Things That Make You Go ARRGGGHHH!

When your child tells you:

You know Mom, I'm never really sure if Nana loves me or not. Because all she ever does is give me money or buy me stuff, and then she turns around and says mean stuff to me. Like she paid for it or something.

Or, when he says of the two-ish months he spends with his dad each summer:

I don't like being around Dad anymore. He's always trying to control me. Like I always have to wear ankle socks or the shorts he wants me to. But when I come around, he never does anything with me. It's like he doesn't care I've been gone. It's like the same as any other day. He just yells at me. And he always has to be right. But he's wrong a lot and he never listens, he just makes out like he was still right the whole time.

I have never heard such a simple and concise explanation of his father's personality before in my life. And what he says of my mother is totally true. It's something El Hijo and I have discussed for years. She buys him off constantly. Currently she's offering $200 if he'll cut his braids, which she says makes him look like a "savage." Latent racism for the loss!

Zounds. I had always kind of hoped the bubble could continue. I knew when Dante was little and I tried to make peace with everybody for his sake that there was a high chance of malfunction when Dante grew into his personality. It's one thing when they're four years old and cute. It's another thing when they're twelve years old and have ideas of their own. The same stuff that started developing between my mother and us girls is starting to show up in her relationship to him -- and at about the same age. Gah.

Other very telling signs include the week-long conference we've had with Dante about what happened in Florida and Kentucky. I have to say, he's really disappointed in his family right now. And I know that some of that is puberty angst, but some of that is also ignorant relatives. I'd put the total at about 85% relative ignorance. He's made some incredibly insightful comments that just blew me away. I would've never thought he'd have picked up on those below the surface strains families keep buried. But he has. And he's not happy about it. Because Dante is a very visual child, he has represented this new problem in his school work. One of the first assignments they did was a personal "crest", where they got to represent what is important in their lives. Dante always has a family section, and it's usually huge because he has such a big branchy family. This time, however, there were five family members. Him, with his usual spiky stick figure head, me with longer hair than I always have, and El Hijo. Labeled "Dad". And Fanny and Jane, our cats. That's it. No Nana, no Daddy, no representation of Florida in some way. Just us.

In a way, it's always been just us. I worked hard to make it not seem that way, but I think kids have a way of understanding who is really on their side and who is not. After a particularly emotional discussion with Dante about his relatives, the conversation where he said the above quotes, he declared that he was done with Kentucky and he didn't want to go anywhere for the summer. He wanted to stay here, even if that meant he was in a summer program like the Boys & Girls Club. I opened my mouth to remind him of the problems and family obligations, but before I could get anything out, El Hijo said, "Well, I'm for Dante. I'm in Dante's corner. And whatever Dante wants, I'll support that. He's the most important person in this situation, and by God, if he wants to stay here, I'm not going to send him away." Dante burst into tears. He came over for a hug, and he pulled both me & El Hijo together and put his head on El Hijo's chest.

I've always thought that family is what you make of it. It's who is in your "corner," whether you're related by blood or not. And that's who showed up on the crest -- Mom, cats, and good ol' step-dad without the step attached. Because dads are made, not born. Thanks, El Hijo, on behalf of Dante and me.

-- DV