Modern Events in Historic Buildings

Youth Court: a historic place...

The Youth Court is situated in a new wing attached to the historic Municipal Courts building in the centre of the city. 

Just like going into a museum in a big city, there's the xray and bag search, efficiently done but the only person in my lot to have the buzzers go off was me.  The bracelet I rarely take off, that has Teen1's name and birth date engraved on it always sets off the alarms.  If I have to visit Court more frequently, perhaps I should get the engraving tattooed on my wrist instead.

It is a beautiful building, the block work created from locally and regionally mined bluestone and whitestone and designed in the grand style of the late Victorian period.  A statue of Justice is elevated for all to see (if they aren't looking downcast at their shoes during their visit).  Inside it is not unpleasant; the paintwork light and clean, the carpet tough and deeply coloured.  Toys litter one waiting room and there's plenty of places to sit.

There's a modern link through to the Youth Court wing from the older building.  It is rather more inelegant, a little tight for space, and the Courtroom itself not too imposing but certainly one knows we are there to do business.

There's a flurry of activity just before 9am, when the presiding Judge will step up to the bench.  Youth accompanied by parents or care givers shuffle in to the waiting room, their demeanour so different to what it might have been only some hours or days earlier when in the wee small hours of the morning they were out on the town, puffed up with gangsta pride and a chest led swagger.  Only when one or the other recognises someone, do the heads come up, the tough kid grin passes over their face, and then it is back to pretending to concentrate on what the Social Worker is saying.

The legal aid lawyers bustle in just after 9am, search out their new or recidivist clients, quickly read out the charges and give a summary of what might happen in the courtroom.  One lawyer prepares the youth and family for the likelihood of continuing detention in Social Welfare care: "do you understand what this means?" the lawyer asks, and the kid nods glum faced.  Another lawyer is perkier and tells her client that they are likely to be released with a few bail conditions that will continue for a month or so.  A Social Worker talks grim faced to another family.  One youth looks still off his face from the night before.  Another lawyer I recognise from a meeting some months back when my son was supposed to be witness to the Defence relating to a charge of wilful damage against one of his mates.  We nod to each other.

I catch the eye of the Police Youth Officer and he comes over to talk to me.  I hold out my hand to shake his.  He shows me the bail conditions he wants the judge to impose, and without anything else to measure them by, I nod and agree.  As I stand looking out a window waiting to be called into Court, I see another Police Youth Officer glancing at me.  He's a nice man, and been very helpful in the past, but I pretend for a while to be interested in the world going on outside these windows.  I'm not ready to engage.   Eventually, I look over and he approaches.  "I've been better" I respond to his question.

Teen1's lawyer is a pleasant, older man; I imagine him with grown kids and maybe a grandchild or two, a family man.  He talks with T1 and says... well, he says everything that T1 has heard before.  He delivers his message with a firmness and practicality I like and I am pleased to have had this person recommended to be on T1's end of the bench.  We aren't there to get to know each other though.  

The hearing is brief, some ten or so minutes.  As recommended by the lawyer, the judge  hands over a copy of Tom Scott and Trevor Grice's highly acclaimed book on drug education, The Great Brain Robbery, one that many counsellors recommend to their clients, and one that has been kicking around my house for some years (along with books on sex and sexuality, body changes etc...I'm not sure that any of them have been read).   The Social Worker later recommends T1 do an assignment on the book, but T1 puts the book on the floor of the car as we drive away, and I doubt it will be read by choice.  I've been re-reading bits of it today, when really I'd rather be reading any of the books on my night stand like  "How to be a Woman" by Caitlin Moran, which would be a lot funnier and a lot more relevant to me than The Great Brain Robbery.  Anyway, it might be useful to get on top of the homework.

Released into my care, under a curfew of 9pm to 7am, no alcohol or drug use, ordered to attend any and all Family Group Conferences, warned that police visits are made randomly as are breath tests, and should bail conditions not be met, there are consequences like lock up and Social Welfare custody.

It is 8.58pm on day two of curfew and he has 2 minutes to get in the door....

What are the chances?

Passive and Verbal Violence

Verbal/passive abuse is a bruise on the partner's spirit...

I have tried to avoid much mention of the role of the Ex, keeping instead to events as I experience them, and as they affect me and the boys.  However, a reader's comment on my blog last night asking about the role T1's father is playing, and a nasty and upsetting altercation again this morning when the brother-out-law came to my house to collect T1 for work, has opened some old wounds.

I've just pulled out from my bookshelf, "The Verbally Abusive Relationship - how to recognize it and how to respond" by Patricia Evans.

This is a book that changed my life some years ago.  When I read it, I scribbled in the margins annotations, personal anecdotes, ticks, crosses, and highlighted paragraphs. This book was my wake up call; it shattered the illusion that all was well, and made me confront what I knew already: I had to get away.  I'd spent years wondering what I was doing wrong, why he was so angry with me: the list of attempts to win his favour, keep him happy etc etc is sickening.  It was time to get a good counsellor, and get out while I still had my sanity.

