| Joshua ran away today |
[Aug. 27th, 2008|09:51 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  relieved | ] |
And before I go any further, let me just say that he is home safe now.
He's had a lot of upheaval in his life right now. My brother recently moved back home with my mom because the area he was living in (Flint, MI) is so depressed that he couldn't find any work for months and months. He ended up losing his apartment. He was able to find a job a couple weeks after he moved down here, but I think he realized he never, ever wants to live through that sort of thing again. He's decided to go back to school for nursing -- there's a horrible shortage that's expected to last for the next ten years, at least. He'll be able to write his own ticket.
Couple this with the fact that I got home from vacation to find out my brother got custody of his son (oh my God, thank you so, so much!) just in time for the school year. My nephew R will be going to one of the best schools in the state, and he will only be with his mom (a poisonous, selfish thing) on weekends. But... my mom is getting worn out taking care of two young boys instead of one, so when I get home from work, I have been taking my nephew home with me, too, to feed him dinner and give my mom a break. My brother gets home around 8:30 PM from work, so that's most of the evening he's with us.
Now, one thing you have to understand about Josh is that he's an only kid and he's absolutely fine with that. He likes his alone time (takes after his mom) and social interactions drain him. R, my nephew, is two years younger than Joshie and is not like that at all. He badgers and badgers Josh to play and doesn't take no for an answer, and they either end up fighting until an adult steps in, or Josh has had an out and been able to come home. Today, that wasn't possible. It was the middle of the day, I was at work, the boys were in and out of my mom's house playing, and Josh needed a break. He told R that, R badgered and badgered, and finally, Josh told him "I'm going away and I'm not coming back." And off he took, on his bike, to heaven only knows where, about 1:30 this afternoon. Now, WHY it took my mom three hours to call me, I don't know, and when she did call, she blamed me because she couldn't get hold of him on his phone (I can't afford more minutes until payday) even though Josh has a rule he's supposed to follow, which is "tell where you're going before you go, call when you get there with the phone number so we can reach you if necessary, and call before you come home," which adequately takes care of the "no phone" problem, and is exactly what I had to do as a kid.
And the thing is, I understand why he took off, and I probably would have done the same thing, at his age. And I should try and get him minutes (out of what money, I don't know) BUT. It was still wrong not to tell my mom where he was going and when he would be back. It was still wrong not to ask for her help in getting R off his back! She goes to bat for Josh and certainly would have done so today, but Josh didn't trust that would happen. This is an endemic problem with him; he doesn't trust her to help him out, he doesn't trust me to help him out. He comes up with these horrid scenarios in his head that makes me think he's been reading Dickens, or something, and refuses to believe otherwise, even when we tell him directly. I have to be very careful I don't forget what I say to him because he will remember (and sometimes incorrectly), and I don't want him to feel like he doesn't matter or that he can get away with anything. So, anyway, he took off around 1:30, and at 4:30 my mom decides to call and tell me about it. I called his best friend's mom to see if he'd turned up there or was with her son, and when I heard he wasn't and hadn't, that's when I started to worry. So I left work and got on the bus to come home, and my mom called and said she was getting in the car with nephew R to go look for him. I got my nephew on the phone and had him tell the story in his own words, and then I told him in no uncertain terms, like he's been told before by his father and me, that no means no, and when Josh says to leave him alone for awhile, he has to respect that or he will be punished. It's not OK to push people's buttons, especially when you know what they are and are doing it deliberately.
Mom called back and said she'd searched one neighborhood and did I have any ideas for others? I gave her two others, and off she went. She called back later to say no dice. Now I was really starting to worry; like any town, we have a sprinkling of child sex offenders, and his path to most of his friends' houses goes right by two of them. Of course, that's where my mind went. Just as I'm about to get off the bus, though, I get a call from my friend T who I called earlier to see if Joshie was with her son B. But when I picked up the phone, it was Joshie.
I refrained from yelling on the bus, but told him in no uncertain terms to go straight to grandma's, sit on the couch, and do not move until I get there. And when I did get there, I just stood in front of him, furious, for a couple minutes, trying not to cry. And then I did something I'm not too proud of. I shouted at the top of my lungs "JUST WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING? ...ANSWER ME! WHAT ARE THE RULES? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE RULES ARE?" "yes" "AND YOU DELIBERATELY DISOBEYED THEM???" "yes" "YOU SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH!" and then he started crying. I felt like crying, too, but honestly, I was too angry. "You are grounded through next Wednesday. You will not leave the house for any reason, not even for chores."
I brought Joshie home (sans nephew R -- there wasn't any way I was going to take him tonight), I fed him dinner, and let him spend some time in the absolute quiet stretched out on the couch with his head under a blanket. He eventually came 'round and apologized, and we talked about how he needs to trust grandma out when he's in a bind, and we figured out some strategies he can use to cope with this kind of problem again in the future. My mom called after that to say R was feeling pretty rotten for pushing Josh, and we both agreed that maybe this natural consequence would teach R that he needs to control those urges. I was going to call my brother tonight, but I'm absolutely bushed and Josh has Gokusen S1Ep1 on (I'm trying to get him interested and it looks like he's hooked after half an ep -- yay!) so I'm going to sit with him and hug him to me, and reassure him I love him to bits. Thanks to all of you who Twittered me back with your prayers and good wishes. You're the best. *hugs you all* |
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