NoFoolPrice
09-20-2003, 04:20 PM
I put my firstborn on a plane bound 15000 miles east this morning. He started to cry when we said goodbye, the first time I have seen his tears since he was a little boy. He turns 18 in a few weeks and I am afraid I have failed him. He didn’t finish high school, this would be his senior year, he made it through his junior year with far too few credits to graduate this year. I signed him up at continuation school a couple weeks ago, but the school is awful and I knew that he would just be a body sitting there, he would have been miserable and not learning a thing. He’s moving in with my mom in a small Midwestern town, they have both promised to sign him up for GED classes first thing and another relative has a job lined up for him that could be a start to a career.
We had a tough childbirth – he should have been caesarean, it was 27 hours of hard labor and he was stressed all that time. He was a gorgeous baby and very healthy but he seemed slow in developing motor skills and cried a lot. When he was two, I went back to work and left him with a wonderful woman that had a Masters in child development and ran a small day care center in her home. She took me aside one day and suggested I have him tested for cerebral palsy. Of course I did, cerebral palsy and AHD and full physical and all. All we found was a speech deficiency, which he saw a therapist for a year for and overcame. After our beloved child care-giver retired, I enrolled him in a very respected and academic pre-school at age five, then he began public school at six. I dreamed of the day I would send him off to some Ivy League college. I quit high school in my senior year, I recently returned and, at middle age, earned my AA with Honors, I’m continuing on to earn my BA. I’m so humbled and thrilled to attend school, I can’t begin to tell you what an honor it is, and I want the same for my children (12 year old Dot, too).
Homework was always difficult for DS and ended up in tears, more often me than him. It was just so frustrating for him and no matter how I explained things, he just didn’t understand. He was pretty good at English, and like me, math just blew him out of the water. We tried to get him involved in activities – Little League, church, judo – but he just got frustrated so easily or lost interest. It’s funny though, I can see the phases he went through – Sesame Street, hot wheels cars, baseball, WWF wrestling, skateboarding, Kurt Cobain – then all of a sudden he became this strapping handsome young man with size 11 shoes. And I do mean handsome, I know we all think our children are gorgeous, but DS is really a good looking guy. The phone started ringing off the hook with calls from cute little blondes around the time he turned 10. He fell in love a couple of years ago and I ached for him when they broke up early this summer. Traditional school here just no longer seems to be the answer for him and when he turns 18 in a few weeks he’s outta there anyways.
He’s a good boy, he knows right from wrong and was only in trouble once – for stealing a soda from the school cafeteria. He has a kind heart, he loves animals and kids and can be a real charmer. He does have a sense of privacy, there are some things mom doesn’t need to know, but we have always been pretty open with each other. I made sure he had condoms available and had compassion for others and tried to answer all his questions honestly. He has an almost British sense of humor that I get a huge kick from.
DS isn’t happy here, it’s Southern California and it’s smoggy and crowded. Our area is the Inland Empire, known as the speed capital of the US. In some ways, I feel grateful to have gotten him this far without him getting shot. My son loves the Midwest and has talked about going back since he spent a summer there with Nana when he was 12. Although he was born here, he is not a California boy, me too, farmgirl is in my blood.
My mom is raising a granddaughter and retired recently from daycare, she asked for him to come stay with her. She said “If I can’t do something for my grandkids, what can I do?” Although I disagreed at the beginning, I still wanted to somehow force him through high school, I had to listen to what he wanted and accept the fact that I cannot push him to a high school diploma.
So as I have been writing this his plane landed, he called me from cell phone, he had a good flight and was greeted with welcoming arms. He was so worried about them losing his luggage, but it all made it fine and it’s just amazing how the view from the plane turns so green down below!
Dot is raring to move into his room. She is almost 13 and we have shared a room for 4 years, we both hate it! I keep wandering into DS room and sitting on his bed and looking at his posters and stickers everywhere, but his room seems empty, there is actually carpet underneath and the bed is made! I went to the grocery store and his favorite things were on sale but he wasn’t here to eat them. I noticed he forgot his contact lens solution so I ordered some online to be sent to him.