I thought I would leave my relationship after finding out about the other women in his life, but really, it was the identification and the admission to myself of the extent of the debilitating passive abuse that had been going on for years, and witnessing the same being perpetrated on the children to the extent that I could no longer shield them from it, that helped me leave.  (That, and gross financial mismanagement, exacerbated by the GFC that meant losing the house).  This book helped externalise the abuse.  It was sad reading, but ultimately life enhancing.

The book lists ten characteristics of a passive aggressive relationship and says if two of those characteristics apply to you, then you are in an abusive relationship.  I ticked 9.  When I ticked 14 of the 19 characteristics of the verbal abuser as being those displayed by my partner normally behind closed doors but sometimes in public, I knew I was in deep trouble.

For anyone who even remotely feels like they are 'dreaming', 'going crazy', 'imagining' something is wrong in their relationship, then this book is essential reading.  It highlights the characteristics of verbal/passive abuse, the effects on the partner, the traits of the abuser, and the ways of getting through, out of and recovering from an abusive situation.  

Verbal/passive abuse is a bruise on the partner's spirit which noone sees but which hurts as much if not more than a physical pain.  When it is serious abuse (and any put down is abuse) the only thing that can change is the way the partner can react.  An abuser can not apologise for their behaviour as that would undermine the very essence of their identity.  

So when people ask, what proactive role is the father playing in my current situation, the answer I think is, he can't.  Because if he did play a healthy constructive role, it would be anathema to how he has ever behaved.  It would be the deepest transition possible away from his 'reality' into the other healthy Reality that I come from and connect to: the healthy Reality of empowerment of Self and empowering our loved ones, of connecting with the creative and nurturing aspects of life, of mutuality and co-creation, of personal security which has no need to exert power over another person.  

My Ex is a white collar Mr Nice Guy, well educated, carried the aura of success, quietly spoken.  But he is horribly flawed.  His loss of his businesses, job, home, partner and children are a small testament to that.  I believe people can change, but I witness my Ex being so locked into his false identity, to strip it away now would mean him living a whole new life.  For change to happen, it may require a process equivalent of joining AA; his drug or addiction being Power Over others, particularly over me and the children.   

Cast in the same mold, the brother-out-law provokes and goads with aggression and judgement, disparaging guffaws and twisted logic, and his five minute provocative, argumentative rant in my house this morning was a stunning example of his twisted Reality (the same Reality his brother, my Ex, inhabits).  I suppose if violence is what you know, have had in your growth years, has permeated your relationships, and is in your genetic make up, conquering all that requires some massive shock or shift.  A stint in jail didn't seem to bring about a deeper psychological awareness for him it seems.

Sadly, as I peruse Patricia Evan's book again today, I see the pattern of an increase in my Ex's abusive behaviour: he is so bitter and twisted over my having left him to set up a new life and be the independent woman he once said he was attracted to, that he has lashed out even harder.  Whether that be to be physically aggressive with his son, to change arrangements constantly or at the last minute, be late for picking up or dropping off the boys when he has them, simmering anger and cold looks, to texts and phone calls and emails to me that snarl and snap and bite,  threats of withdrawal of maintenance if I go to a lawyer/talk to the bank/impose restrictions on him to adhere to arrangements et etc, or put downs to the boys when they announce success at school -  often delivered with a "charming" chuckle.  (I recognised elements of my Ex in Marion Keye's novel, "This Charming Man", which  also explores domestic abuse - but in a more lightweight way than Evan's book.  Beware the charming man...).  

T1 has experienced verbal/passive abuse all his life from his father, and so much of how he is behaving now is mirroring the same behaviour.  Which makes me worry all the more for my boys, particularly T1 who seems to have inherited the key to his father's unhealthy reality.  I hope one day he discovers the other key I gave him at birth: the life long key to a Reality that is full of joy, abundance and healthy emotional wellbeing, a place from where we want the best for others because we know we are secure in our own sense of Self.

Which Reality are you in?

Jurisdiction

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, before reaching me, the police notified the out-laws that my son was in the cells.  I'm not sure that's on really.  

Is it not the parent/guardian who ought to be the first person notified?  Teen1 was not in danger, or at risk beyond being off his face to some degree, and there was no power of attorney required for medical or legal reasons.  

The situation was, that I fell asleep at 2am; I recall hearing the phone ringing, must have been just after 4am, but I could not get myself to a consciousness state; when it rang again at 5am I had had the magical 3 hours sleep and I got myself to the phone.  In the meantime, my out-laws were called.  For what purpose did he contact them, I wonder?

