Learning to be clear

I felt it wise this afternoon to remind the kids that while we are gone, there will be no spur of the moment parties, no "but we're just hanging out," and no blaringly loud music.

They looked at each other, then at their grandfather, and Alex said He's probably the one you need to say that to.

And he was right. So I told Brad there would be no parties, no hanging out, no loud music.

He's still pouting.

We have calm, sort of

We have achieved a level of calm on the school front; Kevin is happy enough in his new class and the teasing has abated. This is mostly owed, I think, to the dawning realization on the part of his former homeroom classmates that their teacher is the sort who has to have someone to pick on, and now one of them is about to become her target. Instead of feeling vindicated, he worries mostly that whomever winds up in her sights won't have the support that he did, and her tyranny will continue without interference. He's probably right; she's not new to teaching and likely has a pattern of abuse that rides the line between being distasteful and worthy of being fired. She doesn't have tenure, but she's still there, making young lives miserable.

Rachel still isn't happy because she's lonely and doesn't quite fit in with the kids who are making an effort to be friendly; she grasps that the age difference right now is too much; they're all 17 and 18, and she's 13. She understands that they're being nice, but those friendships don't extend beyond lunch hour. She really only seems to come alive once she's home and is on the phone with her friends, or if they're hanging around here. We've been waffling on what to do for her; she desperately wants us to pull her out of school now and let her attend public school with her friends, but we think that this is important for her to face, at least for a little while. It's painful but it's not fatal, and we will address it further in a few weeks. We have options for her, and if she doesn't begin making friends, we'll do something more.

This isn't an emergency for her; she's not being threatened, her education isn't in peril. She's simply unhappy and lonely, and while we hate seeing her like this, it isn't something over which we need to leap into action.

The main concern we have is that while we're gone, all the kids will be safe where they are. Alex is doing just fine with his schedule and is doing well, so we're not terribly worried about him, and I'm confident Brad can handle any issues that come up with Rachel or Kevin.

The wedding is in a week, and while we're all looking forward to it, I also think we'll be glad when it's over. Peter and Nika will leave on their honeymoon Thursday night and Char and I will follow on Saturday. In spite of my initial reservations about going on their honeymoon, after the summer we had (very enjoyable, but extremely busy) and the stresses the kids' school has imposed lately, I think we're going to relish the time away.

Oh, and for the record, I can passably understand a few different languages, but that doesn't mean I also speak them with any appreciable skill, and I certainly can't read or write anything other than English. If you find me online using something other than English, I'm using Google Translator.

File this under things I SHOULD know about my husband

Last night we went to my dad's bar to hang around for a little while; TK was bringing his new girlfriend and he wanted us to meet her. He knows better than to make it seem like he was seeing if she passed muster, though I think that's part of it. He's had a few girlfriends over the past couple of years that neither of us could stand (but we did honestly try) and that makes it a little uncomfortable when you're trying to hang out with a friend.

Everything was going quite nicely; she was personable and warm, though there was a little bit of a language barrier because English is not her first language and she doesn't understand some idioms. TK thinks it's cute. I thought she was funny and friendly, and that she was someone we could all get along with.

Then her cell phone rang and TK said she needed to take the call, because she was expecting one from her brother. She started to excuse herself from the table but Ian waved it off and said he didn't mind. So she took the call there, and as she spoke to her brother in French, I realized Ian's eyes had squinted just a tiny bit and then he was mostly expressionless. She only spoke on the phone for a minute or so before she hung up, and when she did Ian got up, reached for my hand, and said, "It was nice to meet you. I'm sorry you don't feel the same way, so we'll call it a night now and leave you two alone."

I was speechless and had no idea what was going on, and neither did TK, who started to follow us to the door with a "what the hell?" look on his face.

"She said," Ian told him, "that she couldn't beleive she was stuck in such a wretched bar with your idiot friends, and she couldn't wait to get out of here."

Now, here is where I should have been offended, but the only thing I thought was, "How did you understand that?"

You would think that after all these years I would have known that he can speak French. I didn't have a clue. And on the drive home I learned that he speaks a couple other languages; he can't read them, necessarily, but he can understand and speak them passibly.

I shouldn't be surprised, because his job used to take him all over the world and he needed to be able to understand what was going on around him, but I had no clue.

And now I wonder what else I don't know about him, and how I can figure it out. I think that's one of the things I like, that he can still surprise me once in a while.

Don't let her fool you--

--she didn't just get up out of her chair in the principal's office, she had to be restrained from twisting Barbie's little Play-do head off.

There's no protecting them enough

Over a week ago we "requested" that Kevin be moved to a different teacher's class, a request that's been pretty much shoved aside. Ian has been on it every day, getting excuse after excuse, mostly in the vein of "there's no space in the other classes," and "we have to find another student willing to switch." Which we both find to be total BS. Kevin assured us he could handle things until it happened, but we got a phone call yesterday morning from the principal, because Kevin refused to return to class after the mid-morning break. He didn't just refuse to go back to class, he went to the principal's office on his own and told her he would just wait there until she found him another teacher.

