This particular girl was the one middle school girl I truly felt a connection with. She was new to Branches: she had only started coming right before Christmas, but she formed a very tight bond with me very quickly. If she had a problem, she asked for me right away and always trusted me with her secrets - including the issues she had with her mother. She was a good student. She tried hard. She actually did her homework and asked for help if she needed it. She had just gotten accepted to a really good private high school in the area that specialized in nursing - her career of choice. She was someone that we all had really high hopes for. Only there was one issue: her mother.
Now that I am a "grown up," (for all intensive purposes...) I often find myself siding with parents more in situations and telling the youth that "They really need to listen to their parents more. After all, they know what's best for you." A sentence that probably would have never come out of my mouth four years ago. However, in this situation, I cannot even find a way to reason with her mother. This particular girl came to me a couple of months ago asking for advice for how to deal with her mother. I told her that even if they didn't get along that she still needed to respect her mother and the decisions that had been made. I don't necessarily think that was bad advice at this point, however, I now realize why she even came to me with a question like that. It was because what this young girl was going through was not a case of "angry teenager vs. Mom." What she was going through was a little more of "certifiably crazy Mom vs. seemingly rational middle school girl." Not your typical, everyday teenaged girl issues. Although, at this point, I think I should probably expect things like this to come out of Florida City.
Her mom stormed into Branches today to tell us that she was pulling her daughter out of our program and shipping her off to live with her grandmother. Her middle school daughter had not let her search through her book bag. When her mother took the bag by force she found inside a notebook. Some of the notebook's contents were notes, but there were a few doodles. These doodles showed that her daughter had a crush on a boy. And her daughter - her fourteen year old daughter - had not told her about it and lied about him. I think her mom kept raging and probably gave more reasons for why she was being pulled out of Branches, but I left and went out to the car to talk to my favorite middle school girl for seemingly the last time. Her equally as crazy little brother was saying very rude things about her from the backseat as she just sat in the front seat, tears rolling down her face, asking over and over again what had she done wrong?
It broke my heart. I truly felt awful. I felt helpless and feared for this young girl who had actually done everything right in her life and yet still ended up on the wrong side of things. These kids have every disadvantage stacked against them. Even when you think you find the ones who will live above the influences and make the right choices in life, other things, uncontrollable forces, step in. The only good I can see in this is that maybe this move will get her away from her crazy mother and her mother's horrible boyfriend. However, it also takes her away from "the one place where she felt welcomed and loved."
Life is unfair.
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