One possibility is that it was the police officer doing  a bit of small-town/ share the goss/ catastrophise the situation, or am I just being overly sensitive?  Could it otherwise have been that he wanted to help and had a legal requirement to notify someone?   Apparently, he saw a previous police report (yeah, great) relating to last Christmas when T1 and his father had a fist fight in the street (OMG, my beautiful boys don't deserve this to have happened to them), and called the out-laws whom he knew personally.  Probably the latter is the more likely possibility, but as well as the officer's action really really annoying me, it set in train some not so helpful interventions.

While I got on with doing what had to be done (writing my blog - hmmm!,) like getting my son from the cells,  the phone calls came from an irate brother-out-law who dealt me out some beauties: according to him,  my four years of solo parenting are questionable, my decisions also, and I need to boot my son to the curb given that nothing I'd done to date had made any difference to his attitude or behaviour.  I was, he said,  offering T1 a sanctuary, a warm bed and nice food, which did not help him one bit.  I  requested that he cease being so aggressive; when he continued on, I said again that his attitude and way of speaking were disturbing me and again asked him to stop or I would terminate the call, and when he talked over the top of me, I hung up the line.  I was as Calm as a Woman Numb from Lack of Sleep.

Now, here's a story: said brother-out-law is a convicted armed robber who served time.  A reformed man now with a few remaining (fatal) flaws, whilst entering in the drugs scene, involved in gangs and plotting armed robberies, he frequently stayed with us; both our families had young babies, we had a great time together.  I was in complete blissful ignorance of the whole scene he was involved in.  Following the arrival of detectives at my door at 7am one morning, the shock of the arrest, the related horrible investigations, having me and my partner embroiled in matters of which we had no involvement or knowledge, the disappointment of being unwittingly used, and having my trust completely shattered, what did we do?  We gave sanctuary, a warm bed and nice food to this family member; and my partner paid his brother's legal bills, decked out his cell,and bought his partner a house to live in while he was in jail... what we do for family, eh?

So having him call me and question my parenting of my 16 year old, and telling me to boot him out, well it got up my nose.  His family had stuck by him, mostly anyway (there was a bit of drawing the line, but he was an adult and probably deserved to take some knocks).  Call my hanging up on him a reaction to my sleep deprivation and that my head was hurting.

I want to believe that the brother-out-law cares and wants to help.  But belligerent judgements delivered to a somewhat shaken single mother: not cool.  Am I being overly sensitive?!  Tell me right now (gently though).

Here's a few tips for the not so close out-laws: 

- ask: how can I help?  (thanks to lovely friends and readers who asked me that question)

- request permission to offer solutions or wait until asked to do so (thanks Deb for giving me the name of a family court lawyer)

- respect a mother's right to make her own decisions  ( I love and respect my nearest and dearest for your support)

- if offering solutions (being the person at the top of the hole throwing down the ladder) do it with empathy.  It's different when a child is involved than when it is an adult to adult problem, a work/professional issue, a relationship issue, or health concern: sometimes having  friend to be a bit tough on us and offer the ladder, not the tissues, is a useful approach.  When it's a mother's child in trouble: that's a whole different ball game.

- send tickets for a tropical family holiday, or for a remote retreat for women only (just joking! though the offer from dear Aussie friends to spend  Christmas Day with them: so thoughtful.  Thanks guys).

Yep, I'm a little sensitive about things when the out-laws and the Ex are involved: I don't mind at all being a single parent and I'd far rather do it without the Ex and his questionable notion of what fathering is, but - take some notes, out-laws.  Suspend judgement and remember, the mother who is the full time parenting role has total jurisdiction.

Just a wee snitchy post to reveal my shadow side..!

Possession

I waited up last night for Teen1 to come home.  I didn’t do so in the frame of mind I may have a year ago, like a woman slightly possessed with a darkening fear, a sickening sense of worry, a latent anger at the transgression of family boundaries, a tearing of the spiritual umbilical cord, a cold sense of dread in my heart. 

In fact, most of those debilitating states I have shed, consciously choosing not to allow them to rule my head, heart and spirit, and I have practised replacing them instead with a curious mind, an open heart, a sleep-energised and replenished body, and a refocus on broader aspects of my life.  (I say ‘practised’ as my blog is testament to me banging on for months about such healthier states, but only being able to do so myself in tiny incremental steps.  I’m a slow adaptor, even to my own advice).  To help achieve detachment, I have opted to stay clear of T1, skirting around the fringes of his life, engaging as little as possible, avoiding conversations longer than a few sentences, asking questions only to demonstrate subliminally that I love him and I care (and truth be told, to remind myself that I do love and care).  Was this avoidance?  Yes - but I knew I had to change the paradigms through which I had been unsuccessfully responding, and consciously contrive different perspectives in order to preserve self-care and be a more effective parent.

