At 19, I worked at a transitional home for recovering drug addicts and their children. This was not your average half-way house as the women here were court appointed...they had no choice in the matter. It was the only one of its kind in the tri-state area (Pa/Md/Va + DC) where their children could live with them as well.
There was a unique mix of women...a local 40 something, (former) rich, white lady who was a pill addict and had two little boys from two different fathers. The youngest was not acknowledged by her (former) in-laws due to his bastard(ness). They would come visit the eldest and bring him gifts on holidays while the baby just watched him enjoy the new toys. The baby, Jordan, was actually my favorite in the house...blond haired, blue eyed-bobble head little 2 year old who would come running awkwardly towards me every time I arrived to work. Jordan had this little Prince Valiant hair cut that would mat, sticking to his forehead with sweat throughout the day. One day I asked his mom if I could give him a haircut and she said she didn't care (of course not, she tried really hard to be a good mom but it just wasn't in her nature to be patient). Poor lil Jordan cried those huge tears and screamed just at the sound of the clippers...sitting on a changing table in the bathroom, he had eventually worn himself out and fell asleep (still sitting upright) with his forehead resting on my belly as I stood next to him finishing up the cut. It was my very first time tapering a male's hair and in my opinion (and everyone elses') he looked even cuter with his lil man haircut! Her oldest (Alex) was such a little know it all...even at 4 years old...he once said to me "My mommy says I have loose bowels." TMI little kid! When angry he would make this weird hissing noise and tell us he was using his "Dragon Breath" to keep everyone away...he said it with such entitlement/pride/confidence that I feared what he would be capable of as an adult.
There were two African-American women from Baltimore that had one child each. One of them was a bit older, followed the rules but had a few extreme moments of rebellion...it made sense that her daughter was only 2 years old...obviously a mistake. The other was in her early thirties, immensely over-weight and immensely ignorant. I say ignorant because she was capable just not interested in anything other than what she knew...the ghetto, using intimidation as a means to an end and her version of "soul" food which consisted of processed, fake alternatives to anything fresh or nutritious. You couldn't tell her anything! When I first met her I thought she had been crying with a single trickle of mascara running down her cheek. I soon found out that was a scar from a knife fight. Maybe I was naive but my heart was in the right place. This woman's daughter had the worst name I'd ever heard. Two syllables and the second sounding like Queer. I'm not sure what she was going for with this name but for a chubby lil black girl who was all mouth, that name was just begging for hateful school aged ridicule! This woman would pretend to be nice and cooperative but as soon as she was having a bad day or told to do something she didn't want to do..."You stupid bitch! What's a rich lil white girl doin tellin me anythin bout life? You don't know what I been through! You don't know shit lil white girl!" I guess from her perspective that was the easy route to take with me and the two other young (white) women that I worked with on the 2nd shift. She was right, I didn't know what she'd been through except from reading her file. However, she also didn't know what I'd been through...I had the same choices in life as she had...and I chose to do the "right" things to get me to the place I was at the time...and that was: not in jail, not with 3 kids, not an addict...I repeat, NOT AN ADDICT! Her being an addict was the catalyst. Just once, I did feel kinda bad for her. She finally got a steady job, consisting of steady movement/exercise throughout the day and having us apply ointment to the sores developing between her fat rolls must have been extremely humbling. Guess my lil white ass wasn't too good for that!
Not all the residents were living up to the typical crack-head stereotype. There were a couple younger women that had lived similar lives to mine. A few wrong turns and suddenly they went from addict to pregnant to rehab to transitional home...learning how to live a sober life and raise their children to do so as well.
Another local woman who had three kids (the youngest named Morgan...guess why)...all three born addicted to crack and alcohol...all three relatively healthy and normal...I used to ask myself all the time how is it a woman like this can be so lucky to have 3 healthy babies and someone else who follows all the rules has a baby born with cancer (my cousin) or a baby with heart defects (my aunt)? Its crazy to me how this world works. This woman's eldest, a cute 3 year old, demonic, little blond haired boy who wore his heart on his sleeve, would fight, kick and punch as you tried to hug him. Once your arms were securely around him, he would just melt into your body...his inner turmoil, even at a young age was unsettling. One of his finest moments: All the toddler aged kids were playing in the shared living room...they each had one of those cars/trucks that had little handle bars on the back so a small child could use it as an kiddie walker...some of them even had seats so one could sit and the other could push them around. This lil boy was pushing around one of the younger lil girls...both laughing and being sweet. He was so careful not to run her legs or feet into any of the furniture. He stops suddenly and looks at me all hunched over with his hand on his hip and a devious look on his face...he groans "Oh my aching back!"
