My Letter to Boo Radley

So, if you ready my last blog "The Final Order", you know what happened on Monday.  Well, later in the day I received a few angry emails from Boo Radley. They said things like, "Stop being a victim" and "stop being miserable and trying to bring other people down with your misery."  Yikes! Wrong things to say to me buddy.

It all started when James left his last two counseling sessions early.  The first of the two was an alone session with Boo, the counselor, and him.  He felt ganged up on by the two of them, and pressured to say that he would be open to a relationship.  He also was disgusted with Boo's conversation and answers, so he left early and called me.  The next one was just him and the counselor and James was fuming mad at the dude going into it.  He left that one even earlier, walked a few blocks away, and called me to get him. So, the counselor wrote and email to Boo and I explaining that James was angry, left early, and didn't like his wording in the evaluation he wrote to the court.

I responded back to Mr. O (the counselor), and Boo, letting them all know what James was angry about and that he would be submitting a new letter to the court again requesting no visitation.  Boo didn't respond to my email until after court on Monday, and he was full of anger.  His email, like my own, was a "reply to all", but really he was speaking to Mr. O and taking side jabs at me.  He said things like "I know where James's real anger is coming from" and "I hope you help my son realize the real reason he is angry."  That kind of stuff.  He also took issue with the fact that I had called his wife and him, the Scheindlin-Radley team.  Then came more emails to me directly telling me the victim and miserable stuff.  I told him, in response to those emails (as camly as I could) that speaking to James's mother that way would not go over well for anyone and that it didn't seem like he had learned anything from James in counseling.  I also told him that I am only miserable around strangers trying to make my kid's life hard.

I had to eat a lot of anger reading these things and I felt like I had fallen down a vortex to 1996 and was listening to a teenage douche-bag with too much facial hair having a temper-tantrum because his mom wouldn't let him go out that night with his friends in that stupid orange van.  Listen, I can be as crunchy and fun as the best of them, but I now have to fight a natural reflex to pore sugar in the gas tank of any old VW Van I see.

But, I have this blog, and here is the email I wish I could write back...

Dear Boo,

I understand your comprehension skills are under-developed.  This may be from having an over-bearing mother who has a hard time keeping her mouth shut about everything, thus leaving you in a confused state where you just don't want to listen to anything for the rest of your life.  Weirdly, the old adage is true and you married someone exactly like your mother who is willing to translate for you for the rest of her life (or until a divorce) as well as loyally pep-talk you even when you are a bad boy. 

So, I understand that having your hand slapped by the court is tough for you.  I also realize that listening to a woman (me) tell you that you have been a bad boy is not something you usually deal with.   And having a child, who you deserted, start to dislike you and then when you reappear, not immediately fall in love with your jovial cave-man disposition, is frightening.  I'm sorry that he gets his serious, hard side from me along with his ability to use logic.  You can blame me for all of his excellent personality qualities.

What you can't blame me for is your own actions.  You didn't want to have a baby that young and either did I.  But you were/are dealing with serious personality deficiencies that made you turn your back on a sweet new-born baby boy and continue to party on in that god-forsaken orange van with your team of idiots ("Woo-Hoo! Boo is so fun! Who cares if he's a deadbeat with a baby living less than a mile away.  Let's get another 6 pack!).  That baby did nothing to you and did not deserve to be ignored or forgotten in a drunken stupor.  You want to be angry at me for keeping the child, fine.  But that's where the anger should have stopped, and the care of a child should have started.

And then it was off to college 3 or 4 hours away.  It's always good to put some distance and time between yourself and your problems.  It gives you clarity, or at least the ability to get drunk more.  Then college ended, that problem was 5 or 6 years old, and his mother filed for government benefits.  Jesus Christ! (oops, I hope Joe and Sue Radley didn't hear you say that, having a dead-beat son does not hurt their Christian sensibilities, but cursing surely does). You had to drag yourself to domestic relations and look at the face of a woman you had tried to forget about as you threw up in a frat house toilette. Ah, good times, good times.  So, you fought child support saying that James had a man taking care of him (my David) so why should you have to pay anything?  You know what? You were right.  I just needed a little help and the state wasn't going to help unless you did, sorry to bring you into all of this.

Well, since I settled with you because I didn't want to fight, and you had to pay less than $100 a month for child support (something that I never had increased for 10 years even though your income went up substantially), you decided you might as well get your money's worth and see the kid every once in a while, on sporadic occasions, and usually just dump him with your parents.  But that kid already had bonded with a father, and you were a weird annoyance to his day every so often.  So, when James turned 11 he had had enough of you showing up once in a while and whatever weird activities you tried to get him to do - trying to goad him into jumping off a 9 ft. wall? Not the best activity for a naturally cautious child.  He told me he didn't want to see you or your parents anymore. 

I took the blame for James's decisions to shield him from whatever anger would come our way.  Most of it came from your parents, but that's to be expected.  So, you went away for a while and we lived peacefully for years until you got married to Judy Scheindlin and filed those court papers last July.

Well, the kid doesn't like you, doesn't need you, and doesn't want to spend time with you.  I know it's hard to imagine after years of people telling you how fun and awesome you are, that someone would not think that you are valuable.  But you let that kid bond to another man who turned out to be an excellent father.  So then James is left with two men... one who has been in and out of his life and is weirdly immature and another man - kind, responsible, smart, naturally good hearted, and sometimes a serious discipliner ... everything a kid thinks a father should be.  And this man has been in his life daily - teaching him to tie his shoes, coaching his baseball and football teams, tying his ties, giving him his baths when he was little, coming to school events, working and supporting his family.  Who the hell do you think he's going to value in his life?

I'm going to be honest here.  Your personality is so weird, immature, and selfish that this kid does not even want to have lunch with you now and then.  He's seen for himself now.  He's done the counseling with you and it has just frustrated him more about you... because it's right there, in front of him.  You're badness is smacking him right in the face.

I don't have to say anything Boo.  Your life has said more than I could ever say.  You may continue to live blissfully ignorant of this, continuously shielded by embarrassing women who ignore your bad traits and pump your ego.  That is a sad thing indeed.  Or one day, when the people you surround yourself with start to fall away, and you are left looking at yourself in the mirror, you will see what James sees.  And that will be a hard day for you.

As always,

My children's devoted mother and biggest champion