Last night, something was different.  I was awake until late watching on-line election results tumble in (ah democracy: a bunch of largely un-informed people making decisions to elect the largely ill-informed, as I had once heard someone describe elections).  Intuition was tapping at my consciousness all the while.  I opened T1’s bedroom door, and willed him to be safe, wherever he was.  I had a moment when a dash of hope washed through me: after-all, I had just commented to friends visiting me yesterday, that T1 was the best I’d seen him in a while.  A little less fraught/ combative/ shut off/ abusive.  I had felt a flicker of hope yesterday as I responded positively to their concerns about him.  Being kicked out of school, having to work in a job that does not light his fire, knowing that this newfound ‘freedom’ comes with responsibilities and harder challenges than merely doing homework: perhaps these were all adding up to a boy ready to make some changes.

Sadly, not yet.

As I was reflecting on the above, and on the make-up of our new Parliament, I received a late night email from a reader of this blog.  I responded to her in more depth than I might usually, as I recognised in her lines a tremor of the anguish I have experienced. I then fell asleep around the bewitching hour of 2am, my last thoughts being that I hoped my reader’s daughter would get home safely last night, as would my son…

Sadly, I know that for one child that did not happen.

My son is currently in the cells of the Central Police Station.  He was arrested in the early hours of this morning, and is being held on three charges ranging from the stupid, to the Serious, to the Really Serious. 

Gasp, horror, why am I writing this and not driving down to the Police Station?  For one, I am sleep deprived which is my excuse for not thinking straight. Secondly, he’s not being cooperative with the Police so there’s a little bit of cooling off required before he goes through the formal charging and release processes.  Thirdly, I’m a mean mother and I don’t yet have the energy to deal with him (here’s an absolute ‘Claire’ piece of advice: Get Your Sleep.  If nothing goes awry and your child comes home of their own volition, you wake feeling mad but reenergised.  If it all turns to hell, you cope better the next day with a situation that you had no control over anyway).  Finally, I have two other boys asleep here and I’m not leaving them.

Not yet.  I just need to hear the birds chirp first.

Serenity

The way positive affirmations work is to say them repeatedly.  It's about training the mind to accept the affirmations as the default belief, rather than allowing those mad little demon voices in our heads undermine our very human need for positive emotions, growth, evolution, change and development.

Prayer is similar.  Saying the rosary.  Using Worry beads. Or Komboloi beads.  Chanting.  Saying a mantra out loud, or silently, when meditating.

It is the repetition that helps.  These quiet, personal, and often short, meaningful stanzas that we can recite to ourselves to give comfort and hope and bring peace.

It is all connected to the breath.  Deep, quiet breathing, as we say our word or verse.  Letting the body and the mind slow down.  Like meditation, prayer and affirmations can slow the heart rate, release the negative energy, prepare the body for the intake of the new and fresh and restorative energy.

So I'll cut to the chase about now:  All the above went through my head in a blinding flash this morning as I turned off the car engine and prepared to step out into the car park at the High School.  (You know what's coming, right?).  This is what I'd said to myself repeatedly since I woke at 4.30am:

God.  Please grant me the courage to change the things I can change.  The serenity to accept the things I cannot change.  And the wisdom to know the difference.

By 7.35am, over scrambled eggs (I burned them to a ruin - never done that before) I'd shortened the prayer to:  "Courage.... serenity.... wisdom... ".  Over and over.

Meditation and mantra chanting is heavenly at the end of a hot yoga session, lying in shivasana pose on my purple yoga mat.  But the serenity prayer was coming out of me in short wee bursts of breathlessness as I crossed the car park to go into the school office: "serenity wisdom courage serenidom wisage courity doswim serecour wisnity..."

Maybe it worked, to pray a little, or a lot, or even in gobbledegook, today.  It isn't going to save my boy necessarily, but it allowed me to talk through the options reasonably calmly with the school, with my prayer going around in my head, and occasionally slipping out of my head and onto my knee where it looked at me compassionately and quizzically (really, it did) when I almost got a little emotional.

He's got one good grace left.  He's been asked to leave the school.  Only four weeks of school left, they would have kept him if they could, but he's made it unsafe for the school community to keep him there.  There's only so much abuse teachers will take (although it's a fraction of what I get from him, and I don't get paid for it) and only so much disruption classmates should have to tolerate.

So he's out.  Not expelled, but released.  Until February.  Oh, good Goddesses and Angels:

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

 grant me the courage... the wisdom... 

and most of all, the serenity to get through this...

Wishing as always, courage, wisdom and serenity to all parents.  Just say the words.

Absence

I start with apologies for an absence of well over two months now... and I have a little and a lot of explanations I could make.

Lovely readers have checked in and asked how things are going: thank you one and all.

I got tired.  I was writing over the last year as much to capture the moment, as try to find answers to esoteric questions that  usually started with the word "why....?".

I got sick of myself.  Writing about the cruddy stuff of life seemed defeatist at times.  I countered it by writing every night in my Gratitude journal, by meditation, positivity, and achievements and fun stuff in other areas of my life.  But I tired writing about a child who it seemed I could not help.

I'm hopeless at the technology, I just can't seem to get it right. Or have my blog look the way I want it too (cool, funky, bright: hmmm, wrong blog subject for that!).  So my blog was blogging me up.

