Feeling bad.

One of 'my' kids, Evan*, has a lunatic for a mother. Yeah, I know that sounds judgmental. After you read this, you can decide for yourself if she's a lunatic or I'm just overreacting.

Evan's parents are divorced. He lives with his mom, but sees his dad every other weekend. On occasion, his dad has been the one to come to the school and pick him up. Mom lets us know by phone or in person that he'll be picking the kid up, and never fails to make derogatory comments about him, many times in front of Evan. She calls Dad a flake and a jerk and an idiot... and has a voice just dripping with scorn when she speaks of him. I try really hard to excuse myself, sometimes acting like one of the kids urgently needs me on the other side of the room, because I really don't want to hear it, and I don't want Evan to perceive me as taking sides with either one of his parents.

When his dad comes to get him, Dad will call out, "Is there anyone named Evan here who'd like to go home?" Evan yells, "Daddy Daddy Daddy!" from across the room and runs to him and climbs him like a tree. :) While Evan is gathering his stuff and his dad is signing him out, Dad generally confides in me that Evan's mom is a flake or a witch or is a crappy mother/person. Again, I try to distance myself. Not only do I not want to hear it, I don't want EVAN to hear it.

Mom's boyfriend is also on the list of people authorized to pick Evan up from daycare. When Sam* comes to get Evan, he walks in the door and just stands there. He doesn't speak to me or my co-worker. I'm the one who lets Evan know that Sam is here. Sam just stands there while Evan gathers his things. He doesn't speak to the child, doesn't touch him, doesn't acknowledge his presence in any way, and walks out ahead of him, leaving him to follow (or not?) and carry all his stuff with him. I find his whole attitude toward the child appalling, and cannot imagine why Mom has anything to do with the guy.

Evan is barely six. He acts like a typical boy most of the time, and the usual amount of suggestions about proper behavior are enough to keep him out of trouble and mostly safe, although he loves to run in the cafeteria and I cringe when I see him running toward a table or a bookcase or another kid while he looks off in a different direction than the one he's moving in.

The last month or so, Evan has been displaying some behaviors that surprise me. He's been hurting other kids. Without provocation, he has tripped them, thrown things at them, and hit or pinched them. When he's doing something that will cause a toy to break, we tell him about it, and that usually results in him throwing the toy down on the floor and stomping away. The smaller things, we don't worry too much about, because he is a six year old and you kind of expect occasional misbehavior from a six year old, ya know?


When he hurts another person, we talk with him about ways to communicate, and we stress to him that no matter how angry we feel, it's not nice to hurt someone, and that we wouldn't want anyone to be hurt in our group. He seems to 'get' it, or at least has the motions down.

So this week, we were playing in the gym, and Evan walked up to one of the older girls, slugged her just as hard as he could in the upper arm, and grabbed a bit of skin and pinched and twisted it. I could tell it really hurt.

I separated him from the other kids, and we had ANOTHER talk about why it's not okay to hurt other people. He didn't seem remorseful, but when I told him that he was going to play by himself for the rest of the evening (it was 17 minutes before closing, so not a life sentence...) he stomped his foot and gave me a very venomous look.

This time, when mom came to pick him up, I told her about the incident. She turned to him and grabbed his upper arm and gave him a little shake.
"Why did you do that?!"
No answer.
Shake again.
"Why??"
"I dunno." Looking down.
She GRABBED THE FRONT OF HIS HAIR.... and said these words.
"If I hear about this again, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET TO SEE YOUR DAD ANYMORE!!!"

Okay. Now I know where he's getting the behavior. Now I know why he's acting so strange. Now I know not to tell Mom what he's up to.
I just feel so bad. How can a mother threaten a little boy like that?

Or, as my daughter put it, "She's using love as a weapon."

::sigh::


*as always, real names of other people's kids or their relatives have been changed.