I am a mother in despair, in a crisis emotionally and it’s taken me two days to process why I had another lost weekend, time I will never get back. As usual, there’s a long, involved reason.
Last week, my “troubled teen” had her final (??) day in court, for what they call a pre-adjudication hearing. Essentially, she had to plead guilty for a shoplifting charge, apologize for it, and they would formally drop all the other pending charges. Then the judge decided which type of probation to put her on, how much to charge me, and what special conditions she is required to fulfill.
She did well in court, I made a statement about how she is not the person they see on paper, and the public defender made it fast and easy. After just 45 minutes from parking to leaving the building, my child was given standard probation. The terms: write an apology letter to Walmart for stealing from them, pay a $50 fine, and do 16 hours of community service—plus don’t break any laws, including curfew, until she turns 18, at which time probation is over. The prosecutor wanted to have her take a drug test, but the judge overrode that. Honestly, I doubt she would’ve passed. She’s had red eyes quite a bit lately (according to her, it’s her allergies). Rolling my eyes #1.
So far, it’s been a week and she’s done nothing about any of it. She has this entire week off from work and school doesn’t start for two weeks, yet the sheet with the list of nonprofits where she could do her hours is still sitting on the floor in her room where I left it a week ago. I asked her on Friday if she had called anywhere and she lied and said, “Oh, yes. I left some messages and no one has gotten back to me.” Rolling my eyes #2.
So fast forward to pretty much not having much to say to her all week. I’m not exactly angry, just feel distant. I’m. Tired. Of. It. All. It’s been cordial, but she’s been out with friends (and I say that loosely because who the hell knows who they are).
Saturday night was the whopper. She worked in the morning and slept in the afternoon, while I shopped and went to the movies with a friend. She texted me to let me know she’d be going to her friend’s house to just eat pizza and watch movies. Rolling my eyes #3. Since she hasn’t done anything verifiably wrong, all I could say was, “K.” (That’s how I talk now when I text—like a kid.)
I came home, read, and fell asleep, probably by 11:00. At midnight, my doorbell rang, which was pretty alarming. The only reason doorbells ring in the middle of the night is because it’s a police officer who’s come to tell you a loved one has been in a fatal accident. It was a police officer, but he was looking for my daughter’s car.
“Hello, ma’am. Do you own a 2008 Chevy?”
“Yes. Why? What happened?!”
“Do you happen to know where it is right now?
“It’s my daughter’s car. She has it and she’s at her friend’s house.”
“Well, ma’am. It seems that whoever was in that car stole a 30-pack of beer from Circle K. The clerk said a teenage girl grabbed the beer and ran past saying, ‘You’re gonna hate me!’”
“What!!”
“Do you know what your daughter was wearing? The store has surveillance tape and we’d like to make an identification.”
“I have no idea. I was at a movie. I’m going to call her.”
“Hello?”
“Um, there’s a police officer at my door telling me you were involved in a robbery at a Circle K.”
“Mom, I swear, I didn’t do anything.”
“Well, here’s the police officer to explain what he just told me.”
Well, after their conversation, during which she swore to him that she didn’t do anything, she agreed to meet him at that location so the clerk could see that it wasn’t her. Even though I was told I didn’t have to, I got dressed and met them there.
By the time I got there, the clerk agreed that she wasn’t the one who stole the beer. The police officer saw the video that confirmed that it was someone else. It turns out that one of my daughter’s new “friends” ran in, stole the beer, then ran back out and instructed my daughter to “Just go!” My daughter, being very afraid to get in trouble, didn’t think and just drove away.
When I got there, she was already talking to the police officer who was trying to get the straight story and he was at the point where he was asking for the girl’s name. My daughter wouldn’t give it! I think she was afraid that there would be repercussions. I asked for a private moment with her to get her thinking straight. I reminded her that she’s on probation and if she didn’t cooperate, it would be a serious violation because she’s technically an accomplice. If he were to run her name through and give her a ticket, she would be on supervised probation past her 18th birthday, which would be much more serious and would cost her money. I also reminded her that this girl used her for her car and didn’t care about getting her in trouble, so why should she care what happened to the girl? She shouldn’t have anything to do with garbage like that.
She came to her senses and gave the officer the girl’s name and I made her give him her phone number and answer his questions fully. She started to cry hard—I think more out of relief that she was doing what she knew was right than out of fear of repercussions. I believed her story, too, because she got so emotional. When she lies, she gets very hard and defensive. The police officer felt she was being truthful as well, and gave her a break for cooperating and because I was there making her do the right thing. She then was able to open up and relax with the officer a little more because she explained she was starting college and needed to make new friends, etc. and, in fact, she was deleting this girl’s number from her phone right then.
After he wrote his notes, he was done with us and sent us on our way.
I went home, but she went back out. She felt obligated to finish her evening with the “good” friends. Rolling my eyes #4. I was too worn out to argue. I didn’t think there was any more trouble to get into.
Even today, l still haven’t recovered. I couldn’t fall back to sleep until 3 a.m. Then I woke up at 7:30, 8:30, 9:30—then went back to sleep until 3:30 in the afternoon! So—I essentially lost Sunday and felt depressed and anxious, got nothing done that I had planned, never took my medicine, felt sick to my stomach and dizzy, and cried and paced the entire evening. I went to my best friend’s house for an hour and cried and couldn’t enjoy myself. I couldn’t tell her what happened, not because she’d judge, but because can’t help and definitely wouldn’t understand.
Even though she technically didn’t do anything wrong, my daughter's making shitty choices of friends and I’m still talking to police officers. When is it enough? WHEN? When do I get a break?