I got busy with other work, and with family life.  There's been five birthdays in my close family, numerous visits, school holidays, two weeks of illness and a few too many snow days.

I got writer's block.

My other two boys needed more attention, and I gave it, reaping rewards for them, and by extension for the whole family.

I needed time for me, time to concentrate effort on my business, on my colleagues, on my extended family, and on healing an injury that had been causing debilitating pain for some months.

It was a conundrum for me to write here about this very personal, difficult parenting and family life, while developing a business that centred on positive emotions, on future focussed solutions, on creating and developing positive mindsets, of working and assisting people to reach their potential.  I needed instead to focus on keeping myself and my business contacts ethically safe, and to do that, I needed to walk away for a time from complete concentration on one child so that I could get other parts of my house in order.

I was exhausted from wringing my hands in front of genuinely caring school educationalists, social workers, friends and people in extended networks.  Without coming up with any answers.

I'm still asking the same questions and making the same mistakes.  It is just that I am asking the big questions less frequently, demanding less of myself, accepting more the things I cannot change, and forgiving myself and my dearest lovely lost boy for our mistakes and for missing each other as we travel along on this life journey we share.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose: the more things change the more they remain the same.  This was the first French saying I learned years ago.  It is kind of defeatist, but in these circumstances, as my lovely 16 year old boy travels down his lonely road, it does sum up the last couple of months for him and for my parenting of him.

I look to the light in the east... as we all must when the new day dawns.

Until soon

go gently
Claire

Poetic Parenting: A mother's contribution...

In answer to my call, I have received this lovely poem from KJ, which I am reposting...

"My teen has recently moved in to the world, so mine is more on the journey from start to transition (quickly) and I'm more at peace than I realised so not much swearing either... But I tried..." (KJ)

In LA Rodney King had been beaten
Russia chose Yeltsin to rule
Schumacher appeared on the racetrack
And you had me covered in drool

My friends were all sneaking to pubs
Wishing 20 was their real age
I was at home with my baby
Social welfare was paying my wage

Each year I did what I thought best
Screwing up as all parents do
My reward was always amazing
When you said “Mum, I love you”

Then one day I opened your door
And fell to the floor in a fit
Your room was a tip, you looked a wreck
With a weird whiff of B.O and shit

Putin was now ruling Russia
Schumacher was world number one
The drool that I wore as a badge
Was ripe from disease of the gum

You were not there in the morning
‘Hooking up’ as you said on your ‘page’
I was at home with no baby
Fucked off with sadness and rage

Each day turned in to a struggle
With battle lines now set in stone
We both began with the countdown
When you at last would leave home

Then one day I opened your door
And fresh paint now filled the air
No more were you here, now out in the world
Just remember I love you my dear 





How fabulous to put your experience into words that capture the essence of you, your child/teen and the whole experience.   


Are there any more from other readers??

Poetic Parenting: releasing your literary genius

A reader, Nicole, left this comment on my post, "Go the F*** to sleep", and I had to repost it to share with all of you, as it is very clever  ...  I think Nicole and I are living parallel lives, as her words reflect some of the experiences of my last 48 hours: waiting up yet again last night until 1.45am;  falling asleep on the couch;  dragging myself to bed at 3am - which is a good time to restock the fire for the morning!  No cooking muffins though.  But no sign of the Real T1 until dinner time tonight,  lured home by the smell of a yummy Sunday night dinner, hot water and a warm home.

If anyone has any other four line verses in rhyming couplets... please send them to me,  and let's grow this parenting poem !!!

Ask your friend for contributions.  A number of you follow Nigel's FB site (maybe he's a poet too??!), so get it out there....  

Write it down, say it how it is, release the frustration, let loose your humour, pain, exhaustion... as well as your literary genius.... consult your journals for insight, sing it, say it, have fun with it,  have a wine or three and let the words flow:  I know you can do it!!!

Here's Nicole's start to our 2amClub parenting poem/rap track:

"I don't know where the fuck you are
I'm worried out o' my head
It would be nice if you'd come home
So I can go to bed

You're probably drinking with your mates
Or smoking something silly
Or maybe luring some poor girl
To do things to your willy

Last week you came back poorly dressed
With vomit down your shirt
An improvement from the week before -
You'd returned with lighter burns

But come home now so I can sleep
I'm knackered for the day
Just don't bring home another dame
And keep me wide awake! "







FB, Twitter... however you get it out there, enjoy the creativity and opportunity to share your fortitude, humour, wisdom and eloquence!!!

I celebrate the writing genius within each of you...

I am multitudes....

A little bit of self-affirming support popped into my post box this week : I  received a letter from one of the social services agencies, and I quote:

"... it is fantastic to hear that (Teen1) has been attending X X High School now for four weeks.  Because of this good school attendance and as T1 was not interested in the support our service could offer, I have now closed his file.


