was determined to break.
‘Oh, Casey,’ Emma wailed as the appointed hour grew nearer, ‘can you help me find some clothes for him? I can’t find anything decent to put him in!’
‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘There’s plenty of clean babygros in the airing cupboard. Just put him in one of those. He’ll be fine.’
She wasn’t to be mollified. ‘Oh, I wish he’d been a girl. Girls are easy. You can put them in frilly stuff and make them look all pretty. Boys’ clothes are shit. He always looks a mess.’
If it weren’t for the need to give her a stern look about the swearing, I would have laughed out loud at this. It was just such a crazy thing to get in such a flap about. How things must have changed. But perhaps they hadn’t – perhaps teen mums just cared because they were teens. And given the time teenage girls often spent caring about clothes shopping, perhaps it was just an extension of that.
‘Emma, calm down,’ I said again. ‘Roman always looks beautiful. And you know, Hannah doesn’t care a bit what he’s dressed in. All that concerns her is that he’s clean and he’s healthy.’
I fished out a babygro and commanded her to put him in it. I was feeling guilty for having done too much that morning already – I’d given him his bath when he’d woken up, so she could get an extra hour’s sleep. It had been such a little thing to do, but even so I knew I shouldn’t have done it; particularly when she’d barely even noticed that I had done it – just whined about having had to get up for his night feeds and how unlucky she was to have a baby that still needed them, as if she didn’t already have no luck at all.
She was still not dressed now, in fact, and Hannah would be arriving in half an hour. So, having delivered yet another lecture, about how all babies needed night feeds at this age – not to mention for some time to come – I suggested that now Roman was attired in his babygro she get on and make herself respectable too.
‘Humph!’ she huffed, tugging the belt of her dressing gown tighter round her. ‘She can just take me as she finds me. She isn’t my social worker, is she? I’m not doing anything till I’ve had something to eat.’
I went to make her breakfast almost on autopilot, really. After all, that was what I did – I looked after children. But even as I popped the slices of bread in the toaster, and reached for the hot chocolate, it occurred to me that, actually, I shouldn’t be doing this. Emma didn’t just have to prove to Hannah that she could look after Roman, she had to prove she could do so while still taking care of herself. After all, she was right – she wasn’t one of the lucky ones, was she? If she’d been my child, I’d be there for her, helping her through the hard bit. If this had been Riley, that would have been exactly what I’d have done. Thank God it hadn’t been, but saying it had, I’d be there for her, making her breakfast, supporting her, helping her through.
But that wasn’t the case. Emma had no such support to rely on when she left me. She’d be on her own and, as such, she had to learn to survive.
I sighed heavily, as the reality of what was to come started sinking in. It was such a dilemma; I wanted to help her, but there was a clock ticking, loudly. In order to keep Roman, she had to prove she could survive without help. She was being monitored and it was my job to collude with those doing that monitoring, which meant that if things went wrong – if the decision was reached that she couldn’t be trusted to look after Roman – I would be a part of that decision-making process; a decision to part him from his mother. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so torn about a placement, or so emotionally on edge about what was the right thing to do.
I finished making the breakfast and took it in to her anyway. By now Roman had been relocated to his Moses basket – a surprise gift Mike had brought home a couple of
‘Oh, Casey,’ Emma wailed as the appointed hour grew nearer, ‘can you help me find some clothes for him? I can’t find anything decent to put him in!’
‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘There’s plenty of clean babygros in the airing cupboard. Just put him in one of those. He’ll be fine.’
She wasn’t to be mollified. ‘Oh, I wish he’d been a girl. Girls are easy. You can put them in frilly stuff and make them look all pretty. Boys’ clothes are shit. He always looks a mess.’
If it weren’t for the need to give her a stern look about the swearing, I would have laughed out loud at this. It was just such a crazy thing to get in such a flap about. How things must have changed. But perhaps they hadn’t – perhaps teen mums just cared because they were teens. And given the time teenage girls often spent caring about clothes shopping, perhaps it was just an extension of that.
‘Emma, calm down,’ I said again. ‘Roman always looks beautiful. And you know, Hannah doesn’t care a bit what he’s dressed in. All that concerns her is that he’s clean and he’s healthy.’
I fished out a babygro and commanded her to put him in it. I was feeling guilty for having done too much that morning already – I’d given him his bath when he’d woken up, so she could get an extra hour’s sleep. It had been such a little thing to do, but even so I knew I shouldn’t have done it; particularly when she’d barely even noticed that I had done it – just whined about having had to get up for his night feeds and how unlucky she was to have a baby that still needed them, as if she didn’t already have no luck at all.
She was still not dressed now, in fact, and Hannah would be arriving in half an hour. So, having delivered yet another lecture, about how all babies needed night feeds at this age – not to mention for some time to come – I suggested that now Roman was attired in his babygro she get on and make herself respectable too.
‘Humph!’ she huffed, tugging the belt of her dressing gown tighter round her. ‘She can just take me as she finds me. She isn’t my social worker, is she? I’m not doing anything till I’ve had something to eat.’
I went to make her breakfast almost on autopilot, really. After all, that was what I did – I looked after children. But even as I popped the slices of bread in the toaster, and reached for the hot chocolate, it occurred to me that, actually, I shouldn’t be doing this. Emma didn’t just have to prove to Hannah that she could look after Roman, she had to prove she could do so while still taking care of herself. After all, she was right – she wasn’t one of the lucky ones, was she? If she’d been my child, I’d be there for her, helping her through the hard bit. If this had been Riley, that would have been exactly what I’d have done. Thank God it hadn’t been, but saying it had, I’d be there for her, making her breakfast, supporting her, helping her through.
But that wasn’t the case. Emma had no such support to rely on when she left me. She’d be on her own and, as such, she had to learn to survive.
I sighed heavily, as the reality of what was to come started sinking in. It was such a dilemma; I wanted to help her, but there was a clock ticking, loudly. In order to keep Roman, she had to prove she could survive without help. She was being monitored and it was my job to collude with those doing that monitoring, which meant that if things went wrong – if the decision was reached that she couldn’t be trusted to look after Roman – I would be a part of that decision-making process; a decision to part him from his mother. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so torn about a placement, or so emotionally on edge about what was the right thing to do.
I finished making the breakfast and took it in to her anyway. By now Roman had been relocated to his Moses basket – a surprise gift Mike had brought home a couple of
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