Almost ten years later, when my back aches I think of this lil boy, that time in my life and how much I learned from the people that were in it...
There was a unique mix of women...a local 40 something, (former) rich, white lady who was a pill addict and had two little boys from two different fathers. The youngest was not acknowledged by her (former) in-laws due to his bastard(ness). They would come visit the eldest and bring him gifts on holidays while the baby just watched him enjoy the new toys. The baby, Jordan, was actually my favorite in the house...blond haired, blue eyed-bobble head little 2 year old who would come running awkwardly towards me every time I arrived to work. Jordan had this little Prince Valiant hair cut that would mat, sticking to his forehead with sweat throughout the day. One day I asked his mom if I could give him a haircut and she said she didn't care (of course not, she tried really hard to be a good mom but it just wasn't in her nature to be patient). Poor lil Jordan cried those huge tears and screamed just at the sound of the clippers...sitting on a changing table in the bathroom, he had eventually worn himself out and fell asleep (still sitting upright) with his forehead resting on my belly as I stood next to him finishing up the cut. It was my very first time tapering a male's hair and in my opinion (and everyone elses') he looked even cuter with his lil man haircut! Her oldest (Alex) was such a little know it all...even at 4 years old...he once said to me "My mommy says I have loose bowels." TMI little kid! When angry he would make this weird hissing noise and tell us he was using his "Dragon Breath" to keep everyone away...he said it with such entitlement/pride/confidence that I feared what he would be capable of as an adult.
There were two African-American women from Baltimore that had one child each. One of them was a bit older, followed the rules but had a few extreme moments of rebellion...it made sense that her daughter was only 2 years old...obviously a mistake. The other was in her early thirties, immensely over-weight and immensely ignorant. I say ignorant because she was capable just not interested in anything other than what she knew...the ghetto, using intimidation as a means to an end and her version of "soul" food which consisted of processed, fake alternatives to anything fresh or nutritious. You couldn't tell her anything! When I first met her I thought she had been crying with a single trickle of mascara running down her cheek. I soon found out that was a scar from a knife fight. Maybe I was naive but my heart was in the right place. This woman's daughter had the worst name I'd ever heard. Two syllables and the second sounding like Queer. I'm not sure what she was going for with this name but for a chubby lil black girl who was all mouth, that name was just begging for hateful school aged ridicule! This woman would pretend to be nice and cooperative but as soon as she was having a bad day or told to do something she didn't want to do..."You stupid bitch! What's a rich lil white girl doin tellin me anythin bout life? You don't know what I been through! You don't know shit lil white girl!" I guess from her perspective that was the easy route to take with me and the two other young (white) women that I worked with on the 2nd shift. She was right, I didn't know what she'd been through except from reading her file. However, she also didn't know what I'd been through...I had the same choices in life as she had...and I chose to do the "right" things to get me to the place I was at the time...and that was: not in jail, not with 3 kids, not an addict...I repeat, NOT AN ADDICT! Her being an addict was the catalyst. Just once, I did feel kinda bad for her. She finally got a steady job, consisting of steady movement/exercise throughout the day and having us apply ointment to the sores developing between her fat rolls must have been extremely humbling. Guess my lil white ass wasn't too good for that!
Not all the residents were living up to the typical crack-head stereotype. There were a couple younger women that had lived similar lives to mine. A few wrong turns and suddenly they went from addict to pregnant to rehab to transitional home...learning how to live a sober life and raise their children to do so as well.
Another local woman who had three kids (the youngest named Morgan...guess why)...all three born addicted to crack and alcohol...all three relatively healthy and normal...I used to ask myself all the time how is it a woman like this can be so lucky to have 3 healthy babies and someone else who follows all the rules has a baby born with cancer (my cousin) or a baby with heart defects (my aunt)? Its crazy to me how this world works. This woman's eldest, a cute 3 year old, demonic, little blond haired boy who wore his heart on his sleeve, would fight, kick and punch as you tried to hug him. Once your arms were securely around him, he would just melt into your body...his inner turmoil, even at a young age was unsettling. One of his finest moments: All the toddler aged kids were playing in the shared living room...they each had one of those cars/trucks that had little handle bars on the back so a small child could use it as an kiddie walker...some of them even had seats so one could sit and the other could push them around. This lil boy was pushing around one of the younger lil girls...both laughing and being sweet. He was so careful not to run her legs or feet into any of the furniture. He stops suddenly and looks at me all hunched over with his hand on his hip and a devious look on his face...he groans "Oh my aching back!"
Almost ten years later, when my back aches I think of this lil boy, that time in my life and how much I learned from the people that were in it...
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