I want to acknowledge your perseverance and commitment towards T1's education and also to acknowledge the care and love that you have for T1.  It takes a strong woman to continue as you did and I hope things continue to improve for T1.


If you feel our service could be of benefit in the future....I would like to wish you and T1 all the best..."

Thanks Louise! I appreciated your support also.



The social agencies are there to help, but it was a lonely trip for me to walk in there and ask for help.  I knew I needed help, and I wanted to keep one step ahead if I could, but I also felt so ashamed (there, I've said it) at having to ask for help.  I am now so used to talking to them, that I regularly check in and let them know what is happening.  My circle of influence includes the local police, the central police station, the Youth Liaison Officers, Family Support agencies, independent Youth Trusts, counselling services, and a number of youth training and support agencies.

I have learned from this experience not to define myself, or allow myself to be trapped or inhibited by the actions and behaviours of my teenager.  The only person whose judgement is important is my own!!  I got caught up in not wanting this one hard part of my life to inform who I am in the other parts of my life:


"... Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes..."  
~ Walt Whitman.


I am multitudes.  There's one part of me that will accept any positive reinforcement for the part of me that is the Parent and Mother.

The other parts of me - the friend, sister, worker, carer, professional, daughter... - must continue to grow and learn and share and not be inhibited by the choices of others.  This takes courage.

Wishing all mothers the courage to continue to celebrate their 'multitudes'...

 

Go the F*** to sleep

My friend Jo  read my last poetry post and she thinks that this link to a bedtime story will be appreciated by expletive using, exhausted parents...

Which led me to wonder, has anyone heard of a rap version of the book, but aimed at teenagers??: as in

" get the f**k home now,
get off the f**king streets;
don't get into deep sh*t
cos it ain't worth hangin' with the creeps..."

Sorry, I'm not so good at writing rhyming couplets, but if readers want to try a four line, or longer, attempt, I'll pull it all together and post it back!!

Wishing you good sleeps as always...

Poetic parenting advice

Don't read this if you get offended at expletives.  And if you do, or if you don't get offended,  then do read this.  (thanks to Jo for the link!)

The afore-mentioned article inspired me to pull out my most loved and cherished anthology of poetry to read the full, mordantly disturbing poem by Philip Larkin.  I have spontaneously decided to depart from my positive approach to my (also quite possibly, mordantly disturbing) blog, and share this poem with you.  And yes, you guessed it, being consistent throughout his poetry in his horror of family life, Larkin died single and childless.  (I wonder what he was like as a librarian, his life-long day job? I'd be too scared to ask him for a book in case he scorned me as vociferously as he does parents in this poem...).

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
   They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
   And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
   By fools in old-style hats and coats
Who half the time were soppy-stern
   And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
   It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
   And don't have any kids yourself.


I've skimmed past this poem many times.  I'm oddly amused reading it again now to find that I really like it!

Other poems in this anthology, also about raising children but from quite different perspectives, move me to tears.  Or at least they did when my children were younger than 10.  Here's two such poems:

Beatrix is Three
Adrian Mitchell


At the top of the stairs
I ask for her hand.  O.k.
She gives it to me.
How her fist fits my palm,
A bunch of consolation.
We take our time
Down the steep carpetway
as I wish silently
That the stairs were endless.



A wish for my children
Evangeline Paterson


On this doorstep I stand
year after year
to watch you going

and think: May you not
skin your knees.  May you
not catch your fingers
in car doors.  May
your hearts not break.

May tide and weather
wait for your coming

and may you grow strong
to break
all webs of my weaving.


The editor's footnote to this poem asks the reader, "As parents, how many of us are capable of looking forward to the day when our children no longer need us?".

A note back to the editor: actually, this last week, I have been utterly, unerringly, enthusiastically imagining a time when Teen1 will have left home.  So, I guess I am a feeling closer to 'Larkin' than to 'Mitchell' at present.


...a post in homage to the parent-child dichotomy in us all....






P.S.  just in case you haven't already seen Anita Renfroe's the Mommy Song set to the William Tell Overture.  And,  a final thought for the night, maybe there's a market for a New Zealand anthology of poems and writings charting the trajectory of teenager-hood?

Changin' times

He's moved out.  Figuratively, I mean.  The Pretender : he's gone.  I'm not sure if it is a holiday, or he's gone for good.

I must say, it was just lovely having The Pretender to stay.  Several friends supportively applauded, some asking what I did to bring about Teen1's return to school and his apparent turning of the corner.  It did not take much thought for me to dispense these three (now redundant) observations (feel free though to give them a go!):

1. Tenacity: firstly, I refused to give up what I felt was best for my son, in this case to get him back to school, in a new environment in the hope that he would experience a clean start and fresh options. Despite being in touch with numerous community groups and support people, there are things I had to do and cope with and decide and fight for alone, according to my own unique set of beliefs.  It was lonely and hard.  But this was one important objective I would not let go of.   Secondly, I faced off with one of the Focker families: rightly or wrongly entering someone's home and emphatically telling them to back off, it had an impact.  It shut the door on T1 having a place to hang out all day.  (That and the fact that his mate had been arrested and was on a legally imposed curfew... kind of helped too).  Thirdly, I had a vision: a strong, powerful image of my father, who passed on many years ago.  It reminded me to stay firm, stay resolved, focus on my values, my positive vision, my belief in my son's ability and inherent goodness.  Believe me, this last comment is not 'rose tinted glasses' stuff:  it's just, I SEE him, and I think he'll be ok, one day.  In other words, "tenacity".


