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It’s been a year since I last saw my son. His name is Max and I keep wondering what went wrong. I loved him. At least I did at first. When he was growing in my tummy, I loved him. I was so excited about the idea of having a child. I was going to show him so many things. He would be a great scholar and I would take him to the best places. We wouldn’t use nurseries or any of that bullshit. We’d take care of him ourselves and he would be our little angel.
Only he wasn’t. He was less of an angel and more of a devil. I shouldn’t blame him but I did.
The problem was that I hit depression hard. Postnatal. I had to work though so I didn’t let it get treated. I resented the baby so much for making me feel bad. I kept saying, “I don’t know why my daughter is making me feel like shit.” He did though. I tried to keep going but he was disgusting. Everything about him made me feel like shit. After around a month, I gave up and started to ignore his cries when I felt like it. I ignored him a lot. We had a social worker come in and help us to work through the issue. She helped it to feel like he was less of a leech. Things like that can’t last forever though. Not long after the social worker left did the depression come back.
My husband was a sweetie throughout everything but I think he resented the person I became. He used to tell Max that he should mind me because it wasn’t my fault that I was moody. We never told him that it was his fault. That would be cruel even if it is the truth. We told him that he had to be quiet around me. He didn’t listen though and continued to be a screaming brat far too much. Shaan had a perfect idea though and we started sending Max to a nursery. He hated it though and started to mistreat the other kids. He would swear at them. So he was thrown out. We locked him in his room for a few hours every day after that. It was only around three but the way he described it to the social worker made it sound like we did it for like six. I’m sure it was only three at the most. We never timed it or anything, but anything above three would be cruel.
Max learnt not to be annoying and once he hit school, at first he was very studious. It felt like everything was working. The sun felt like it had finally returned and I was so proud of him. I gave him little treats for good behaviour and he was so sweet. It lasted a week.
I don’t know what happened. He started to just slack off all the time. He’d concentrate on other things. We gave him such a good start too. We even gave him a Western name so he wouldn’t be picked on. He could have been great. He could have been a doctor or a great business man or anything. Instead he started to bum around as though he had depression. So of course he had to be punished. It wasn’t like we hit him with a belt. Never once did we get physical. My brother did but that’s not on us. It’s certainly not on me. I trusted my brother. Plus Max was acting like a brat. He didn’t even learn his lesson and still slapped the other kids. No, we just told him how worthless he is. That’s not abuse. Not really. Such a drama queen to act like it is. We told him all sorts of things to get him to shut up. He wouldn’t even shut up when I had a hangover. Such a brat.
I hated him, but only for a few hours. Afterwards I would help him with his homework and tell him how much potential he had. If he understood what we wanted from him he had no excuse to let us down, but he did. We considered a few options: drugging him so he wouldn’t be such a downer, putting him a club, getting some help. We ultimately decided not to drug him. I’m sure he was nicking my drinks anyway and the last thing we wanted was a visit to the hospital with him. Help was needed and it didn’t matter where from.
We started to send him out of the house. Putting him in the library and telling him to read would keep him out of our minds. It was never enough though. School at least got him away for a few hours. So we started to think of longer term ideas. Boarding School was too expensive, but a Summer Camp was in our price range. We sent him there three times before our treatment of him lead to him complaining about us and David damn David deciding to call the CPS. Now Max has been taken away.
I never wanted to lose him. I wanted the best from him. I just needed the odd break from him. Is that really so bad?
Of course not! I had been a great parent to him when he was a great kid. It’s not my fault that he wasn’t great all that often. He was annoying and that deserved to be punished. They had no right to say they would take away any further kids we have if we didn’t improve just because he was hard to raise. Another child wouldn’t have been so bad. I even agreed Max could go and live with David. I did the right thing: that man could somehow raise him. He loved him. I don’t know how but he loved him. They called each other brothers. I could see how much happier Max was with David. I’m not a bad person for agreeing that they would be better together.
I don’t care that he was hurt. Did he really think I would fight for something that would make us all unhappy? Why should we try to mend something that could never be fixed?