Where Were the Parents?

Warning:?If you have experienced abuse, mental health struggles, or other trauma, you may find some of the following themes difficult.?I urge you to take yourself into consideration and proceed with caution.

It has been more than a month since I was honored by being crowned with the International Title of Ms. Global United.?In the time since, I have done a handful of appearances, but I hadn’t shared my accomplishment with many – until this week.?

Those of you who haven’t experienced the pageant world may have already scrolled to the next post, and those of you who are still here may be wondering what business a woman like me (nearly 40 years old and in the worst shape of my life) has entering a pageant, let alone winning.?The truth is, I’ve struggled with these thoughts as well.?The answer:?I have a story.?It’s bruised and broken, maddening and messy, scary and often self-inflicted, but it is also beautiful – so beautiful that a panel of judges has given me the opportunity to share it with all who will listen.?The hardest part of telling my story is knowing where to start, but today, I stumbled across a FB post that inspired me to start right here, with today.

PRESS RELEASE: Seven Juveniles Arrested in Columbia

The Columbia Police Department has made several arrests overnight and early this morning. At this time the charges include: Vehicle Theft, Burglary to Vehicle, Possession of Stolen Vehicle, Unlawful Possession of a Firearm, and Unlawful Possession of Ammunition. Further charges may be added or amended.

?While I have personal concerns that this behavior is a reality, I have no concerns with the press release itself.?As is the case with most social media posts, moments after the information was made public, the comments began:

Parents must be proud

Every one of their parents should be criminally charged too

I don’t understand 7 kids all gone and not 1 parent cares or has a clue?

10 years old??Stealing cars AND with a gun??Wow, parents must be great folks.-Parents probably taught them everything they know.

Send all the parents of these misguided teens hefty fines to pay for all the time and damages that occurred during their actions.

?Savvy street smart kids- that’s all they know.?They don’t know any different; that’s their way of life, what they’ve seen and an everyday occurrence to them.?Protect yourself because they’ll shoot you and not think twice about it when they’re scared or establishing their status in a gang.

-“Savvy street smart” is a more flattering way to say they are flat out “unparented”.

10 – 17 boy I bet their parents are proud

Yea some parent needs a wake up call over this

?Kids don’t learn those kind of skills or behavior overnight.?

Their parents have been failing them for a long time so yes.. they should be ashamed of themselves.

Hold the parents responsible for the young ones.

What Parent let’s there 10 year old run around late at night . Sorry I mean early in the morning.

Oh my stars!!!?Where are the parents!??

Oh he needs a good old fashioned tail swatting.. better yet his parents need one.

Their parents need a whooping

Where are the kids parents??I knew where my kids where all the especially at night.?In their beds sleeping for school the next day!!

?Must not have a stable home life

?…and they continued.

I don’t know who these boys are.?I certainly don’t know their parents.?Perhaps, they are out there teaching their children horrible things.?Then again, maybe they are not.?Maybe they are home believing all their children are tucked into bed.?Maybe they are supporting another of their children who is battling a health crisis.?Maybe they are locked in a closet sobbing because they, themselves, were threatened or hurt before the child left the house.?I don’t know the whole story, but I do know mine, and I know how many YEARS it took me to reach out for help because of the judgment that comes when children get caught doing bad things and the “where were the parents?” chatter begins.

He was only 7 or 8 the first time he grabbed my wrist because he didn’t get his way.?I can picture it vividly.?Standing in the middle of my parents’ kitchen, I had a small plate in my hand, and he grabbed my wrist in an effort to make me throw it to the ground.?At that age, I was strong enough to overcome him, and the plate remained intact.?It was, however, the first crack in a relationship that meant the world to me.

As the years went on, the anger ebbed and flowed.?Sometimes it was directed at me.?Sometimes it was directed at others.?By 5th grade, the school requested that I have him medicated.?(I did not).?I began receiving weekly calls about the trouble he had gotten into, and then daily calls.?I watched the inconsistencies in how the school handled reprimands with my child and other children, but I remained silent.?I was focused on how to raise a good man and how to prevent my relationship with my son from deteriorating further and further, but my efforts were as futile as trying to standing in front of a freight train that had gone off the rails.?As he grew, so did his rage and the frequency of his unacceptable decisions.?

I consider myself a light sleeper – when I sleep at all, but during the summer before his freshman year, I discovered that he had snuck out the night before and ridden his bike nearly 2 miles along a busy thoroughfare to meet with some girls.?The next day, he acted as if nothing had happened and went to football practice.?It wasn’t until I found out later that morning and marched through the center of the football field that he realized he had NOT gotten away with it after all.?For 2 weeks, he was not allowed to go to football – or anywhere out of my view.?All the while, I received calls and texts from coaches, friends, other parents, etc. wondering when he could come back, why I was so hard on him, trying to convince me that it was just a kid being a kid, and on and on.

It was about this time that my daughter started expressing concerns about her brother’s outbursts.?That’s right.?He’s not my only child.?I dismissed her concerns to brother/sister ridiculousness.?It wasn’t until an evening that things had gotten completely out of control after my son had had his phone taken away that I began to see things differently.?He didn’t approve of the punishment I had chosen and decided to begin destroying things in my home.?When I threatened to call the police, he came at me.?My daughter, recognizing that there was little I could do to prevent him from hurting me involved herself in the situation and ended up being elbowed/shoved (it depends on who is telling the story) through a wall.?I didn’t call the police that night.?I was scared of losing both of my children for not being a good enough parent to prevent this from happening.

