Babies

One day I’m at school, with the kid I work with. A normal day at Issaquah High School, if you can call anything in a high school normal. Landon is stressed about algebra, says it doesn’t make any sense. I do see his point. It makes sense only according to its own rules, which is a strange kind of sense. He is a brilliant, strong-willed seventeen year-old boy and he wants the world to run on his rules. He wants to rule the world, and as competent as he is, that may someday happen.

For now he gets frustrated and angry and threatens to smash his computer. Sometimes he kicks a desk or punches the wall. He would never, ever hurt anyone, but the other kids get alarmed when he acts like that. He really has to stop and that’s why he has me. I go with him to his classes to help him learn to manage his stress.

We often wind up in the hall, sitting on the floor. I work with him on reframing his perceptions. It will make sense, you just don’t understand it yet. That’s the way it is when you’re learning. Let’s formulate a specific question and you can ask the teacher. Sometimes he says he doesn’t deserve help, so it’s I who ask the teacher to come out and answer his question. We spend a lot of time in the hall.

And we see things out there. Sometimes roving bands of kids, the ones who come to school just to see their friends and cause trouble. Last year they ruled the school, terrorizing everyone. Teachers stayed in their rooms rather than face the melee in the halls. Those kids held dance parties and fights. They occupied the front office, lounging in the leather chairs and spouting obscenities at visitors and staff. This year is better because we have people with radios patrolling, and walking those kids to class. The troublemakers are on the run. If they pass by moving fast we know there’s a principal not far behind.

I expect that, but other things happen in the hall, too.

One day while Landon and I are sitting on the floor, a boy with a plastic baby emerges from the room across the hall. Not as strange as it sounds—it’s part of a child development class. The teacher sends out an email about the baby simulators. It’s not a strategy to prevent teen pregnancy, the kids are learning what it’s like to care for a baby, and what it needs. The “babies” cry and need to be fed and changed, and no one knows when it will happen. Just like real life. 

So here’s this boy who’s maybe sixteen, with an immaculate haircut and stylish clothes. Very put together. He looks nothing like a parent, he’s definitely a child. Yet he’s got a baby carrier with a crying baby, and he knows what to do. He expertly pulls off the diaper and changes it. He has a bottle and he feeds the baby. Still, the baby keeps crying. I think the boy will lose patience, give up and walk away, maybe slam the thing down, knowing it isn’t really alive.

Wrong. I am so wrong. This boy who was crying like this himself  only a few years ago, picks the plastic baby up. He supports its head as he places it on his shoulder. A look of tender concern comes on his face, and he pats the baby. Still the baby cries. He jiggles it gently and the crying eases. He walks in circles, rubbing the baby’s back, and at last the crying stops. He carefully lowers it into the carrier, covers it with a blanket, and goes back to class.

Meanwhile Landon, has figured out his algebra problem.

“Oh, OK,” he says.

He stands up and I stand up and we go back to class and the day goes on. Two more periods ‘til the end of the day.

I’m left with an image of surprising tenderness where I never would expect it to be, and the world looks a little bit different.