to me, right?
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I think if I'm in a relationship and the mother-in-law is threatening me if I leave, and the husband's threatening me if I leave, maybe that tells you something.
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Maybe this guy's not such a good guy.
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Maybe other women have left him many times in the past.
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Maybe both the husband and the mom realize he's a bad guy, and she probably will want to leave in the future.
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I don't know.
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That's what I understood when I read that second paragraph, that, uh-oh, bad sign, something's wrong already.
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And then, of course, we see that obviously there is something wrong, that the husband belittles her all the time.
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So, you know, when a husband belittles his wife, uh-oh, that's pretty terrible.
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Also a bad sign, right?
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He's saying terrible things, insulting his wife.
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Obviously, this is not a good guy.
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Okay, so in that first paragraph, she says, Derek refuses to support his family,
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meaning to support your family means to make money for your family.
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You know, you buy food for them, you make money, you work.
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We call all of that together, supporting your family.
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So he's obviously, he doesn't have a job, not for a year, and he won't support his family.
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Okay, so strike one, two, three.
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Now when we say that's a little bit of slang, you probably know, but when we say strike one, strike two, strike three, that comes from baseball.
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It's slang in American English.
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And if you get three strikes, it means you're finished, you're out, you're gone.
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So these are three very bad signs, right?
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The mother-in-law's threatening, the husband's threatening and he won't work.
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Okay, anyway, then she says, my son is my world, meaning my son is everything for me.
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He's everything in my life.
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I don't care about anything else.
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I only care about him.
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And the son won't let his father hold him.
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Okay, hold him in his arms.
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That's also a bad sign.
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But then the woman says, because I'm on disability, I don't know if I have a chance to get custody.
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And then she says, what should I do?
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Should I stick it out with my husband or should I take the chance of losing my son?
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Okay, now as a social worker, I've worked in this kind of situation in this field before.
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So this situation, we never know, right?
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With Dear Abby, we don't know the whole truth.
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Only one person's writing and they don't include all the information we need to give good advice.
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Now, Abby doesn't care.
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She gives advice anyway.
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But, you know, most of us would want to know more.
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For example, she's on disability.
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What does that mean?
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Well, because I've worked in social work, I know that disability might be something very serious, but I also know it could be something that's not serious.
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In the United States, some people can get disability if they have a mental problem.
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For example, they're very depressed.
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They're medically depressed.
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They're always depressed.
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Well, sometimes they get a lawyer and they can get disability.
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They can get money from the government because of that.
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Sometimes people who are alcoholics or drug addicts can get disability.
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They can get money from the government because they are alcoholics or drug addicts and they have a hard time working.
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So obviously these are not such serious physical problems.
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So this woman, we don't know.
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We have no idea.
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She might be in a wheelchair and can't walk, or she might be a former alcoholic.
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We really don't know what the disability is.
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And of course, it would be a big important point to know
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if she has disability because she has a mental problem that's very serious, maybe she's not a fit mother.
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Maybe she would be an unfit mother.
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However, if she has some just physical problem, obviously it's no problem at all.
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She could easily get her son.
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So it's hard to know what to tell this woman, right?
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I would say in normal situations in the United States, the mother has an advantage with custody.
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When they go to court, if everything is generally equal, the mother has a better chance to keep custody of the child.
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Now, is this fair?
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I don't know.
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We talked about this in my class in San Francisco.
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Some people said, well, that's not fair.
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And I don't know, is it fair or not?
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But it's true.
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And I don't know, I guess this has historical reasons.
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People just have this idea that, well, you know, mothers take care of children.
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They're better at taking care of children than fathers.
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Of course, that's not always true.
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But that is an idea that's in the United States and that is in the legal system,
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even in the courts, so that a mother often has an advantage against a father
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if they get a divorce and both want custody.
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The mother typically has an advantage.
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Now, many other things are important also, their income, what kind of person they are, that kind of thing.
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So it's complicated.
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But anyway, since this guy sounds quite bad, he hasn't worked for a year.
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He obviously has some problems.
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Probably this mother would get custody unless she has a serious mental problem.
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My guess is that if she went to court, she would get custody of the child.
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But anyway, but it's hard to know.
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We don't know the details.
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Well, okay.
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And then I guess I'll talk now a little bit about my social work background in general.
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When I worked in this field of custody, I worked for a place called the Department of Family and Children's Services in Georgia.
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Georgia is a state in the United States.
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Georgia is in the southeast, next to Florida.
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Atlanta is the big city in Georgia.
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And I got this job because I was desperate for money, to be honest.
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I had decided, in fact, to live in my van, live in my car for a while.
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Now, I did this by choice.
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No one forced me to do it.
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And I could get a job if I wanted to.
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But I just decided I wanted to live very, very simply.
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So I lived in my van for a while.
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And I gave away all my stuff, all my possessions I gave away.
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except for just a few clothes and things.
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And I wanted to see if I could live very, very simply without much money.
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However, at some point, I had no money at all.
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And I decided, oh, I better get a job.
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I better work a little bit, make some money.
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And I had a social work degree.
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I had a master's in social work.
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This was before I got a master's in teaching English.
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So it was very easy for me to get a job in social work.
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And especially the government agencies always need people.
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So I went and I got a job at the Department of Family and Children's Services.
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And the pay was great since I was living so simply.
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The money was nice.
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I needed the money.
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However, I quickly realized it was a very terrible organization.
