My sister is incredible. She's taken her taken her God given rights as woman and done what she wants with them and in the end she will get the finish line of woman-hood having had a slice of it all. She is college graduate and worked as an accountant in NYC and/or Newark when she met my brother-in-law, got married and had her first child. From then on, for the last 20 years or so, she's been a stay at home mom. Now her youngest of three children is a freshman in high school and my sister has started classes in graduate school for a Masters in Counseling. She gave up her career early (probably around age 26) and was there before and after school for three kids, was home-room mom, and volunteered in the cafeteria and library, she made it to sporting events and even coached tennis. She was there even through the teenage years when her kids probably didn't appreciate it and would have preferred a working mom. She ate the slice of the stay-at-home mom part of the woman pie (pie would work so much better if wasn't also funny) and it was delicious. Now, as her youngest is matriculating towards adulthood, she is preparing to re-enter the workforce. She's only in her 40's and has plenty of career woman years ahead of her. I am so proud of her.
This weekend was my dad's 70th birthday party and we were all together. I was expressing my feelings about my over-involved parents and my sister was asking me questions about it. Half-way through I realized that I was in the middle of a counseling session with her. She was using her new skills to evaluate and help me think of the situation in a new way. It was funny once I realized what was going on and at the end I thanked her for the session. She quipped back that she'd mail me a bill. Truth be told, I am burned out on counseling as of late...
Boo Radley wasn't always the enemy. As of late he has become one. But, in the beginning and for many years afterwards he was pretty much a nothing. When I was 16 I loved him as much as a 16 year old can love. Now I know that my ability to love at 16 isn't even a decimal of my ability to love at 33. This is one of the strongest reasons why teenagers shouldn't have sex. I remember watching that Scott Baio reality show a few years back (I admit, I loved it). It was basically him struggling to come to terms with his relationship and his impeding fatherhood. At the end he went and visited his home Catholic parish in NYC. There a nun told him, "The greatest gift you can give your children is to love their mother". At 16 the capacity to love anyone other than yourself is so insignificant, that the consequences and feelings resulting from sex can be disastrous. Please kids, for the love of God (or in your case yourselves), please wait to have sex even if contraception is not an issue.
Quickly, any love I had for Boo Radley turned to disgust when I was pregnant. My ability to love was growing faster and more complex with each beat of my new baby's heart inside of me. It made the teenage selfishness around me hard to swallow. I recently found a letter that Boo's parents wrote to me. The were/are super Christian-y in that annoying protestant kumbaya sort-of way. But as sadly happens sometimes with those that claim to be in Jesus's inner circle, their support and patience only lasted as long as things were going the way that Jesus told them it should. The letter they wrote to me sounded very much like a letter that fundamental Christians would write to a gay teenager. It was all about praying to God to help me make the "right" decision and that God didn't want me to keep the baby, and that if I prayed God would show me the way. "Jesus Christ!" I thought, re-reading the letter in adulthood. These fuckers ditched me the second that God told me something different than they thought he should. And they probably think it was my fault. I probably didn't listen hard enough or I twisted his words. Whatever it was, my relationship with God wasn't strong enough and now I am the day to day mother of an excellent young man... and he was an alter boy! Who has Jesus in their corner now, Radley's?
Well, since I didn't listen to Jesus, Boo has been a non-issue in my life. I met my husband at 18, and he being 9 years my senior, had a more mature heart than I did. At 18, I loved him as much as I could at 18, which still wasn't as much as at 25, and now at 33, I feel like the greatness and complexity of my love for my husband is amazingly more than even at 25. But all of this wouldn't have been possible if he hadn't loved me with a heart so much more ready for it. His love was like a giant safety net catching and bouncing me be back up. I grew strong and complete under his love, and when he quickly loved my child as unconditionally as any father, it was the greatest love story of the ages. Boo Radley was a distant memory, a non-issue....until....
Until the end of January, when I was sitting next to him on a couch across from a counselor. This was session number 1 of court-ordered counseling, and I was so nervous I almost threw up on the way there. I have tell you how I felt, and when I told this very thing to the counselor during the session, his expression darkened and he asked, "Can you think of a different way to say that?", "No I can't.", I replied honestly. I felt insulted to be in counseling with Boo Radley. It insulted my motherhood, my parenting, and my family. I felt like I was being forced to make something out of nothing. I have had little to no relationship with Boo... no conflicts, little communication, just nothingness. And here I was with him and a counselor to talk about what? He hasn't been a parent and I had to sit there and act like he was my equal? Insulting.