Fortunately, she has a sense of humor and does seem to get him. (She's also not the person Ian's been dealing with on this, but that's really neither here nor there.) The end result was us in her office with Kevin, and us all having to face down his teacher. The problem of the day wasn't so much that she's spent the week giving him grief, but that his classmates have taken her obvious opinion about him as permission to pick on him, and she's not doing anything to stop it. That part of it, we weren't aware of until we were sitting there listening to Kevin pour his heart out.

But before his teacher could counter, Ian held up his hand to stop her and asked Kevin quietly, "Why does it bother you if your classmates think that you're gay? Whether you are or not doesn't even matter, and their labeling you would only matter if being gay was offensive. It's not."

This is where Kevin gave us a major, major lesson in not only parenting, but political correctness. He was already upset, and everything that had been thrown at him and boiling in him was painted on his face in a red flush and I could tell he was straining to not cry. All I wanted was to pick him up and take him out of there, but I knew for one Ian wouldn't have let that happen, and that Kevin needed to get this out. And I'm paraphrasing his and Ian's conversation here, for the most part, but it's 99% on the mark.

"How would you like it if everyone started saying you were German?" he asked Ian. "You know you're Irish, but everyone keeps saying how German you are,"

"I think it would be puzzling at first and then annoying. But there's nothing wrong with being German, either, Kevin."

"But then what if they started saying it like it was wrong? And then they started calling you a 'kraut' or 'Jew baby killer?' There's nothing wrong with being German but it's wrong to call anyone those names. There's nothing offensive about being gay but when everyone is laughing at you and calling you queer and a fag, that's offensive."

Quietly, and just to Kevin, Ian said, "Yes, it is. Said like that, it's very offensive."

I think at that Kevin started to relax because he knew he had made his point to us and we knew just how upset he really was, but then his teacher opened her mouth and said, "Kevin, we just don't want you to go to hell."

I was out of my chair, Ian twitched towards her, but it was Kevin who exploded. "I'm not going to hell, because God's not as mean as you are."

I don't know what she was going to say to that, but when her mouth opened again Ian told her to shut it, because every word that came out of her was only fodder for a lawsuit; the principal asked her to leave, probably because what she worries about the most isn't that we'll sue, but that we really will pull our kids out of the school, and along with it the tuition we pay for all three kids and all those checks Ian writes throughout the year to support different activities. After some quieter discussion with Kevin about the things that have been going on in his classroom and the taunts he's been putting up with, she suggested we take him home for the rest of the day and that he would have a new teacher in the morning.

After Ian picked up Alex and Rachel later in the day, we got a phone call from the new teacher, who specifically asked to speak to him; she wanted to tell him how excited she was to have him in her class and that she was looking forward to seeing him in the morning. Ian and I relaxed somewhat because she was Rachel's home room teacher in 6th grade and Rachel loved having her, and we got along with her. Kevin had been very tense all day and relaxed quite a bit after that phone call, but he still wasn't looking forward to school today.

We dropped the kids off a little early this morning (he didn't want either of us to go speak with his new teacher yet) and Rachel went with him to introduce him to her old teacher. This afternoon he was obviously relieved, and asked if he could go to dance class today (he's missed several because he just hasn't felt like it.) Ian took him, and sat in the waiting area with other parents and some little girls, including Elizabeth, who were waiting to get onto the floor while the teacher went over some new steps with Kevin. The girls were watching him and talking about what had happened at school. Ian says he tried to mostly ignore it, because kids are going to talk, and he wasn't worried about what these particular kids were saying about Kevin, but just before the teacher gestured for girls to come onto the floor, he overheard Elizabeth say, "Well, he doesn't kiss like he's gay."

Ian was amused, but made sure he didn't let them know he had heard that.

The thing is, we know this isn't over. Kevin can relax a little bit, but he still has to face many of the same kids and all of the garbage they now think is fine to throw at him. We also know that we can't protect him from all of it, and that we shouldn't protect him from all of it, but right now, he's still just a little boy. We're not at all certain keeping him in this school is a good idea and we're exploring the options available for both him and Rachel. If he was 5 or 6 years older, I think we would encourage him to face this head on, but right now he's too young and the damage would be too far reaching.

But he really did stand up for himself in the principal's office yesterday, and even if it sounds like he was snotty, we're proud of him. He understands the difference between what someone is and what people say about it, and he understands fairness.

