Mining for Gold 2

EVENT #3: CHANGE OF ABODE

I told my son he had to leave home.

It pains me to write that.  The layers of emotion around my action are the stuff of a book on the ‘psychology of the transitioning parent/child relationship’ or some such title.  It would take a multitude of blog posts to explore such matters. 

In between vicious bouts of viral fevers, I had time to reflect on the situation in my family home:  an abusive, angry, misbehaving, drug smoking, thieving, drinking, largely absent teenager ('a devil in the home and an angel on the streets' was how a friend described T1 - actually she described my Ex as that, and added T1 as an afterthought); and two younger brothers still finding their way.  

Maybe the virus I contracted had nothing to do with the strain of the last few years I thought, but then again, on a mind-body-spirit level, how could it not?

It was untenable to continue to have T1 live in my house and behave the way he had been for so long.  For the time I was in hospital and sick at home, all abuse and disrespect stopped.  It was like a cloud had lifted.  Something had changed and the something was that my son was not in my house.

My nearest and dearest were telling me in different ways that T1’s behaviour could not continue to be tolerated (much as we all love him), and he needed to be responsible for his actions and to face the consequences.  I had had the same message from my Ex and his brother back in October: kick him out they told me, toughen up, throw him out on the curb. 

I didn’t.  Couldn’t.  And didn’t know how to do that anyway.  He was just 16 and despite the way he treated me and his family and home, he also didn’t seem to want to leave (good food, warm bed). 

I thought it would come right if I could just stick it out a bit longer (a scary repetition of my marriage!).  I was hanging on to some generalized wisdom from the nation’s popular parenting personality*, that if this behaviour starts young (say 12 or 13 years old) given the good home he had all his life, the chances are it would have blown over in a few years.  (*Nigel Latta’s comedic timing is getting better all the time I thought, watching him on the tv tonight!).

Yeah, nah, it hasn’t happened. 

With T1 away from home while I was sick, and while his father was here, I knew that I had to do something to protect myself and my other sons, and there had to be some kind of change. 

Making a decision to tell your 16 year old to leave home is just not easy.  It was horrible.  But I had to have the courage to let myself be heard, and to refuse to allow my home and heart be trampled on, regardless of the age of the person doing it. 

I ended up telling him.  ‘Son’, I said, ‘you have forfeited your right to live here’. 

“What the fuck, that’s bullshit” was the response, and has remained so to this day.

I tend to agree with him, but that’s on a whole different level.

THE GOLD

There has to be some gold in amongst all this:  my house is calm and peaceful; I’m enjoying my two other gorgeous boys; there are no late nights waiting up, no abuse.  Best of all, I no longer have my room under lock and key, nor do I have to lock my wallet and other possessions away when I have a shower.  I don’t worry so much about where he is, or if the police will call first.  I don’t wake in the morning to find the kitchen a mess of left over late night munchies  and I don’t get told to fuck off if I ask for it to be cleaned up. 

There’s a newfound or regained freedom to live in my own home without threat to property or person.

The worry has, however, been replaced by a new, foreign emotion I am still trying to understand: something about a mother having to  tell her son, a young boy, not yet grown up or mature, to leave the family home.  To paraphrase T1: that sucks.

Next posts – new 'school'; new digs; and new family dynamics... updates to come….