In the early days of having a child you have a lot of control over whom they play with. You might join a mother's group and your child plays with the children of adults who are like minded, but eventually there comes a time when you are not able to exert complete control over the company they keep.
Well, today my son was really exposed to a most unsavoury family.
He has a classmate at school who is one of these sly little boys you may sometimes come across. Little freckly faced boy with sun kissed skin, too quick to smile and sly blue eyes. He is the youngest of three children and from a very difficult family life. He is allowed to roam the streets more freely than I would allow my own son to. Rides his bike everywhere and may go off for a couple of hours on his own.
Recently he and my son have been talking on msn and sometimes catching up in the local park. Both activities have not sat well with me but I have to weigh up allowing my son to make his own choices and not making judgements based on gut feelings and general impressions.
Today they had organised for S to go over and play at this boy's house. I reluctantly agreed. Around midday I dropped him off there. Chatted to the mother for a few minutes and went off to do some things. They have been building their own huge two storey house for years. It is in an unfinished state. They have run out of money, lost interest and it has come to a standstill. Inside the house are piles of timber, doors still yet to be hung, tools, sheets covering the windows for privacy and power cord running from room to room in a chaotic manner.
His mother is tired and worn looking. She is younger than me but her face is lined from too much sun and smoking. I am sure she is on something sort of medication as her responses to what I say are slow. As she is talking to me I see her daughter schlep past and give me a sullen glare. She is the type of teenage girl a mother would dread. Heavy make up, tight clothes and that defiant, yet fragile look of hostility oozing from her. Her insolent look makes a particular type of statement that spells trouble.
Later in the day we get a phone call from S asking if he can stay the night. I am surprised and hesitate before agreeing. I tell him I will drop off his things.
When I get there, the father answers the door. I know what he is like. His son told mine that his father is an alcoholic and yells all the time. I know he drinks to excess. I can see it in his body, his eyes. I can smell it on his breath. I felt anxious that my son was there but had to have enough confidence in knowing that if S felt uncomfortable at any time he would ring me. I chat for a few minutes with the father who is very friendly but as I leave I feel kind of unhappy about the whole thing. That whole gut feeling is constant.
K had gone out to play music so I was expecting to have a rare evening alone. At first I thought I may go for a run once the evening had cooled down but decided to stay home in case S wanted to come home.
Sure enough, at about 7.00pm I get a phone call from my son. He tells me he wants to come home. He says he is bored but I can hear in his voice that it is more than that. Give me five minutes I say to him.
When I get there he is on his bike at the end of their driveway waiting for me. As I load the bike into the back of my car I chat briefly to the mother. She just said that my son told her he was bored and wanted to go home. I made some mention that he was tired so perhaps he was a bit moody. I see his friend smirking over at me, legs straddled over his bike and his arms crossed over his chest.
I jump in the car and turn around and make my way home. S was silent and when I looked across at him I could see he was on the verge of tears.
"Tell me what happened", I asked him.
Here is what he told me and I have to warn you that it has some of the worst language in one collection. I have blanked out the words that I actually found just too offensive to type in full (more than once).
"A is a shit. He called me a f-----g shit n----r. He said my dad was a f-----g weirdo and f-----g ugly. He called me a f-----g c--t and said the was gonna shank me. He kept on calling me f-----g this and that and kept saying I was a c--t. He asked me if my dad watched porn. He told me he watches porn. I f-----g hate him". S starts to cry and I feel my own tears rise up.
He continues along the same vein for a while. I make a decision not to tell him off for swearing because I sense that he needs to get all of this off his chest, out of his head to enable him to get over it.
"I told his mum what he called me and she just said "oh did he" as if it was okay. I tell him that n----r is a nasty word to use. And I ask him why doesn't he like people who are black? What difference does it make? Anyway, his favorite singer is 50cent and he is black. How can you be so awful about people just because they are a different colour. He just told me that I was a stupid f-----g c--t. His dad just sat on the couch drinking beer and smoking and telling the sister to shut the f--k up every time she spoke to him. What sort of father speaks like that to their daughter. And his brother is underage and was drinking and smoking. It just felt bad being there". S starts to calm down and by this stage we are at the pizza shop getting dinner.
Then he turned to me and said, "I felt unsafe".
I explained to him that he will always come across people in life who have different values to his own. It was hard for me not to really, really run this family down to the ground. But I did not have to. S could see what they were like and made his own mind up. That was when he rang me to come home. I felt happy that he was able to make that choice.
Once we got in the car I said that now he had used up all the swear words I did not want to hear another one. Especially the 'c' word. He said he knew what that meant and it was awful and just hearing all those words made him feel bad. It was the way they were said that shocked him. So nasty. On the way home I also told him that I would no longer allow him to ever play with A again. No meeting in the park, no talking on msn, no staying over, no playing at their house. Never. He agreed.
We got home and he sat and ate his pizza. After that he had a warm bath, put his pyjamas on and sat next to me on the couch for a while. He said he felt almost normal and was ready for bed.
As I tucked him in and kissed him good night I saw a great sense of relief flood over his expression.
"I am so glad I am home" he said as he snuggled down into the doona.
So was I, that is for sure.
Ciao
LC