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And the worst part for me was that the social workers,
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the workers, had such terrible attitudes about the people they were supposed to help.
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They thought they were stupid.
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They thought they were lowlifes, they would call them.
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Lowlife means a very low-status person.
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So they just had terrible, terrible attitudes about these people they were supposed to help.
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And they would insult them and belittle them.
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Not directly to them.
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They wouldn't belittle them directly.
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But talking to each other, the social workers would laugh and tell jokes and belittle the poor people who would come in.
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And indirectly, they would belittle the poor people themselves.
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You know, they didn't give them much respect.
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They did not give them the same respect that they gave people who had money.
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And this bothered me a lot, a lot, a lot.
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because as a social worker and as a teacher, I think that respect and equality are very,
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very important, especially as a social worker, because in a social work situation, these people have some serious problems.
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They might have economic problems.
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They don't have much money.
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They may have physical problems.
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They may have mental problems.
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Anyway, they're in a weak position.
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And because they're in a weak position, it's easy to put yourself above them and treat them badly,
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which is what a lot of these social workers were doing.
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But it's wrong.
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It's wrong to do that.
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And I felt very strongly it was wrong and that we had to try very hard to keep ourselves equal with them,
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treat them with the same exact respect we would treat anybody.
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I feel I give the same respect to my social work clients as I would Bill Gates or the president.
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In fact, for the president, I'd give more respect to the clients.
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Anyway, so I started to have kind of arguments with the social workers.
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I didn't agree with a lot of their approaches, a lot of their attitudes.
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And finally, I decided to quit.
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I decided I cannot work for this kind of organization that treats people so badly, especially people who need help.
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So I quit the job.
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And, you know, eventually I left social work.
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And this is mostly the reason when I tell people I was a social worker, I worked in the emergency room, or I worked with homeless people,
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everybody thinks, and I say, oh, I quit.
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It was too stressful.
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And everybody always thinks, oh, you quit because those people are terrible.
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You quit because it's hard to work with those people.
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But that's not true.
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That's not why I quit.
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I quit because I couldn't work with the other social workers.
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It was not the clients that I had problems with.
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Yes, the clients could be difficult, but I understood them.
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I understood they were having some serious life problems, and I felt respect for them because they were having such trouble and still surviving.
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I know that I could not survive some of those situations myself.
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I'm not that strong.
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So I had respect for my clients, even the very difficult ones, but what I could not respect were the other social workers who were so mean,
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so superior, so arrogant.
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I just found this again and again and again in many different organizations where they would treat their clients so badly.
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They're supposed to be helping them, but instead they're disrespecting them.
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And finally, I just decided, you know, I don't like this.
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I don't like working in these kinds of organizations i want
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to help people i do not want to belittle them
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and at the same time
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that this was happening you know i had gone abroad i lived in japan i lived in korea
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and i realized i love traveling and i loved meeting people from other countries
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and i became more and more interested in teaching
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and i loved it it's so much fun to every day i would go to school
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and go to class and I would meet people from other countries
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and learn from them and they would learn from me and it was just so much fun.
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I really loved it and finally I decided, you know, this is what I really love to do and social work's nice but I love teaching.
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It's my passion and this is what I want to do
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and so I went back to school and I got my master's degree in teaching English and I
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worked in Thailand for a while and started this website, etc. Anyway, so there's my life story in a nutshell in a very quick summary.
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All right, so that's all for today's commentary for the lost custody letter.
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More Dear Abby letters will be coming, and I hope you enjoyed this one.
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See you next time.
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Bye-bye.
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Context & Background
The commentary on the "Lost Custody" Dear Abby letter delves into the emotional turmoil surrounding a mother's anxiety about losing custody of her child. The speaker, who has a background in social work, shares personal insights from their experience in a government agency dealing with custody issues. This context helps to understand the seriousness of the situation presented in the letter. The commentary touches on the dynamics of relationships and the red flags that may indicate underlying problems, showcasing the speaker's thoughtful analysis based on their professional background.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- "If I ever divorced him..." - A phrase that indicates the dynamics of a relationship and possible tensions.
- "He'd make sure he would get custody of..." - Useful for discussing family law and custody situations.
- "Threatened her..." - A phrase that reflects conflicts and serious emotional issues.
- "Belittles her all the time..." - This phrase sheds light on abusive behaviors in relationships.
- "Refuses to support his family..." - Essential for discussing financial responsibilities within family dynamics.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To effectively utilize the shadowing technique while learning English with YouTube, follow this structured approach based on the video commentary:
- Choose a segment: Start with smaller sections of the video to avoid feeling overwhelmed. Select a part that resonates with you, such as the speaker's analysis of the conflict presented in the letter.
- Listen actively: Play the video while focusing on the speaker's pronunciation and intonation. Listen for the key phrases mentioned above and how they are used in context.
- Repeat and mimic: Use a shadowspeak method by pausing the video after a few sentences and repeating what you hear. Pay attention to the rhythm and natural flow of the language.
- Utilize a shadowing app: Consider using a shadowing app that allows you to practice alongside native speakers. This can provide you with useful feedback and help reinforce your learning.
- Reflect and assess: After completing your shadowing session, evaluate your progress. Take note of any phrases or expressions you struggled with and revisit them to enhance your understanding and fluency.
This process not only aids in improving your speaking skills but also enhances your comprehension of complex emotional narratives within dialogues, making it a valuable practice for English learners.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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