I’d like to say that I did the best I could, but I can’t say that in good conscience. I was not a soccer mom, I divorced when he was 8 and he did not have a Donna Reed childhood. I have to admit that the last couple of years when I was forced to choose between doing my homework or fighting him to do his, I often chose to do mine instead.
I pray that the right decision was made when I put him on that plane today. It just feels odd, after 18 years it’s “poof,” he’s gone!
Anyone that has read this far is a tribute to patience and empathy, thank you!
We had a tough childbirth – he should have been caesarean, it was 27 hours of hard labor and he was stressed all that time. He was a gorgeous baby and very healthy but he seemed slow in developing motor skills and cried a lot. When he was two, I went back to work and left him with a wonderful woman that had a Masters in child development and ran a small day care center in her home. She took me aside one day and suggested I have him tested for cerebral palsy. Of course I did, cerebral palsy and AHD and full physical and all. All we found was a speech deficiency, which he saw a therapist for a year for and overcame. After our beloved child care-giver retired, I enrolled him in a very respected and academic pre-school at age five, then he began public school at six. I dreamed of the day I would send him off to some Ivy League college. I quit high school in my senior year, I recently returned and, at middle age, earned my AA with Honors, I’m continuing on to earn my BA. I’m so humbled and thrilled to attend school, I can’t begin to tell you what an honor it is, and I want the same for my children (12 year old Dot, too).
Homework was always difficult for DS and ended up in tears, more often me than him. It was just so frustrating for him and no matter how I explained things, he just didn’t understand. He was pretty good at English, and like me, math just blew him out of the water. We tried to get him involved in activities – Little League, church, judo – but he just got frustrated so easily or lost interest. It’s funny though, I can see the phases he went through – Sesame Street, hot wheels cars, baseball, WWF wrestling, skateboarding, Kurt Cobain – then all of a sudden he became this strapping handsome young man with size 11 shoes. And I do mean handsome, I know we all think our children are gorgeous, but DS is really a good looking guy. The phone started ringing off the hook with calls from cute little blondes around the time he turned 10. He fell in love a couple of years ago and I ached for him when they broke up early this summer. Traditional school here just no longer seems to be the answer for him and when he turns 18 in a few weeks he’s outta there anyways.
He’s a good boy, he knows right from wrong and was only in trouble once – for stealing a soda from the school cafeteria. He has a kind heart, he loves animals and kids and can be a real charmer. He does have a sense of privacy, there are some things mom doesn’t need to know, but we have always been pretty open with each other. I made sure he had condoms available and had compassion for others and tried to answer all his questions honestly. He has an almost British sense of humor that I get a huge kick from.
DS isn’t happy here, it’s Southern California and it’s smoggy and crowded. Our area is the Inland Empire, known as the speed capital of the US. In some ways, I feel grateful to have gotten him this far without him getting shot. My son loves the Midwest and has talked about going back since he spent a summer there with Nana when he was 12. Although he was born here, he is not a California boy, me too, farmgirl is in my blood.
My mom is raising a granddaughter and retired recently from daycare, she asked for him to come stay with her. She said “If I can’t do something for my grandkids, what can I do?” Although I disagreed at the beginning, I still wanted to somehow force him through high school, I had to listen to what he wanted and accept the fact that I cannot push him to a high school diploma.
So as I have been writing this his plane landed, he called me from cell phone, he had a good flight and was greeted with welcoming arms. He was so worried about them losing his luggage, but it all made it fine and it’s just amazing how the view from the plane turns so green down below!
Dot is raring to move into his room. She is almost 13 and we have shared a room for 4 years, we both hate it! I keep wandering into DS room and sitting on his bed and looking at his posters and stickers everywhere, but his room seems empty, there is actually carpet underneath and the bed is made! I went to the grocery store and his favorite things were on sale but he wasn’t here to eat them. I noticed he forgot his contact lens solution so I ordered some online to be sent to him.
I’d like to say that I did the best I could, but I can’t say that in good conscience. I was not a soccer mom, I divorced when he was 8 and he did not have a Donna Reed childhood. I have to admit that the last couple of years when I was forced to choose between doing my homework or fighting him to do his, I often chose to do mine instead.
I pray that the right decision was made when I put him on that plane today. It just feels odd, after 18 years it’s “poof,” he’s gone!
Anyone that has read this far is a tribute to patience and empathy, thank you!