For
the first part of this column, see the November issue - click
here
For the second part of this column, see the December issue -
click
here
Mikey
had learnt he was adopted by accident – and in a most
hurtful way. Now, Social Services were getting involved
Of
course they might have been able to help if anyone had told
them the truth – that money was a problem, that Dad was
not an accountant, that our mother was not coping, that Mikey’s
behaviour was mostly a result of the ways in which he was being
treated in the supposedly loving family home.
It
might have helped if one of the social workers had tried to
get to know Mikey on his own, although I doubt if he would have
said much. Remember, he already thought it was OK for grown-ups
to do any kind of stuff to kids at home and that nobody else
was interested. All the social workers ever heard was the long
lists of what Mikey had done wrong and how ‘difficult’
his behaviour was.
Soon
after he went to comprehensive school he got thrown out of there
as well. This was a real blow to Mikey because school had been
his escape every day. He really loved books and learning new
things. Unfortunately he couldn’t handle being with other
people very well, especially the other kids in the breaks and
on the way to school. He was usually OK on the way home because
most afternoons he was in detention and there were not too many
other kids around by then.
One
time he told me the PE teacher was usually in school late too.
Mikey was really scared of him. He always picked on Mikey because
he was not well co-ordinated and was hopeless at rough, tough
physical games. The teacher thought he was God’s gift
to sport, although he was really just a failed football wannabee,
who got dropped from the football academy of a big team and
was not bright enough to get a degree to teach a more academic
subject. Although why he would want to work with kids was a
bit of a mystery since he didn’t seem to like them much
at all. He used to trip up Mikey to make him look even worse
than he was at running, or fielding, so Mikey always got picked
last for any team. For a boy craving acceptance and approval
this must have been awful.
One
afternoon Mikey came home from school with his clothes just
about destroyed. Of course Mum hit the roof – more money.
She just assumed that Mikey had got into a fight. But later
I went into his room and found him crying he told me it was
the PE teacher who had picked on him and when Mikey had mouthed
off at him in return he had completely lost it and smacked Mikey
all round the place, until the school caretaker had heard the
noise and found the teacher bending over Mikey, all kind and
helpful, saying, “Which boys did this to you, Michael?”
It
wasn’t long before the catalogue of Mikey’s ‘offences’
against the good order and discipline of the school reached
crisis proportions and he was out. He started hanging round
in town with some other ne’er-do-wells. Next thing the
Police were bringing him back, saying he had been shop-lifting.
It
seemed like only a few steps to the case conference, which decided
that Mikey should ‘taken into care’. I always thought
whoever thought up that phrase must have had a really awful
sense of humour, because care was the last thing that seemed
to be on offer in the string of places Mikey went to - short-term
foster carers, emergency bed in a children’s home because
the foster carers couldn’t care less, ‘family group
home’, adolescent unit, and finally ‘observation
and assessment’. Just a pity nobody ever observed and
assessed the guy in charge.
To be continued next month.
