The evidence was damning. Dr. Roberts suggests we go with speech and language impaired since Blaze seems to have trouble processing language and expressing himself. Fine, I tell her, speech and language. At least she hasn’t suggested that he’s mentally retarded. I suppose I should consider myself lucky. I debate protesting somemore, telling them that this is a mistake, that there’s nothing wrong with Blaze, that he’s a special, wonderful kid and part of a special, different family, but I stop myself. The faces in this room show no signs of yielding. They’ve made up their minds. Ultimately, it is the implacable gaze of the Ice Princess that does it for me. I don’t know much about the special-ed class, but I sense that it will be better than what Blaze will get with her. Although I feel foolish for feeling it, in this moment, I hate her completely.
I sign papers to transfer Blaze into the special-education class where he will start tomorrow morning. Sally encourages me to come and see the classroom when I bring Blaze in so we can both feel “comfortable.” Fuck comfortable, I want to tell her. We left comfortable behind as soon as this meeting began. I agree to a full evaluation by the speech therapist, and Dr. Roberts and I make an appointment with the school nurse who will take a full medical history (part of me is convinced that in the course of these evaluations, Blaze’s native intelligence will shine through and they’ll all be able to see what a mistake this has been). Everybody seems happy with the results of the meeting. I am not smiling. I walk away from the building so fast, I am almost running. The tears have started now but I wipe them away. I will have to wait until I finish working to go home and get into bed. I can’t share the pain I am feeling now, it is too close to the bone. I want to be able to cry in private.
It took days for me to come to a full acceptance that Blaze was in a special-education class. Even after the description of his behavior on his first day of school, I still couldn’t figure out what he had done that was so bad. I kept looking at him, searching for clues to what they were talking about and what I could have missed in the five years since his birth. I had never so much as suspected that what I had considered “special” could be regarded as “wrong.” I was forced to sift through all his behaviors (and my own) to see if I could even vaguely reconcile myversion of Blaze with the school’s. The first order of business was to figure out what I had done incorrectly as his mother.
I knew that I’d done everything I thought was right for my child. I’d kept him with me throughout his first five years because I thought it would give him a sense of security to know that I was always there. He should get the full benefit of the one parent he did have. Despite the fact that he had lots of attention from a big and loving family, I felt bad that he didn’t have a father and I wanted to make up for it by being both mother and father to him. I actually scoffed at mothers who put their kids in child care even when they didn’t have to work. Why have a kid at all, I’d always wondered, if you weren’t going to spend any time with him?
I’d disciplined Blaze but let him develop at his own pace. I wanted him to be whoever he wanted to be. I had never noticed behavior from him that seemed unacceptable to me. I had always assumed that when Blaze started school he would be able to follow the rules, adapt, find his way in the world just as I had. But it was clear from that very first day that Blaze was not going to fit this profile at all. He was operating from his own rule book and it had nothing to do with what the school thought was “normal” or “appropriate.”
Although I agreed to place Blaze in special ed, I didn’t think he would have to stay there. I thought if I just gave him enough time to figure out what was expected of him in school, he would pull it
I sign papers to transfer Blaze into the special-education class where he will start tomorrow morning. Sally encourages me to come and see the classroom when I bring Blaze in so we can both feel “comfortable.” Fuck comfortable, I want to tell her. We left comfortable behind as soon as this meeting began. I agree to a full evaluation by the speech therapist, and Dr. Roberts and I make an appointment with the school nurse who will take a full medical history (part of me is convinced that in the course of these evaluations, Blaze’s native intelligence will shine through and they’ll all be able to see what a mistake this has been). Everybody seems happy with the results of the meeting. I am not smiling. I walk away from the building so fast, I am almost running. The tears have started now but I wipe them away. I will have to wait until I finish working to go home and get into bed. I can’t share the pain I am feeling now, it is too close to the bone. I want to be able to cry in private.
It took days for me to come to a full acceptance that Blaze was in a special-education class. Even after the description of his behavior on his first day of school, I still couldn’t figure out what he had done that was so bad. I kept looking at him, searching for clues to what they were talking about and what I could have missed in the five years since his birth. I had never so much as suspected that what I had considered “special” could be regarded as “wrong.” I was forced to sift through all his behaviors (and my own) to see if I could even vaguely reconcile myversion of Blaze with the school’s. The first order of business was to figure out what I had done incorrectly as his mother.
I knew that I’d done everything I thought was right for my child. I’d kept him with me throughout his first five years because I thought it would give him a sense of security to know that I was always there. He should get the full benefit of the one parent he did have. Despite the fact that he had lots of attention from a big and loving family, I felt bad that he didn’t have a father and I wanted to make up for it by being both mother and father to him. I actually scoffed at mothers who put their kids in child care even when they didn’t have to work. Why have a kid at all, I’d always wondered, if you weren’t going to spend any time with him?
I’d disciplined Blaze but let him develop at his own pace. I wanted him to be whoever he wanted to be. I had never noticed behavior from him that seemed unacceptable to me. I had always assumed that when Blaze started school he would be able to follow the rules, adapt, find his way in the world just as I had. But it was clear from that very first day that Blaze was not going to fit this profile at all. He was operating from his own rule book and it had nothing to do with what the school thought was “normal” or “appropriate.”
Although I agreed to place Blaze in special ed, I didn’t think he would have to stay there. I thought if I just gave him enough time to figure out what was expected of him in school, he would pull it
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