Saturday, March 5, 2011

They want it!

Last Nick, around Midnight, we got a panicked call from Nick. Apparently, instead of hanging out at his buddy's house like he had told us, he had gone to a party in Holden where the parents were away and the kids had alcohol. His panic was justified, as he was standing in between to police officers at the time.
I pull up to the house where there are 4 local and two state police cars and not one, but TWO ambulances. My heart sank. Poor stupid kids. Once I approach the driveway, I am told that the kids who didn't get arrested are inside waiting to be released. Oh, good, glad I'm wearing my good pajamas. Closer to the door, I can hear teenage girls wailing and sobbing.
"What is your child's name, Ma'am?"
"Nicholas the fool"
He walks slowly toward the door, his neck a good half foot below his shoulders at this point. I ask the officer what exactly happened. It's simple: parent's in Chicago, underage drinking party.
"Thank you, have a good night." (that was Nick, I was speechless.)
I'm calm in these kind of situations. Spill something and not clean it up and I am likely to yell and stomp. Big stuff, for some reason, does not rile me.
We talk. His breath is booze. I ask what he drank. A Mike's hard and some UV blue vodka, "which was nasty by the way". I give him a mint, he thanks me for not killing him yet. We talked calmly about the party, how his good friends has told him not to go, how he just wanted to go to one of the parties he hears about on Monday mornings. He tells me who was there, who got arrested, and who was in what kind of trouble. I let him know he will be enjoying hard labor without parole for a time frame undetermined. Could be forever. We'll see how the hard labor goes.
The one thing that bothers me about this whole thing is not that my kid drank and got in trouble. It's his first offense and it's expected. The thing that really gets me is one girl sobbing on the couch when I arrived at the party house. Nick's friend, we'll call her Bulia. She was just sitting there, with her hands in her lap, quietly sobbing. When Nick and I talked about it, he told me that she was upset because her mother wasn't. Her mother wasn't mad, or disappointed or bothered at all. Every kid's dream, right? "Cool" parents who don't mind when you screw up.
I know so much about this girl and it kills me that her parents don't seem to find any of it alarming. She's cutting herself, sending nude pics by text to her "friends", and now has been told that it is ok to drink.
I feel proud of my choices as a parent. I'm not cool, and I'm good with that.

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