OCALA, Fla. -- A Central Florida mother of four boys was arrested on Tuesday after telling authorities that she went "on strike" more than a month ago, leaving the teens home alone for hours every day because they would constantly fight.

Melissa G. Dean, 33, was charged with child neglect after telling Ocala police and the Department of Children and Families that she leaves her children, ages 17, 16, 14 and 13, home alone.

According to a charging affidavit, Dean said the children needed to start cleaning up and stop fighting and that she had no control over them. Dean also said she was fed up with being run over in her own home and having no privacy, according to the affidavit.

Dean told a DCF official that she decided to "go on strike" because no one would help with her children, saying the police and courts would do nothing to help her.

Dean, a Walgreens manager, said she spends nights at a friend's house and would only spend one night per week at her home, the affidavit stated.

The affidavit said that Dean would cook meals and take them to her children and would sometimes check on them. Dean said she called her children often, the charging affidavit said.

Police said they were called to the home on Monday because two of the children were fighting over a computer cord. One of the boys ran to a neighbor's home and police were called. Dean was not home at the time of the incident, police said.

Police have responded to the home several times in the past.

----

On the one hand, you gotta be kidding me that you think this is the way to solve your problem. "I'll just quit."

But on the other, it reminds me of when I met my wife. She was a single mom of a 16 year old with some serious anger control issues who had about 40 pounds on her and was having some serious ups and downs. He was in therapy and they were trying meds, but nothing was really working. She took away his TV privelages for hitting his brother, and he responded by grabbing her by the throat and throwing her at the wall. She locked herself and the other boy, 11, in the bedroom and as he pounded on the door, putting holes in it, she called the cops. The cops arrived, the 16 year old ran off, and they responded by fining her because, by leaving the house, he was now out past curfew. And then they just left her there alone. To wait for him to come back. The end.

This wasn't the first time she'd called the cops for help because of his explosions, either. They'd had to restrain him once, so it's not like they just didn't believe he was violent.

For the record, he's a good guy now. We spent some time together, and he responded well to that, and then he spent his last two years of high school on his uncle's farm and that totally changed him. But the point is, in the entire time we were in this community not one service...police, schools, anything...would respond to these issues at all. I'd be about ready to quit, too.