My son had an idealic childhood.  We had our own home.  His nursery was beautiful.  His dad had redone the room right down to the woodwork before he was born. He had pets who immediately bonded with him, “guarding” him while he slept and getting into the playpen with him on the rare occasions he was unsupervised for a few minutes.  When he was in his crib they would gather outside the door and peer in to make sure nothing disturbed him.  He had developmental toys that were all the rage.  He also had colic, which kept us up and walking the floor for hours.  At some time during the first two sleep deprived weeks we discovered that music would calm him and reduce the hours we had to walk about.  So at the age of 14 days he got his first boom box with CD player and the Narada CDs made a trip up to the nursery.  Ironically his favorite was a CD called Nighttime.

    Just before he was two we moved to a small city in a different state where we had a more beautiful house and a big yard for him to play in.  He started going to day care a couple of times a week just to be around other kids for a few hours a day.  I grew up like an only child, my siblings were all grown and gone by the time I can remember anything so I wasn’t around other children very much before I went to school.  I felt that it held me back when it came to relating to others in my own age group and I didn’t want that for A since he was an only child too.  Before our move he had been enrolled in a baby and me class that separated the moms and the babies so moms could go to a parenting class and the babies could interact together.

    The only problem we had with day care was he would get excited and start hitting other kids for apparently no reason.  The teacher in the day care wanted to spend more time with him teaching him to socialize without hitting so he went three times a week instead of two until he started pre-school when he was three.  Pre-school at three was two days a week.  He would go to pre-school in the morning and to day care after, plus one more day of day care per week.  Slowly, ever so slowly the hitting began to decrease, but the pre-school teacher wanted me to keep him back from Kindergarten because she didn’t feel he was socialized enough.  At home he was always getting into trouble.  I can’t remember what he did, but when he was four I remember him spending whole days in time-out.  I kept hearing “it’ll get better when he gets older” but it never did!  It just got different.  The terrible twos started when he was about a year and a half and then came the terrible threes and the terrible fours.  I took him to a social worker who specialized in ADHD children.  I needed to know what was going on in his head that he just would not obey me.  My family told me I spoiled him.  Nice advice considering none of them ever saw him at home or saw how I interacted with him.

    About the time he was four we were facing financial struggles and I wanted to look for a job.  His dad said “No.  A is your job now.”   So I tried to think of a business to start so I could take A to work with me.  In the course of trying to do this my marriage started falling apart.  Dad was withdrawing into his own little world and having very little to do with A or me.  I really needed his involvement because by the end of the day A had me worn to a frazzle.  Bathtime was a nightmare because he fought me every inch of the way and I was always afraid he’d get hurt.  Being a typical child once he was in the tub he was fine and didn’t want to get out.  Once he was in bed, songs had been sung and stories told, CD player playing, Dad would leave the house.  So, I was alone all day with a kid who wouldn’t behave, and alone all night with nobody to talk to.  He come home after three or four hours and fall asleep on the couch having said approximately ten words to me since he had gotten home. 

    He hated the idea of me starting a business and he was sure I was spending “his” money hand over fist to get it going, but I had started a search for venture money and I’d had one firm show some interest.  I had blueprints, I had other businesses interested in leasing space, I’d even contacted equipment manufacturers.  I was just waiting for money to finance.  In all I’d spent maybe $500.  I started looking for decor and I’d bought some posters, both because I liked them for the family room in case it all fell apart, and because they would look great in the place if it didn’t.  One day mister helpful dad came home with an ultimatum.  I had been handling the family finances for years.  Twice before he’d taken them over because he thought he could do better and the bills fell behind after two months.  This time he offered me a choice, either hand over the money management or get a divorce.  I chose divorce, but I guess he didn’t hear me because he came to me some weeks later and asked me again.  So I told him to start looking for an apartment because the choice was divorce.  He had threatened me with it many times before and he never thought I‘d do it.  To him it was a power struggle.  The one with the purse strings had the power.  The only power I could see was the power to deny the other something they wanted.  I never denied him anything.  Any new toy he wanted we found the money to get.  He, on the other hand denied me even a new blouse to wear to work.  I ha to hand my paycheck over to him and if he wanted anything it was gotten, no questions asked.  I worked when he wanted me to and at what he wanted me too.  I’d given up my college education so he could finish his.  When I wanted to go back the subject had to be approved by him or no dice.  It is a wound that festers even today.

    I’d noticed that he started going down in the basement immediately on arrival after work, and that his smoke breaks down there were lasting longer and longer.  One day I went to the basement, out to the workshop where he smoked.  I started looking around and packed in nearly all of the boxes stored in there I found empty brandy bottles.  As far as I knew he’d been sober for over 13 years.  From the size of the stash I guess he’d ben drinking for about a year, sometime after the death of his stepfather.  That explained the decline in our marriage and the disappearance of money from my purse everyday.   I usually went to the bank and got cash once a week or so, but I’d been checking my purse before going to the store and finding I had a lot less money than I thought I had.  That was the nail on the coffin that was my marriage.  I’d bent so far back at times to please him that I was close to snapping, but I was not going to live with a drunk again.  He was out!  He insisted on declaring bankruptcy because as far as he saw it I had run up th debt by pursuing my business and none of it was his.  The truth of it was I had been borrowing on credit cards to cover bills for months because there was never enough money to go around.  We’d gotten a second mortgage to catch things up the year before and between the higher house payments, higher credit card payments, and car payments there just was not enough.  I just wanted him out, but it would mean losing the house.  As it turned out A and I stayed in the house for another year.

    While his dad and I were separated I continued taking A to counseling, but it was getting nowhere.  I was supposed to try positive reinforcement, but how can you reward a kid for being good when he never is?  She suggested I try one of the drugs for ADHD.  If that was the problem there would be a difference right away with the first dose.  Well, I found out it wasn’t ADHD.  His father had a royal fit when he found out I’d given it to him, but he never had to deal with the problems.  He behaved for his dad.  He just wouldn’t for me!  The only thing I can think of is the problem was familiarity.  He and I spent every minute of every day he wasn’t in day care or preschool together.  I never got a break where I could just decompress.  Even if he was at a playdate or in school I had so much on my plate I could never relax.  So I was worn out and he thought he could get away with murder and I couldn’t do anything about it.  You’d think any kid, when they run against the same boundaries time after time would stop doing it, but not my kid!  I knew from the beginning there was a problem, I just didn’t know what it was.