I DON'T WANNA BE NUMBER 5!

That's the phrase repeated for over an hour by one of my students. We were randomly choosing names for computer time and he was number 5...seems like a trivial thing to get upset about, but when you 'teach' in a class for young people with emotional disabilities, it becomes the norm. Here's what I wonder...did my dysfunctional childhood make me want to help these little people or does being around them make me feel more normal? I've been told I have more than my share of patience and I like to think that I work with them for very noble reasons, but lately I've been questioning the whole truth of it. Maybe, I'm a little like those who like to focus on the problems of others rather than face their own. In that case, I'm a big hypocrite. Mea culpa!
Erring on the noble side-who else would understand the f'--d up world they live in? I certainly do. It's only slightly different for them, but the themes are the same: parent picked up for dui, parent incarcerated but other parent won't step in, fosters whose natural 'parents' are more wrapped up in their substances than in anything else, 'parents' who knock their kids around to show them whose boss, parents who blame everyone else for the behavior of their child. The list could be MUCH longer, believe me. It's often hard, though, to show them that there is hope in the world. On some days, all we can do is talk or cry or fight or yell and nothing else gets done. Or, in the case of number 5, every demand is met with a fit of loud wailing...think British ambulance or, as my assistant says, a coyote howling at the moon. This sh** can be seriously funny sometimes, so maybe my next blog will be anecdotal and humorous instead of dark and depressing. Stay tuned for "STOP LOOKING AT ME!!"