2.  Teach them well.  Be the change you want to see in the world.  It is from the parents they learn.  (Which means therapy for years for most of us... ).  But essentially, I have to hope that what they've learned from me will stick to the intsy bintsy part of their brain that is still functioning during their teens, and will help them to get through.  If not, and my boys don't make it, I hope someone reminds me of how I tried.

3.  Luck.  Prayer.  Faith.  The unknown.  Was it #1 and #2 above that brought about a short-lived change?  Or something beyond us all.  Definitely worth meditating on.


Unfortunately, the Pretender's moving out was taking place as I wrote my last post.  Not wanting to hope too much, or anticipate too soon that perhaps things were changing for the better, I waited four weeks until I could see and feel and witness change in Teen1, and felt confident enough to commit it to words on a public page.  A change that permeated the whole house and home.  A change that was commented on by T3, age 11, who unexpectedly said quietly to me, "you know Mum, I really think he's better and he's not so bad anymore."

Alas.  Ironically, within the hour of posting my last missive, there was a call from the school reporting his absence, and later in the night, a very stoned boy entered the house.  Being stoned is the lesser of the evils to deal with.  It is always the drug lows in the days after that are worse.  It's been one long spiral down for the last ten days.

I wonder if Bob is on the other side of these lyrics now, along with those of us who sang and swayed along to this song, shaking our heads that our parents just did not get it.  

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'



In support of all parents who are having to cope with these tenuous, unpredictable, sometimes crushingly painful times of parenting our teenagers.   

Where has he gone?

I lost my teenage boy last year, and it seems he has gone again.  Which might be described as considerably careless of me.  In writing this, I recall Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest” in which Lady Bracknell tells Jack Worthing: “To lose one parent Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both  looks like carelessness”.

I know my Teen1 is gone because of the following factors:

1.     There’s a pretender teenager staying here who has been going to school every day now for almost FOUR weeks.

2.     This rather tall, Teen1 lookalike boy says things like:

a.     “Will you wake me up in the morning”

b.     “Can you make me some sandwiches for lunch”

c.      “Can I get a lift in to school tomorrow with you”

3.     This 15 year old boy is here for dinner every evening during the week, and eats the food.

4.     The pretender has put out the rubbish.  Twice.

5.     The pretender’s room is cleaned out every week without being asked to do so.

6.     The pretender did the dishes for the first time in months.

7.     The pretender SMILED at me.

8.     I haven’t had anyone, least of all the Pretender, call me a f***ing b**** for about four weeks now.

9.     The pretender asked if he could go to the rugby on a Friday night, suggested himself he’d be back at 10.30pm, and said ‘thanks so much’ when I gave him a few dollars to spend at the game.   (The pretender came back home drunk, but it was just before the 10.30pm agreed time, so hey, I wasn’t going to take him on..)

10. I’ve resumed my business practice at my home office because there’s not a feral teenager around between the hours of 8.30am and 4.30pm: my home has reverted to being a warm, calm space during the day through which I wander and wonder… ‘how can this be?’

This Pretender looks like and sounds like Teen1.  But he doesn’t ACT like Teen1.

What have I done???

PS: yes!  This is a happy post!!! At last….  I don’t want to over-analyse too soon, as it is just one day at a time for me at present.  Wishing continuing glimmers of happy-teens for all parents reading this today….

Wabi-Sabi Living

Louise wrote the following to me this week:

You amaze me every time I read your posts, I hope I can deal with my teenagers with as much sense and calm reason as you seem to. I have 8 years before I first find out.

Thanks Louise, but: I struggle with being able to be calm and reasonable. Really struggle. (although it is nice to think I might come across calm!)

image by monsieur j from the eco-salon site

It is writing that helps to bring a sense of perspective to this part of my life experience.

Writing gives me a reason to stop, to take the time to learn from my responses and actions, as well as, hopefully, provide readers with an ‘aha’ parenting moment. It is not so important that readers agree with my approach or not, so long as they get something from it that helps them in their parenting voyage. I write privately as well, and always have in journals and on my computer. I keep a Gratitude journal next to my bed: it is so helpful after a shitty day to have to find the gold in the day and write it down.

