THE YEAR THAT CHANGED OUR LIVES

THE YEAR THAT CHANGED OUR LIVES Part One Like most people I knew when my children were little, I was socialized that in August of the year after each turned five it was time to ceremoniously deposit my babies on a yellow school bus. Along with new clothes, new shoes, and a first-day-of-school picture wearing the also-newly-purchased backpack full of required supplies, there was little other fanfare…well, beside my tears to mark the occasion. But that didn’t seem to matter. The state of Texas told me that I was required to enroll them in school. Sending those little tikes away was so difficult. I felt like someone had ripped my babies out of my arms, as if they were being taken away from me. It was as if I was handing over my children to a stranger for them to raise. Yet, at the same time, I admit I looked forward to it…because (said with a bit of an embarrassed look on my face) I no longer had to pay day care! At the time I couldn’t figure out what the big dilemma was…and why each successive child starting school felt so traumatic for me. After all, I was working full time. My kids would be safe, and now their youthful minds would be nourished and educated. At least part of me trusted that the “experts” had my children’s best interest at heart …or maybe I just hoped that would be the case…that’s what I was promised anyway. Who was I, after all, to worry? I wasn’t a trained educator…I was just a Mom. It absolutely breaks my heart to share with you that my children, especially Adam, weren’t safe, either in body or spirit. Have you ever been around a group of kids whose thrill, it seems, is to tease, torture and humiliate, pick, poke and prod? As it turns out, Adam’s class was particularly vicious…and somewhere along the way my son ended up at the bottom of the feeding chain. I know now that Adam had endured mind-numbing teasing, bullying, and painfully intentional exclusion since Kindergarten. What I don’t understand is how I could have missed such a thing…especially something profound enough that it would end up changing my entire life. The 1999-2000 school year had been a busy one. Guy was a senior and Adam an eighth grader. Ryan was in the sixth grade and Joshua in the fifth. I kept thinking that it should have been a wonderful time in my life…but all was not well. That year Adam had born the brunt of half a dozen incidents of increasing cruelty…and always in the locker room while it was unattended by an adult. One event stands out in my memory: the day when some boys sprayed his clothes with antiperspirant. For other kids this might have been a minor annoyance but Adam was…and is…allergic to the aerosol. Bless his heart, he wore those clothes all day and by the time he got home he was miserable. There were welts all over his torso. I was madder than an old wet hen. I took him to the doctor the next day where I learned that my son also had his first case of poison ivy. We know now that a couple of days earlier the boys had been helping my father burn a fencerow that must have had the stuff all over it. Combine the effects of the new plant allergy with his sensitivity to aerosol and you get one itchy kid. Because of the dual reaction, it ended up taking a whole week, two trips to the doctor, every lotion known to man, one shot and a round of steroids to get him back to school. I went to visit the principal after Adam admitted that this kind of stuff had been going on all year, usually in the unintended locker room and in the hallway. Mr. Taylor, then principal, who I still like and respect, gave me the straight stuff. He didn’t know what to do with Adam’s class…nothing seemed to work. Albert talked to the parents of a couple of the boys who had been involved but got no response…well, we did have one Dad tell us “Aw, hell, boys‘ll be boys.” I don’t remember what happened to the kids who sprayed Adam’s clothing, if anything. I just know that going to Mr. Taylor seemed to accelerate the mischief…just like Adam told me it would. I bet I went to the school half a dozen more times that school year…but with the only effect that the kids seemed to delight ever more in torturing Adam. It also made the perpetrators sneaky. Things finally came to a head in April of 2000 when six boys planned and executed an attack. This time it happened after lunch on an unattended stretch of sidewalk between the sixth grade and the middle school buildings. Four boys stood watch while two more jumped Adam whose head must have hit the sidewalk pretty hard because he doesn’t have any memory of what happened next. Witnesses say, though, that my burly son rolled the two boys over and started pounding them. Evidently, it was at this point when another kid ran over and broke it up, but not before Adam got in a couple of sound punches. I guess they forgot that Adam has three brothers who come complete with years of wrestling matches on the floor! In one of those calls every mom dreads, I listened, horrified as someone from the school explained that there had been a fight. In shock I drove to school and picked Adam up with the intention of never taking him back. The next few days are a blur. I completely shut down emotionally. My memories consist mostly of Albert being VERY angry and several conversations with Mr. Taylor. I also remember driving Adam to a field trip that he’d earned in Lewisville. At some point during the week, I learned that the attack had been cold, calculated and well planned. It was as if the boys were playing a video game with real, live bait. I talked repeatedly with Mr. Taylor in an attempt to figure out what we should do, bringing up the subject of homeschooling nearly every time, especially since I thought that I had to have the blessing of the public school system to be able to teach my kids at home (I’ve learned a great deal since). It was in one of those conversations that he honestly shared (but only after I asked) that he could no longer assure us of Adam’s safety at school. The two boys who assaulted Adam were given a few days of ISS (In School Suspension), then were sent back to class to some kind of cult hero status. The four who were guarding for them got no punishment at all. To add to our disappointment, the police in the city where that school is located REFUSED to let us file charges against any of Adam’s attackers. I felt SO betrayed…after all this wasn’t a huge, anonymous school district. This was the place where I had been educated all twelve years. Where my parents attended. Geez, my family had lived in the community for over a hundred years! And sadly, it’s one of those small, “exemplary” school districts that people sell their homes in the city to move to. During the ensuing weeks, something inside me broke. My sense of disillusionment was overwhelming. I felt betrayed…after all I’d been taught to believe that I should blindly turn my children over to the established school system. I’d also been convinced that they knew more than I ever could about educating my children. I can’t tell you how difficult it is for me to admit that the trust I had in our school was damaged beyond repair. But most of all I felt like a terrible Mom…even though I’d done everything I thought I was supposed to, I hadn’t been able to protect my son. We kept Adam out of school for a week; I packed up his books and brought them home with the intention of homeschooling him for the rest of the year. But in one of those pride-filled-moments a Mom sometimes experiences, Adam decided that he had put up with the harassment for that many years, he could make it for six more weeks so that he could participate in my alma matter’s much-anticipated, traditional eighth-grade graduation. I wish I could say that those weeks flew by quickly without incident, but there ended up being one more fight. I don’t remember a lot of the details anymore (thankfully) but again it happened in an unattended classroom. I also remember being so proud of Adam for taking up for himself. At the time I didn’t care if fighting was against the rules I’d spent so many previous years trying to support…sometimes a boy has to strike back! As I began the retelling of this story several months ago, I realized that this was the first time I’d ever attempted to write about it. I found myself overwhelmed by such deep emotion that it absolutely took my breath. My inclination was to beat myself up (for the umpteenth time) for not having been a better Mom, for not recognizing the signs earlier. In the years since I’ve had many a mental boxing match for missing what seem now to be obvious clues to how dysfunctional the situation was. But as the tumultuous feelings raced around my head and my heart, I found myself beginning to make order out of my internal chaos. I had to. Well maybe I didn’t have to, but I wanted to, especially since I couldn't help my son heal if I didn't. As I began organizing the events of that school year in my mind to put them to print, I found myself beginning to give structure to the mental chatter, and in doing so, ended up finding forgiveness. I am finally finding peace about the painful end to my trust in a long established system. Maybe I didn’t fail my beloved son after all. Maybe, to loosely quote Maya Angelou, when I was young I did what I knew how to do… but when I knew better, I did better. Especially since that difficult time has ended up being another of God’s unexpected gifts! Jackie Copyright 2004 by Jackie Zimmerer