Meeting the Fockers

 (Remember the movie “Meet the Fockers”? about the couple with the name that is immensely satisfying to say out loud....).  

In my moments of anger and pissed off-edness in the middle of the night, I find myself cursing the Fockers : whoever the Fockers are; the Fockers who know where my son is in the middle of the night; the Fockers who don’t think to contact me.

The Fockers! Don’t they once stop to think that there’s a mother out there somewhere who is concerned about where her son is? 

At 2am, this is shadow boxing : anger directed towards unknown persons.  But I am in the middle of the dark night of the soul and my self-management skills are blanketed by anxiety and fear, anger and hopelessness.

There’s a dance in town, during the week.  I cannot believe how many dances are put on by schools and sports clubs each week, to raise money from teenagers for teenagers' activities!  Despite there being a heap of school work and assignments on, Teen1 decides he’s going out and he will not commit to a time he’ll be home. 

Cue: door slam. 

Cue: moronic look on my face yet again. 

Cue: long wait into the night.

Some Focker out there has my son in their house.  I rage and rage into the night.

Finally at 8am the morning after the dance, a call from the Focker Residence: “Can you come and get me”.  Oh Yeah. 

I knock on the Focker’s door.  And a Mum opens the door.  I look at her, and my rage disappears into the stormy, sleety day, and I feel an immense burden of sadness.

We are so different - but so much the same.  Her life is utterly different from mine - but we are both mums of teenage boys.  Her strengths and abilities and values may be vastly different to mine.  But we are both raising our boys alone.

I talk about my expectations.  I talk frankly about our boys doing drugs.  I talk about the importance to me of having good communication between parents.  I make it clear what my limits are.  We swap phone numbers.  I tell her I do not want my son at her house during week nights.  She asks, tentatively, if my son could come over to help hers with his homework.  Her son, she foresees, won’t go far in the school academic system, whereas she knows mine is bright and capable, and she wishes that my son might try to help hers.  Would I mind?

The burden of that request weighs heavily on me.  My son is on a path to getting himself expelled at present: how do I take this other boy into our circle?  I commit to nothing, but appreciate her desire to support her son some way.

I get my tired, ill, hungover, sleep deprived son to school in the nick of time, and I am so shattered, I call in sick to work. 

Another day, another Focker family dealt with, another whole community of Fockers out there I've yet to meet.  But I’m too tired to meet them, or to take any of them on.

Wishing all parents - including the Fockers -  a good night’s sleep.