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
8 Comments:
aw, you have one sweet smart kid.
OTH, is sounds like his father in Kentucky hasn't realized that he isn't a little boy anymore. Though I'm guessing that his description matches your own views?
Certainly a tough situation, but at least he feels that he has a place with you and his step-dad.
Yeah, I think part of it might be parent reluctance to admit your kid is getting bigger and thinking differently than before. That's for sure. And one way to react to that is control and clamping down on the kid. I don't think I'm going to let Dante just skip a year of seeing his dad. I don't honestly think that's the smart thing to do. I might go down with him this summer for about six weeks. I have a couple of projects stewing that could allow me to put up with that godforsaken swamp for a few weeks.
I think one of the things it's done for certain is make him appreciate our parenting style. We only obsess over washing hands and brushing teeth. We're not so interested in bourgeois ideas of proper hair style or ankle socks with your Converse sneakers. I think he sees that when we put our foot down, it's (mostly) over important stuff.
That has been immensely helpful, because he goes along with it now and doesn't fight what we ask him to do -- he knows what the alternatives look like. :p
Hey,
He definitely sounds like his mum's son!
Thought I'd reply to your post. I haven't posted for a while anywhere to be honest. Too much has been going on. Suffice to say, my parents are still driving me around the bend.
To this day, they still argue that this wedding is wrong and he's not the one for me. They now claim he has hypnotised / is controlling me, and frequently ask me if I'm afraid of him, and if that's the reason I'm not breaking off the engagement.
I will post at some point about the travesty that is becoming my life. I can promise you - it is quite the tale.
In the meantime, I've been getting support from a mixed race forum which has loads of people who have dealt with situations like mine, so it's nice to get that support. I'm also starting counselling.
All jolly good fun!
Kit
:( I'm sorry to hear the battle is still raging on. I was hoping it would start to die down. Not entirely, of course, that takes time.
Sounds to me like Dante's turning out just fine. He's certainly a lot more strong-willed and sure of himself than *I* was at his age (though that wouldn't take much). I don't think you have much to worry about with him in middle school.
I'm going to have to get off my ass and post something. Much has happened since I last posted.
Yeah, I heard you brought swine flu to your new school.
That can't be proven beyond a medical certainty in a court of law.
Totally off topic to your post, but the answer is not Reagan.
I put the answers at the end of the most recent post.
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