Motherhood

These People Want Me to Face the Firing Squad, Eh?

*I typically reserve Friday for frivolity, HOWEVER (!) this one di333, I have to speak on it! Prepare yourself for Bush Woman Mode!

When you’re a parent, life will bring you a whole host of ‘firsts’, as long as you have a child in your life. Some ‘firsts’ you dread, while there are others that you eagerly look forward to. Your child’s first day at school, first kiss, first date, first car wreck and first broken heart usually make the list.

But what about your child’s first dirty slap?

Yesterday I was lying in bed watching Millionaire Matchmaker (which was supposed to be a more sophisticated departure from my usual afternoon with Maury) while I waited to pick the kids up from the bus stop. My friend the Island Lady had already called me during the commercial break, and yet five minutes later my phone was ringing again. Ah. What did she want again?! This time I ignored her call and let it go to voicemail.

“Malaka! Call me back as SOON as you get this message!”

I noted the urgency in her voice, but I admit that urgent matters as they pertain to her usually revolve around the need to vent about something in her personal life. I didn’t feel like hearing it right then. Brad was about to decide which girl he was going to take on his master date. Ah! Why was she ringing my phone again!

“Hey, Island Lady! I was just about to call you,” I lied.

“Find out from your daughter what happened!” she shouted. “I’m so sick of that boy! That stupid little trouble maker! He slapped her!”

I gasped.

“Somebody slapped Kayla?” I asked incredulously. Who dared to slap her child? I wondered what Island Lady was going to do to them. She has an awful temper.

“No,” she growled. “The boy slapped NADJAH.”

My blood suddenly ran cold. I sat up straight in my bed. The hell??

Suddenly I was putting on my shoes and running for my car. The phone was still glued to my ear.

“I don’t know where I’m going, but wherever it is, I’ll call you when I reach there. Island Lady, I’m going to beat somebody and their child today!”

She cut me off so that she could run down the list of this boy’s infractions as she knew them. He was constantly kicking people. He couldn’t go on field trips without his mother because he was so hard to control. The more she talked, the more I hated him. To say that I was pissed would be conservative.

Let’s just fast forward to the event itself, shall we?

My child, my first born child, was helping another student by putting a piece of paper he had dropped back into his backpack. Suddenly, this Adam boy whips around from nowhere and hits her.

“It’s none of your business he shouted!”

When she ignored him, he slapped her harder – so hard that she hit the wall.

Let that sink in for a moment. You see how I’m feeling? Okay. Let’s continue.

Now in the past, I have gotten a phone call, email or written note from Nadjah’s teacher if she spoke out of turn, yelled at another student, or ran out of the classroom in a fit. However this time when Nadjah is assaulted, I got nothing but silence. So it was incumbent upon me to craft an email and request that it be sent to the boy’s parents. It’s probably better if I don’t mention what that email said. Don’t worry, I was cordial.

But that’s what is paining me! I don’t want to be cordial. I want to put on my blowman/soldierman uniform, slather my face with commando war paint and wait for this foolish boy at the playground and lash him myself! However, now that I have joined this vanguard of Negros who has tasked themselves with rehabilitating our tattered Black image, I can’t indulge in my most primal desires and react viscerally.

AAAAHHHHH!!!

Do you know what was even more annoying? The boy never apologized, and Nadjah never hit him back.

“Why not?” I asked, rather bewildered.

“I wanted to,” she admitted, “but if I did that would be fighting and I would get in trouble too.”

Have you seen? Have you seen?!? This is how bullies are made! They know that no one will hit them back!

So now I find myself on this diplomatic course, forced to employ decorum and NOT go and hide in the bushes to lay in wait for Adam. Instead, I have to wear heels and a nice dress to meet these people so that this boy and his family know that Nadjah is not some fiyanga girl that he can just abuse whenever he sees fit. They are lucky this is Roswell. If we were living in Decatur or the Congo this blog would have ended very differently!

Has your child ever been assaulted in school? How did you handle it? Better yet, how would have liked to have handled it? Is there any other mother out there who can feel me in my rage??