I get this type of counseling for two people who have had a relationship, it failed, and now they need to learn how to co-parent. These are usually at the very least two moderately involved parents that just need to work out the kinks and bad feelings that are preventing them from presenting a dual force to their children. My in-laws could have made good use of this... then maybe 30 yrs out of a divorce my MIL wouldn't get mad seeing her kids tagged in pictures looking happy with their father and my FIL wouldn't act like he was the one screwed around on every time he gets the shaft on a holiday and their kids wouldn't act so peculiarly protective and insecure about their childhood nuclear family. But I'm getting off track.
The term, "co-parenting" gets thrown around a lot in these sessions. I'm like, "Uh, I have a co-parent, he's at home taking care of our three children while I sit here and humor this stranger I'm sitting next to." And let me tell you, Boo's answer's and statements were painfully scripted. It was like his attorney/wife sat down prepped him. This just made me feel even more frustrated. They were like interview answers, it was everything you are supposed to say, while I'm in there saying stuff that even gets the counselor a little flustered. At one point I said that Boo wasn't a parent. Boo finally got a little heated and said, "Yes, I am!" like a third grader in a verbal altercation on the playground. I said, "No your not, your just some guy I had sex with when I was 16." I could see this statement slowly sinking in, and saw a mixture of anger, surprise, and maybe hurt settling in his eyes. I quickly looked away. I have a tendency to easily fall into the trap of feeling sorry for people and Boo wasn't getting that from me, he already had his wife and his mom wiping his ass for him.
Session number two quickly repaired any pity I might have felt, because this time Boo got a little deep and admitted that he felt no guilt about his relationship (or lack of) with James. "WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!" Every primal ounce of motherhood screamed inside my head. I could feel the blood rushing in my veins and every hair on my body stood on end. The counselor looked at me so fast as Boo spoke these words of blasphemy that I thought he would get whip-lash and even the Blessed Mother Mary herself came down and put her hands on my shoulders and whispered in my ear, "Be still child, but if you want to run him over later in the parking lot, I will make sure God isn't watching."
Session three was the most interesting. Boo had gotten bored of talking about his lack-luster history and came with a game plan for our supposed parenting future (I threw up a little in my mouth just writing that). I however, wasn't quite sure he was "getting it". I asked him what he thought James was mad about, like, why does he think James doesn't want to see him? He honestly couldn't come up with an answer, even with encouragement from the counselor, who said, "Yes, that's a good question because it takes a lot for a person to not want to see someone." The only thing he could suppose was that I was bad-mouthing him to James. This made my head spin. Really? That's all you can come up with? You don't see anything else? Let's say I was bad mouthing you - between the reader and I, I honestly don't have the time or energy for bad-mouthing Boo. In fact, I would have considered even thinking about him beneath me. But that's it? That's the only thing? It's not the lack of involvement or support? It's not seeing two parents sacrifice and love while a third party does what he wants? Its not that he might feel pain for his teenage mother or his abandoned infant self? It's not the occasional Christmas card signed, "From, Boo" instead of "Love, Dad"? You can't think that any of that might leave a teenager a little bit put-off? I told Boo all of this... and he said, "This is all new to me, you are showing me myself in a way that I haven't seen myself before". OM-fucking-G.
So, Mid-March we have a session with James, Mom and Boo Radley, while Dad is home taking care of the other kids. Good times, good times. Boo is reluctant to talk about why he abandoned him when he was born. He suddenly is worried about hurting James, "But won't my answer hurt him?". Great, now he grows a conscience. I told him he better just be honest because James already knows the bad answer in his head and if Boo comes up with anything else that kid will walk right out of there. This is unsettling to Boo, I mean, who wants to do something hard, right? The counselor suggested that Boo come up with a good way to say it and then maybe run it by me on the phone. My jaw must have hit the floor because the counselor looked slightly amused. Can't this joker do anything by himself? Now I have to be in charge of helping him come up with some good answers? Instead I suggested he could just run it by his attorney one night after dinner, after all I am being sued over this.
Keep us in your thoughts, prayers and good humor... after all, "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?"
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