What if...
You took your children out for lunch. Your stepson will be leaving in a week to go spend his customary six weeks with his mom and stepdad, so you practice the art of conversation while eating by asking him what kinds of activities are planned for while he is there.
"None".
"You aren't going to go anywhere?"
"Well, no, I don't think so. Well, I don't really know."
"Will you go back to that Lake that you visited last summer?"
(note - we had next to no information about this lake he had gone to last summer. He couldn't tell us the name of the place, what it looked like, how long it took to get there... even who he was with. Just a fountain of information isn't he??)
"Maybe. I don't know. I hope not because I don't really like that place. It's all dirty and stuff. I found a whole bunch of garbage there."
-Pause-
(Breathe)
"What do you mean by, 'garbage'?"
"Well, in this barbed wire fence area, underneath the edge of the road, there were all these bleach bottles. A whole pile of them! Why would there be so many bleach bottles?"
**YES INDEED!
WHY???**
(breathe in, breathe out. repeat.)
"You didn't touch them did you?"
"No!! But why were they there?"
"Did you tell your mom?"
"Yeah, she just said it was some garbage. Somebody must have been cleaning something."
"Jordan, have you ever heard of Crystal Meth?"
"No. Is that some kind of rock?"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
So what would you do? What would you say? If you don't know why I am so upset by this, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. But just this one time. (I will not, however, be giving it to Jordan's mom,
WHO SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
This scene took place in eastern Oklahoma, at Lake Eufaula. (We just found that out last night) In the United States, in rural areas all over the country (but concentrated in the South), people are constructing Meth labs. They use old trailers, houses, even apartments to conduct their dirty work. A wide variety of toxic chemicals are needed to make Methamphetamine - bleach is one of them. You need a lot of it. This creates a lot of waste that you need to get rid of, and because the sheer volume and unique contents of the garbage, it is a calling card that you are cooking meth. So what to do? Drive out on some rural road and dump it. It is not just plain 'ol garbage though. It is contaminated.
It is freakin' toxic! When you see clean-up operations on the news, the authorities are wearing Haz Mat suits.
(breathe)
So now you know what Crystal Meth is - and how to recognize the toxic waste that the whole operation leaves behind. Jordan knows this too....now.
But wait! Our scenario gets worse!
Jordan was brought to this **lovely** place by his mom and stepdad. This is supposed to be a really nice lake. Huge in fact. The stepdad's family (a sister, I think) had just purchased some land **For real cheap!! What a deal!!** (THREE GUESSES AS TO WHY IT WAS SO #$%@! CHEAP!) at the lake. That is why they were there - to see the place and have a family gathering/picnic kind of deal. Land that has a toxic meth dump site on it. Land on which the previous owner had a trailer that was trashed while he was in the hospital. He sold it soon after. To step dad's relatives. Gee. I wonder
why the trailer was trashed? You don't really have to bit hit over the head here, to connect the dots.
We listened to Jordan talking on the phone with his mother last night to try to at least glean a few more details. To sum it up, she thinks that we are accusing stepdad's family of cooking and dealing meth. She is fuming mad, and asks Jordan over and over again if that is what we are saying. That is, of course, NOT what we are saying. She is totally missing the point.
Here is the important information that she is NOT processing:
1) Her son,
while in her care, discovered a potentially dangerous (if not deadly) pile of trash, and she did not tell us. (What was his degree of exposure?) Or him, for that matter.
2) He did the
right thing by telling her right away what he had found.
3) She did the
wrong thing by either a) being truly ignorant and not recognizing the danger OR b) being completely negligent in making this an educational opportunity to discuss what it was that he actually found and to discuss the wide variety of dangers posed by Crystal Meth. I think I will go with 'b'.
4) That her son is curious - and if they go back there this summer (which they might), he will look for more - just to see if he can find it. Despite being warned of the dangers, he
will go looking. That is just who he is...
Step parenting is so hard. I am so glad that there is this physical distance in place here, because I can imagine I would be standing on her front lawn with a bull horn quite frequently. The nine weeks throughout the year that Jordan spends there are difficult for us to bear. We constantly fear for what he is inadvertently being exposed to. He has to stay in a rough neighborhood. He has no playmates there (that is actually a good thing), but he does have one that lives near his maternal grandparents, who he plays with a couple of times a week. We have never met this boy, so we don't know what he is like. Jordan is not always a good judge of character. He also lacks common sense and falls prey to pressure way to easily. Given these circumstances, we know that it is just a matter of time of 'when' Jordan will be offered drugs. Not 'if', but 'when'. All we can do is educate him, educate him, educate him and hope for the best. What Jordan
does have going for him is that eventually he always tells the truth. If he sees something odd, he will ask about it. It may take a full year (as with the case of the bleach bottles) but he will eventually tell you. He knows right from wrong. He is not openly defiant. But he is eleven... and he doesn't always stop to think before he acts. His impulsivity could very well be his downfall.
I have no idea of the readership of this blog. I may have touched off a firestorm here (and caused my inlaws to permanently hate me), but you know what? I don't care - Jordan is partially my responsibility and I have to say something when his safety is jeopardized. They don't live this life day-after-day (and see how messed up he is after a visit), and I can't hold my frustrations in any more. I'm in therapy remember?? It isn't healthy to keep stuffing it down and hope that it will get better over time. I am Jordan's stepmom. I promised to love him and devote myself to his well-being the day (tomorrow!) I married his daddy. She won't ever change. She is who she is, and Jordan loves her and that is what is important. All I can do is be the best mom I can be when he is here, parent my ass off, and hope that it is enough to keep him going when he is not here.
