I Fought The Law And The Law Won

My baby boy. My son was a huge baby, well huge for my family. He was born 9.1lbs. No baby in my family ever exceeded 7.5! As an infant, he was constantly hungry and as I said in a previous blog, he had colic and would projectile vomit! On the other hand he was just the most darling baby. As he grew and it became apparent that he had other worldly knowledge, ( yes that’s the only way I can explain it), he adapted to our world by doing everything .”by the book.” He had difficulty with most kids his age because they didn’t understand the rules to different games. He liked sports although he wasn’t too terrific at it, and he tried to play the baritone horn in the band, again, just OK. He did though have a nice singing voice. In school, he was at the top of his class, was very well behaved, and did not like rocking the boat! He was curious about the world around him and wanted to figure out how everything worked. He was also a pacifist.

On the corner of our block, a family with about 5 kids moved in when he was two years old. One of their sons was just a little bit older. We used to joke in the community that God watched over the children who lived in that house, because it was apparent that nobody else did. They were always out in the street and just expected the cars to avoid them. Anyway, by the time they went to school, the other child who was quite a bully, wouldn’t leave him alone. The other kid would shove him and hit him. All the complaining I could do to either the parents or the child fell upon deaf ears. Finally, my husband had a heart to heart with our son. He explained the difference between being the perpetrator and defending yourself. They talked about negotiating and seeing if things could be resolved without resorting to fighting. Finally he said, if you have tried to solve this and it isn’t possible, the next time he hits you, hit him back!

The next day, the very next day, my son was ready! He walked up to him and just kept walking keeping pace with him. The other kid told him to get out of his space, and my kid just kept walking, saying he was walking in his own space. The kid finally hauled off and hit him. With glee, my son gave him as good as he got. The problem was solved, he was never bothered again. While the other kid could have made something out of it, he knew that too many people were around and that everyone had seen him bully my kid. The incident was over.

Then again, my son, who NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG, was in school one day when he was called to the Principals office. It seemed like he had forged a signature on his physician’s physical form. My son was totally confused. He was shown the signature and realized my husband signed it. He told the Principal that was not his handwriting and he had no idea what the doctor's signature looked like. Well, the school wasn’t satisfied, so they called us. As it turns out, my husband did sign the form. We had the kids at the pediatrician for their yearly physicals, and although he signed my daughter’s form, he apparently forgot to sign my sons! Rather than go back and get him to sign the form, my husband tried to copy the Doctor’s handwriting. It didn’t work. Rather than have the entire situation become a crisis, all they had to do was call the doctors office and confirm that my son had indeed had his physical. Embarrassment all the way around!

There was one time though when I did intervene. My son was in 6th grade, middle school. He was being pulled out along with other kids for “gifted” students. It was just a couple of times a week, but one teacher had trouble with it. She tool it out in my kid. She didn’t realize she was provoking Mommy bear. My son was getting very mediocre grades on compositions and any creative work. Obviously on tests, there was nothing the teacher can do to doctor the grades.

He had gotten some C’s on creative writing. I looked them over and knew that a C was ridiculous. I took the papers and gave them to the English teacher at my school. She said that all but 2 were defintiely an A and that the last two were a B+.

I had my ammunition. The next writing assignment came and I wrote the composition. I used my most sophisticated language and made sure the punctuation was perfect. Happy to tell you I got an A but it was her comment that blew my mind. “This is more of what I expect of you!”

I took the essay and the others to the Principal, and told him if the 6th grade teacher expecting the essays to look like the one I wrote, she had ridiculous standards.

He had a talk with her. Apparently, the talk didn’t take effect the first time. The next time she assigned a composition, written by my son, she wrote across the top of the essay something that she confused the two words except and accept. Again she marked the essay lower. This time I wrote at the top of the page, “I take EXCEPTION, to the fact that you cannot ACCEPT anything my son writes!”

I corrected her English and sent it back. I called the Principal again and that was that. From then on, he and only he graded my son’s paper.

Oh yes, I thanked the teacher for giving me an A!