This morning I fired my younger son's school because they failed to protect him from bullying. Yep. I yanked him out and I'm homeschooling him until he's placed in a new school. My four year old has a bruise on his cheek. He's been punched in the eye, the stomach. He's been teased, had his things yanked from his hands and thrown on the floor. He's been spit on. All in one month. The school failed him. I failed him. My voice wasn't loud enough. My conversations and eye witness statements to the teacher were not enough. How come? I know the world of hitting. I was hit in school, not by students. My teachers had a fondness for paddles, wide and skinny, with and without holes. They liked metal rods and rulers. I developed my "fuck them" attitude before I was ten years old. I learned if you cry you could get away with five paddles instead of fifteen, but it's not worth how much you hate yourself for crying in front of the whole class. I learned to take it with my chin high and my mind wandering. I don't want John to learn that shit. So I fired them. Hard, with a hard voice. The girl who tried her best not to burn bridges because motherhood and divorce taught me to play nice burned a few in a matter of hours and more are lined up. I see a lot of tantrumming hugs in my future. A lot of conflict resolution. I see deadlines being pushed back and blog posts being neglected, but John will heal from this. We all will.
Think Out Loud is a mind freeing meme. Post whatever you want because we're paying attention. Promise.
(By Venera N. Lekaj - Lela (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
