The Call 2

I had to do it again today.  Call the Department of Child and Family Services to report a parent.

This one haunts me for different reasons than the last one: last week, I knew the mother intended well but just needed some parenting help; today I know the mother intends bad.

This mother instructed her seven-year-old child, our dear 4 ft. mix of spunk and mess that is Griselda, to place her finger beneath a door.  Then the mother proceeded to slam the door.

Griselda came to school today with a left pinky that was severely swollen around the area where it joins to the hand.  There was some pus.  There was some sliced skin.  This much is incontrovertible.  I saw it with my own two eyes.  So did the nurse.  She cleaned and dressed the wound.

Griselda, ever eager, came to show it to me first thing in the morning.  A gruesome show-and-tell. “What happened?” I asked, thinking along the lines of a skateboarding accident or some kitchen mishap.  I’m privileged enough to live in a world where accidents don’t automatically portend disaster.  Stuff happens.  You’ll live, I tell my students when they want to show me the tiniest nick in their skins. I rub their heads or pat their backs.  It’s the same thing I say to my son, who, I’m convinced, is a budding hypochondriac.  Really, sweetie.  Come here and get a hug.  But in the meantime, can I borrow your magnifying glass to find this great gaping wound?  I’m not a coddler.  Maybe it comes from having two doctors as parents. . .

Griselda hops up and down before me.

Griselda: Look Ms. B!  Look!  My mommy did it.  In the bathtub.  She made me hold the thing.

Me: OH! What?  What thing? Why? On purpose?

Yesterday, Randy suddenly began weeping in the middle of Music.  I mean out and out sobbing.  I thought it was because he didn’t bring his homework, and he was going to be benched.

“What is it, Randy?” I asked.

“Mydskdfhweee–sob–nevrcmhmgen–sob!”

Me, rubbing his back: It’s okay.  Take a deep breath.  In through your nose, out through your mouth.  In through your nose. . .

Randy: Whooo–myddnevr–sob–musnotnvr–home!”

Me:  It’s okay.  Deep breath.  Next time do your homework at home. . .

Randy: My dad’s never coming home again.  He said he’s leaving and he’s never coming back!  Whaaaaaaa!

Silence.  In the background, under the guidance of the music teacher, the rest of the class cheerfully sang: Doggy, doggy, where’s your bone? Someone stole it from your home!

Randy (wailing): My daddyi’mnevrgonnseemagain!

After we returned from Music–Randy sobbing and wailing the entire walk across the yard–the class was naturally curious.  I asked Randy to hug Chocolate, our class teddy bear, and write a letter to his dad to tell him how he felt.  I also asked him if he wanted his classmates to know why he was crying or whether he’d rather I just say he was having a hard time at home.  He wanted them to know.

I explained what was going on, and we had a class sharing circle, which we do whenever there’s a behavioral, personal, or emotional issue.  This circle, as these circles usually do, lasted well into Math, about 45 minutes.  Child after child expounded about moms hitting dads, dads hitting moms, yelling, screaming, shouting, drunken parental episodes, daddy’s new girlfriend, hearing the b word and the f word and “other words I’m not supposed to say.”

I love kids this age because they’re so often accepting.  They’re like good theater audiences.  Or maybe good theater audiences are like young kids. You put a sign in front of them saying ‘Tasmania’ and they suspend disbelief and accept that the 40 x 20 space in front of them is, for the next 2 hours, Tasmania.  If mom says a bad word and then tells her child he’s not supposed to say it, most seven or eight year-olds will simply accept those parameters.  Though with children it’s not yet a suspension of disbelief but rather a lack of disbelief.  Disbelief is an underdeveloped muscle.

Evan: Then she called her friend one of those words I’m not allowed to say, you know, it’s a b word?

No irony.  No rebellious questioning.  Just a sweet, innocent acceptance.  As in:

Esteban (straight-faced):  My daddy and mommy fight, and then they have to wrestle real hard.  So when they wrestle, my brother and me, we go into the other room and turn the tv on real loud so we don’t hear them when they’re wrestling real hard.

Viva nacho libre!

Amidst all this drama, Miss Griselda shared that her mom used to put her hand over the fire, and that’s why she doesn’t see her mom anymore.

Put her hand over the fire.

Just picture it.

A gas stove (those are the only fires we have in cheap apartments in California).  A very small girl.  A mom getting her to put her hand over the flame.

Uuuuh!

Is she forcing her?  Is she grabbing little Griselda’s hand and holding it over the flame?  Or is she coaxing her?  Did Griselda– who’s always searching for love and affection and attention, who follows me around like a puppy and pretends five times a day with her sweet stubby fingers to be a bug crawling up my back; who with great authority said today when we were reading a story set in a restaurant, that ’serve’ means “when you cook food for someone and then you pour it on a plate and you bring it to them”–did this little affection machine simply place her hand in the fire to please her mother?

I didn’t want to think about it.

I just knew that there was a restraining order.  That I wasn’t allowed to release her to her mom.  That there was a social worker, and a sweet dad, and some brothers, and a counselor, and, and. . .  Her entourage.

That was yesterday.

Today, there is a mashed pinky.

Instantly, my mind tries to make sense of how holding the thing in the bathtub could create this injury.  Holding what thing? I ask.  The thing, she says.  The thing.

I give her a piece of paper.  Draw it for me.

The drawing looks like a door but with a curve at the bottom, like a bathtub.  A door?

She nods.

But I know Griselda lies.  She makes things up.  She’s been caught cheating on three tests already.

But there’s the swollen pinky.

But, but, but. . .

Is it a language issue?  Digame en español, I say.  Que es?  Que pasó?  It’s the thing, she replies in English.

Here’s a door, I say.  Show me what happened.

She gingerly places her finger beneath the door.  Then my mom she close the door, she says.

I still can’t quite make sense of it, but it looks like a smashing injury.  A finger slammed in a door.   That makes sense.  CSI would probably concur.

Then I wonder, did Griselda go like sheep to slaughter?

Mom: Put your finger here.

Griselda: Okay, mom.

SLAM.  SMASH.

I blink away that image.

I’m angry and nauseated.

Who is this mother?  I’m a mother.  I know mother.  WHAT KIND OF MOTHER DOES THIS TO HER OWN DAUGHTER?

And it seems to be just the daughter.  The two sons seem to be left alone, though I don’t know enough yet really.

I ask, who was with you?  Why were you with your mother?

Griselda: My brother and me.

Me: What did your brother do?

Griselda: He told my dad when we went home, and my dad said I wasn’t going to be with my mom anymore.

Sigh.  This from the mouth of a seven year-old.  What’s going on inside that seven year-old heart and that seven year-old head?

What’s true and what’s not?

WHY WOULD A MOTHER DO THIS TO HER OWN DAUGHTER??

Is this what happened to her when she was little?

Is this the cycle of violence where victim becomes perp over and over again?

Is any of that my concern?

How do I save my dear doe-eyed Griselda?

For now, I just pick up the phone and dial the social workers.