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.