This is a personal diary about trying and failing to make life work in Augusta, GA, with three autistic kids and a male-centered, female unfriendly work environment. Feel free to just pass it by--it's really just something of a depressing but yet hopeful update to the two diaries I wrote at the end of last year when things finally began sweeping downward at an astounding rate. (What Happens When an Autistic 3rd Grader Brings Her Dad's Camping Knife to School Because It's Shiny and Heart-felt Thanks, an Update on Our Autistic 3rd Grader, and Other Thoughts)
Well, to start, my self-description has, for years now, been "Progressive mother of three living and working on the GA/SC border and striving to turn this crimson town blue one person at a time." We tried. I tried. Really hard. And sometimes, I think, succeeded. But my neighbors repeatedly elect Paul Broun (GA-Guanocrazy). And, well, trying to raise three kids on the autistic spectrum here in our meanspirited corner of GA has become impossible, especially after our 3rd grade daughter was dumped into a self-contained 4-kid program where she was routinely beaten up, repeatedly choked, and screamed at that she was a "bitch" at by the other kids (well, really just one of them) in the classroom. Her 6th grade sister has a group of boys that regularly surround her and tell her that she needs to go die (yes, really), and peg her in the face and back of the head with balls during (and before, and after) PE games. I have officially given up, for their sake. We're moving to Maryland (probably Howard County) next week. I'm terrified but hopeful. TeacherHubby doesn't have a contract yet, but we're hopeful that a highly qualified science teacher certified to teach every science from 5-12th grade will be ok. He's got active applications with Howard, Ann Arundel, and Prince George's County. Surely something will come up.
More thoughts below the elegant orange swirls if you're at all curious.
These musings are just that: musings. I could certainly be wrong, because even after a decade here in the South, I'm an outsider who freely admits that I don't get the place, however much I've tried. Observations:
Confederate flags decorate what seems like ever other car (but is actually a minority, I realize) and fly outside way too many homes. I get that people here say the flags are a link to their heritage, but they're also a sign of clinging to a horrible time in our country and clinging to a cause that, no matter what they choose to say, boiled down to keeping other human beings in vile bondage. Southern pride? The pride should be in the folks who bravely stood up against lynchings and beatings and all sorts of terror to bring forth civil rights. Now that's a the Southern pride I can embrace and love. And it's not something I saw much of in Augusta. I have to hope I just didn't look in the right places.
It's very, very stratified here. I suppose it comes from the past, which isn't really past here. As one example, though there are others ranging from DUIs getting ignored for prominent people and properly cracked down on for all others to ignoring rules about school attendance if you're from a prominent family. As one rather illustrative example, the boys who torment Eldergirl and suggest that she suicide, pour pencil shavings on her, and hit her with dodge balls outside the game hard enough to leave bruises are led by a family member of the school board, and so escape with consequences any more severe than a call home. To be fair, on the last week of school, when they surrounded her and tried to egg her into fury, only to have her keep her calm until one of them took out his water bottle and squirted her in face at which point she decked him, the school decided he had it coming and took no action against Eldergirl. Given what could have happened to her, I was furious at her and let her know I felt violence was not the answer to anything. Though inside, I didn't blame her.
The 3rd grade Littlest has had it the worst. She was put in a program for the most severely autistic kids in the county and learned all sorts of lessons there that I wish she hadn't. One of her classmates tried to strangle her five or six times (you'd think I'd not lose count of those), whipped her in the face Indiana Jones style with a jump rope, hit her with metal swing chains, regularly screamed at her that she was a bitch and an incompetent girl who could do nothing, hit and scratched her, etc. I was up at the school every other day. Eventually, the kid was kept separate from her, but we still had the occasional incident when they passed in the hall or the classroom. She learned too early the lesson that you keep your head down and stay silent no matter how upset you are, just to stay safe. We'll be spending a good deal of time unlearning those lessons. I had a fit the day the school, thinking it was doing good, reinforced them: they gave her an office commendation for staying still and quiet and letting the teacher handle it when the kid had his hands around her neck squeezing. No, Littlest, if someone's putting you in danger, you fight like hell and damn the consequences.
Difference of any sort just isn't tolerated here, and I hope it will be different in our new home.
TeacherHubby had his own minefields to deal with, with kids breaking down in tears in his science classes demanding to know what he had against God and why he'd teach such lies as the age of the earth and the pit-from-hell trap of evolution. Every year, he wondered whether he'd be brought before the BoE with a complaint, as he was the only bio teacher at the school who actually believed in evolution and didn't (on the sly and against the rules) include information debunking it. Still, he had it easier than the rest of us in a lot of ways, as he managed to reach some kids and still gets told everywhere we go in town that his love for his subject made them love it, too, and that his goofy enthusiasm made him the best teacher they'd had. If anyone wants, I'll link to some of the hilarious videos (Muppets on Lab Safety, anyone) he played for his kids. But it was still rough going at times.
This place has taken science denial to a new level. Forget global warming, even. Due to a fury of government telling you what to do on health care, the decision was made to not require pertussis (whooping cough) boosters for middle schoolers, which is when it wears off. Consequently, the entire family caught it when Eldergirl brought it home from middle school. Good heavens, there is a REASON we wiped that out. The Boy, poor dear, spent weeks coughing so hard he'd vomit, and there was nothing to be done about it. The antibiotics make it so you're not contagious, but do very little to deal with the symptoms. I ended up with a secondary infection that left me very seriously ill, but that was nothing compared to watching my already underweight autistic son cough off 10 of his 80 pounds.
I had a great work environment for years her, until my work unit was blended with another, and our wonderful division chief was made subordinate to a chauvinist pig. No sugar coating--that's what he is. At that point, even those she and I were still ostensibly part of the leadership group of the expanded unit, we were entirely marginalized. We're both talked over, portrayed as "hysterical women" if we challenge a decision, completely ignored. I've had my new boss literally get up and wander off as I told him of a whole host of free resources I'd acquired for him. And then be accused of keeping him in the dark about it. He won't look at either of us (or the few other women in the group) when he talks to us, and he won't use our names. He goes on about how the men need to be paid more because they have "a wife and kid at home to take care of." Yeah, well she has a husband and kid that they adopted out of foster care and I have a husband and three autistic kids. We don't get paid more for that crap.
And it's not just in our office. All around her, people won't address you if you're with a man. And if you're not, you're talked down to as if you're a dim and irritating kindergartener. If you're not white, plan on waiting in line. If you're in a hijab, expect to get ignored, but somehow hostilely. The Sikh temple is the subject of ridicule and the synagogues the same.
Is there hope for Augusta? I'm not sure. I think yes, as there are many good people here. But the entire social framework will have to shift. That said, when we got here, it seemed to be getting more and more moderate--until the president was elected. Then the place went crazy, so far as I can tell. Maybe it will turn out to be like lancing a boil and the toxic material that is now out in the open will dissipate and allow for true healing. That's my deepest hope for the place.
But in the meantime, I--like most of my other liberal friends, sadly--are packing up our family and moving to safer and saner climes.