Writing also makes me do bits of research into what other words of wisdom are out there and try applying them to my life. Gorgeous things that I appropriate, like living a wabi-sabi (love that term!) life. It keeps me connected with the wider community of thought, and of experiences. It calms me down. Sometimes I write to elevate myself out of the bogginess of it all and in doing so I achieve a deep sense of release: ah, so that’s what it’s all about.

Sometimes I use irony and cynicism to vent my grumpiness about things. Helps get rid of negative energy.

Sometimes I’m not at all reasonable. I can be quietly snarky and judgmental towards people in my son’s Focker circles. I defy my intrinsic nature of seeing good in others. I swear. I get angry. I cry: I really cry, with those deep chest-heaving sobs. Not often, but enough to release the pain. I feel emotion. I feel when it comes to parenting teens that I live in the cracks of life’s surface, not on the smooth calmness of it.

I’ve said before that I want to post about happy stuff. There’s so many blogs and websites promoting happiness, and I am a regular reader of a few – love them! I’m in a profession that has at its core the desire to bring happy back, or certainly to bring deep contentment, connectedness, balance and sense of purpose. Raising teenagers is only one part of my life and it just so happens, I am struggling with it at the moment. I am working to gain or maintain what Louise has suggested I have already: good sense, calmness and reason. So this is what I write about: where I’m good at it, where I’m not and all the cracks in between!

As for wabi-sabi: it’s about finding beauty in imperfection (like the lines on my face). Probably I am stretching things to align this concept with parenting teenagers!! But, don’t you think as parents of maverick teens, we NEED to see the beauty in the imperfection?? Check out Robyn Griggs Lawrence’s book The Wabi-Sabi House and a comment on wabi-sabi living here.

Wishing you a wabi-sabi weekend…

Skin on teeth

It is a weird saying, to have just avoided something “by the skin of your teeth”. Given that there’s probably plaque but definitely no skin on our teeth. The source is biblical, Job 19:20, meaning that Job got away with nothing. Today, it is used to describe a narrow escape (according to wikianswers).

My son did escape but only just, being arrested last week.

I’m posting this because as I follow along this torturous parenting voyage, I cling on to the hope that things won’t get worse and that I’ve really learned all I need to know. But they do. And I obviously haven’t yet. So, there’s more late nights writing blog posts to come.

I’ll remain vague about the crime, suffice to say, two of Teen1’s mates have been arrested and are on ‘bail’ or home detention with a nighttime curfew. Supposedly, that should mean that T1 couldn’t go to this mate’s home at night, however, that doesn’t seem to be the case as he’s been there a lot since.

No surprises, but one of the boys arrested is Mrs Focker’s (of the, “I don’t want any trouble but I’m worried T1 is suicidal, and, it isn’t my fault T1’s at my house all the time and his mother is implying I’m supporting his truancy when I am not….” etc etc phone call of last week). In Mrs Focker’s conversation with me, she failed to mention that her son had been arrested a week or so earlier, or that I might expect my son to be implicated in the same alleged crime.

Intriguing. Frustrating. And it explains some of her actions and responses.

As for the Fockers, I have to face the fact that my son is possibly now in their kinship group given this latest development. The police paid a visit on Easter eve and relayed the situation/crime. Which T1 vehemently denied. He was disgusted his mates would dob him in (a familiar reaction to his mates statements implicating him in the cannabis charges for which he was excluded from school). In response to my questions ( I did a lot of breathing out), he put himself in an inebriated state (hooray, he knew not what was going down), but not at the scene. His protestations of innocence didn’t wash with the constabulary, and he was told that he was very lucky not to be arrested with the others. Instead, a police notice has been put against him, and if he breaches certain conditions and is caught, he will be arrested.

I looked at him in a different way. Is this it? Is this really where he wants to be and what he wants to be doing? To me, it is incomprehensible, unfathomable, other worldly, as I’m just not there with this type of crime (and yes, I have committed a few myself over the years, all self directed crimes, so I’m not being all holy about this). I’m just really faffed that I have to deal with yet another thing.

A conversation with the police officer following T1’s departure from the house revealed an ironic truth: until T1 actually commits a crime and is arrested and goes into the Youth justice system, there appears to be little help, support or assistance available to forcibly coerce him into alternative education, or restorative justice programmes. The officer had reasons not to arrest T1; but there was a part of me that wondered if he had, maybe the consequences would start to scare T1 enough to change the course he’s on. Such bitter irony: I’m giving space to the thought that being in the criminal system might help.

The almost arrest has had no effect on behaviour. He’s got a thick skin it would seem, and not just on his teeth.

What it has done in respect of parenting lessons is this: inured me to some degree to the events unfolding. I did and do still feel that I am distant from this and not tangled in the mess. I remain committed to finding solutions. I remain convinced that the good values instilled in him in his early life do live within him and will guide him. But I can’t protect him from his own bad choices of friends or of actions. Even though I cry for him from time to time, I’m in the Other space, watching on with compassion and deep regret.

I wonder what that parenting lesson can be termed? Growing skin on one’s teeth, perhaps?