UndrMeanie

Since the accident over a year ago, I've gained around 25 pounds, and none of it is muscle. This wouldn't be half as annoying as it is, but I'm married to a man who can pound back 3,000 calories a day and not gain a thing, or if he does gain it's all muscle. Now, he knows better than to point out the obvious to me, like get back to the dojang or put in a little more effort at the gym. Or even spend more time in the pool. When I complain about it, once in a while I see his eyebrow arch and I know he's thinking those things, but he usually keeps it to himself. Sometimes, things slip out.

My sister and I are both sweating out fitting into our dresses for her wedding. I know I've gained a few pounds since I bought mine and she says she probably has. A couple of days ago we made the mistake of commiserating with each other in front of Ian and Peter, and Ian off-handedly said, "Well, then put down the cupcakes." (For the record, we had cookies in front of us but I swear we weren't eating them!) He accepted being called a few choice names, and I thought that was the end of it.

But no, yesterday I got home from picking the kids up and what had he done? He made cupcakes! He swears it was a coincidence, but I think we all know better. He's just a little shit.

Time in a broken bottle

We're giving serious thought to finding a new school for the kids. Several of their friends are already gone, their parents moving them from this parochial setting to either public schools or charter schools; between the transportation headaches for Alex, Rachel not giving a damn one way one the other about school in general, and Kevin having a teacher so homophobic that she's hell bent on forcing her own warped version of what a man is on him, we're questioning the value of keeping them there.

The dissatisfaction has grown from a small kernal of wondering what the hell was starting to happen over the last few years to full blown, WTF this year. The level of education has been above acceptable, that level has been how we've justified the expense, but how the kids are being treated, and how they feel in the current school climate is what bothers us so much. We can deal with Alex having to be carted around all day in order to get his classes in; technically at the end of this semester he can apply to graduate. He has all the credits he needs and will have all the required classes. We've encouraged him to stay in order to have the full high school experience with his friends, but as his friends trickle out the door there are fewer reasons for him to remain there. Half of his friends are doing what he's doing: three classes at the high school in the morning, then being picked up and taken to the community college for the rest of their classes. The other half of his circle of friends is comprised of kids who have left in favor of public school, and a few who are there because their parents are either ultra-Catholic and approve of the climate change, or they're on scholarship and don't want to lose that. He doesn't seem to think it matters particularly what he does; his friends, for the most part, live nearby and if we allow him to graduate he won't lose his social circle. Some of the other things we worry about on his behalf, things like the experience of going to the prom, he says he'll still have. Even if he leaves, he can still go to those things with his girlfriend.

Rachel simply doesn't seem to care about school this year. Most of her friends left over the school year; a few moved, most are now in the public school, but the former friend reminding her day in and day out of how much her life sucks is the little shithead who broke her heart over the summer. She's a personable kid and usually has no trouble making new friends, but the joy of everything seem to have been sucked right out of it for her and she's not even trying. The one person who seems to be looking out for her after Alex leaves campus is, surprisingly, Damien. Yes, that Damien (this is a kid who has changed so much he really isn't the same person anymore.) Kevin says that no matter where Rachel hides in the cafeteria at lunch, or if she's at a bench outside, Damien and his girlfriend find her and sit with her, so she's not alone. But she is adrift.

Kevin, though, has the worst of it this year. This is the first year of junior high, an introductory year, which helps; the sixth grade kids have half a day with one teacher, and then they move between three classes with other teachers. His homeroom teacher, the one he is stuck with most of the day, has decided that Kevin is too effeminate and that it's her lot on life to get him to man up. Her words. "Man up." Without going into specifics, partly to protect him and partly because there very well may be legal remedy involved, she is embracing the Catholic line and seems to believe that her job and his soul depend on getting him to become just another testosterone laden pubescent drone. He was uncertain about her on the first day of school, less certain the second, and distraught by the third. I've already engaged in two discussions with her and another with the school principal, but I don't see her behaviors changing any more than I expect Kevin's to change.

He's had in-school suspension once so far, the school year only a couple of weeks old, for being overheard grumbling, "I'm not gay but you're a royal bitch."

The easy answer is to have him switch classes, and that's likely what will happen. But until that can be facilitated, he's stuck with a teacher who has made up her mind about him in an unfavorable light, judging him for who she thinks he might be and not who he definitely is. She doesn't accept my insistence that he is not old enough to really know who he is and that he should have the support and tolerance of the adults around him while he figures it out, nor does she agree that whatever he might be should be accepted regardless. We must, she seems to think, "pray for him." Unspoken: pray the gay away.

This may be our breaking point.

Alex is ready to move on, Rachel wants to be with her friends, and if the school refuses to support me on Kevin's issues--the likely scenario is that we'll move the kids to other schools. It would be the first time they haven't all attended the same campus, and the first time they haven't had each other to turn to at school.

We are having dinner with Elizabeth's parents tomorrow, because they have many of the same concerns as we do and many of the same questions, and as close as she and Kevin are, if she leaves for a public school, it might be better for his sake if he does as well.

Eventually, I think it's inevitable; it really comes down to when.