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?