I had the day planned, at least loosely. I’d mow the lawn, finish up my third season X-Files marathon, do a little laundry, maybe pick up around the house, catch up on a little reading, perhaps. I did manage to get the lawn done and get 2/3 through “Quagmire” when I got the phone call.
It’s a long-time friend of my family. We’ll call her Jane. Jane is about 24 years old and lives in a tiny house her parents are paying for. She has a form of dyslexia (she says it’s mild) and has a difficult time finding work. Honestly, she has a way of annoying me sometimes, but I know she’s good at heart, and I help her out when I can.
So on this particular phone call, Jane is quite clearly crying. Through the tears I hear the words:
“My dad hit me.”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard more pain in a voice then at that moment. Instinct takes over…
“Where are you?” I ask gently. She continues crying and sobbing. I ask again with same tone, “Where are you?” She manages to eke out the answer, “Home”.
“Are you alone? Is your dad still there?”
“He’s outside.”
“Can you hold on for a couple minutes? I’m coming over, OK?”
“Yea… OK.”
(I’m sure I left something out… I don’t remember if I asked Jane if she was OK–the middle of the conversation is kinda fuzzy already.) Resisting the temptation to call the police outright, I was over to her place as fast as I could organize myself. Heading straight in, I find her standing in the kitchen crying and give her a hug. She then leads me into the living room and we sit on the couch for awhile, not really talking about what happened, but more the general situation with her parents–how they yell at her and call her “stupid”, and the whole weird situation with the guy she’s been seeing (they really hate this guy and he seems to be their main concern). Unfortunately most of this is old news.
At some point her father comes in. Surprisingly, he is very calm and, dare I say, reasonable. He tells me that Jane threw a fit and was throwing things.
I didn’t think about it then, but it’s unfortunate I usually have a very calm, non-confrontational personality. I might have done better if I would have taken a firm role and forced them to explain exactly what happened. Granted, she’s far too old to be throwing tantrums, but it’s her parents fault for first coddling her as a child and then trying enforce their view of morality on her as an adult. And a tantrum is no excuse for hitting your 24 year old child. sigh Anyway, at least I think I was a calming factor, as I don’t think they’d yell at each other with me around. The best I can do is recommend they all go to some kind of family counseling. They seem somewhat receptive…
After a few minutes of discussion, he went back outside and I discussed things with Jane, made sure that she was not throwing things at her father, that she was not the aggressor. Making sure she was OK, I then went out to her father and worked up the nerve to tell him that I had considered calling the police when I got Jane’s call, which seemed to surprise him. We sat on down on the tail of his van and discussed general parenting issues; I tried to express how I think you have to let your children make their own decisions eventually, if you try to force an adult to do something you will drive them away. Again, he seems very reasonable and calm about the whole deal.
And the thought begins to form… Jane has a tendency to exaggerate and is very sensitive. She is a tiny thing, and I could see how maybe if she was in the middle of throwing a fit, any sort of physical effort to contain it might be interpreted by her as “hitting” after the fact. And now I don’t know what to think.
I decide to get her out of the house and calm her down–so I take her back to my place for a few hours. We watch an X-Files episode, then Dr. Strangelove, and I buy her a quick dinner at Burger King before heading back to her place. I stress to her that she needs to start seeing a professional counselor even if her parents won’t. Upon returning, we get a call from her mother, who insists on giving me a long winded diatribe about how this boyfriend of hers is so scary looking and he’s taking advantage of Jane (untrue, at least as far what Jane has told me) and Jane was such a good girl before and they’re going to make her live at home. Somehow I manage to get a word in edgewise and suggest the family counseling idea, to which she responds (in effect), “I don’t need counseling; Jane is the one with the problems.” Uh huh. Yea, your yelling is caused by Jane.
“Don’t you love your daughter? Don’t you want to do everything you can to help her?” I ask. Diatribe continues about how they’ve done so much for her, that she’s too dumb to make her own decisions… and she implies that she’s about ready to disown her. Somehow (I don’t know how exactly) I manage to get her to the statement, “If she goes to counseling first, I might consider it.”
Jane seems to be a little better now, so we decide it’s OK for me to leave, and I head back home. Two hours later I get another tearful call from her saying her mom yelled at her on the phone for involving me and called her “stupid and retarded”.
sigh
I can understand spanking, but don’t these people understand limitations???)