As these behaviors continued, my daughter and I became accustomed to locking ourselves in our rooms for protection, and I came to accept that I needed to budget for broken/destroyed things. I did contact authorities on occasion.?They would speak with him or bring him back from wherever he had run to, but little was done, and even less changed.?I would come to find out later that these calls were not even documented.?Then, “the big one” happened.

After Christmas break, it was time to return to work.?As so many do these days, I am able to work from home.?When I tried to log into my computer, I realized I couldn’t locate my work phone that accesses my VPN key.?I spent 20 minutes looking and calling until I heard its distinct ring upstairs along with a stirring upstairs.?My son, who had lost his phone until he could afford to start paying for it on his own, had, unbeknownst to me, stolen my work phone for the final days of the holiday break and had forgotten to put it back in its place.?I walked in his room and simply asked for my phone.?He dropped it to the ground.?I picked it up and shook my head as I walked away, sat at my desk, and began to work.?Hours later, he came down with a bag packed to tell me he, although grounded, was leaving.?When I asked where he was going, he didn’t have an answer.?When I told him he could not leave, his continuous response was “Or what?”?Finally, he left.?That day, I did go to the police station.?I insisted that a report be filed in an effort to start documenting his behaviors and to protect my daughter and myself against what might come.?

The day escalated in ways that I won’t describe here.?We involved police, social workers, and various agencies.?He didn’t come home that day.?He hasn’t been home since, and while my daughter and I were physically safe for the time, the emotional abuse continued for months including his request for an Order of Protection claiming that both my daughter and I were his abusers.

in the US, an estimated 19 million children engage in acts of abusive violence against their brothers and sisters.

Outside of Church, there was no support, and the support that the church was able to offer was limited.?I was broken and in the darkest place I had ever been.?My daughter watched her mom spiral out of control with thoughts of self-harm.?It was my daughter who knew to make the call to find someone to help me.?For that call and for the woman on the other end, I will FOREVER be grateful.

Like most mothers, I live with a lot of guilt about the things I’ve done wrong or the things I should have done differently.?I wasn’t able to protect either of my children in the ways they needed.?My daughter should have felt heard.?She should never have felt like she had to protect me – from my son or from myself.?I should have been able to stop my son’s behavior from escalating.?I should have caught him sneaking out before the next day.?I should have been a better mom.

Today, my son is attending one of very few therapeutic, boarding schools in the country.?At 16, he is a high school graduate beginning college this semester.?His heart is changed; we are BOTH changed.?I look at him and see the amazing person that I always knew he was destined to be.?We both continue to be works in progress, but we have hope that has been missing for far too long, and by God’s grace, we will find our purpose and use all of this brokenness for something wonderful.

In the midst of all of this, my daughter wanted to spend her senior year (the Covid year) starting her first business.?My thoughts, success or failure, she would learn far more than she was going to in the classroom that year.?So, I agreed, and we began our journey to starting a small, not for profit coffee shop.?The intent was to give back to the community that had built her.?(She has always dreamt of ways to do great things to help others.?It was kindergarten when she had her first idea of starting a bakery to provide scholarships, but that is a story for another day.) When Covid-19 forced her High School to cancel the prom and parents took the reins, we had not yet opened the shop (plumbing issues), but we had the space.?So, we started collecting gowns and found another way to raise money both the Junior and Senior proms.?When the community yard sale came along, we worked with a locally owned bakery to use our space selling donuts to raise money for the Women’s Club who had been unable to host their traditional fundraisers.

It was after that fundraiser that my daughter approached me wanting to reevaluate our business plan.?She had watched me struggle through recent years, especially the last year, and she had experienced person after person dismissing our pleas for help.?After all “boys will be boys”.?She saw me sit up night after night researching organizations, hospitals, doctors, medications, schools, support groups, anything that could help.?And she saw just how little there is out there for families like ours.?

The mission of our business has shifted.?With HOCO upon us, again we have a “coffee shop” filled with gowns.?We still intend to get the coffee piece up and running at some point, but even if we never sell a caffeinated beverage, we will continue to find ways to raise funds that allow us to support research and shine a light on things that are happening in the shadows, in our community and in yours.?It could be your neighbor, your friend, that mom in the drop-off line at school, or the family who always sits next to you at church.?We are going to find a way to help so that no one ever has to feel as alone as we did and so that children who are not bad, but who need support, can get that support BEFORE someone gets hurt, or jailed, or worse.

Globally, there are only a handful of organizations designed to assist and support parents and siblings of abusive children/adolescents. In the US, there are none. While there is minimal research, in 1991, one study showed that every year, in the US, an estimated 19 million children engage in acts of abusive violence against their brothers and sisters. In the last 30 years, the statistics have not been updated nor has there been a method of accurately calculating abuse toward parents. ?That stops today.

Today, I will be a voice for those parents who are at the end of their ropes and feel like they are out of options.?I will be a voice for the siblings who feel lost or forgotten because a parent has to direct so much attention to another child’s needs.?I will be a voice for the teen who feels unheard and misunderstood or believes he is a lost cause, but who needs someone who will not give up on them.?I see you all.?I hear you all.?I’ve felt your pain.?Don’t read the comments.?Don’t believe when social media tells you that you are a failure.?Don’t be deterred by those who cannot see what is happening all around us.?19 million is not a small number. ?YOU ARE NOT ALONE.