Smells like teen spirit.....

While my work life with juvenile offenders centers totally around food, it's never been what anyone could call a picnic.

Yesterday was the oddest, most frustrating, emotionally draining, jaw dropping day I've had yet.

I was sapped of every ounce of energy.

And exhilarated all at the same time.

We've been going through a rough patch for a couple of weeks, this group of loveables is hard. Not that they aren't all hard, but this one is exceptionally difficult.

Physically, they are huge, and emotionally, hugely immature....we toss around the phrase it's a bad mix to describe them.

One of the Day Treatment staff told me early in the day that she was in a foul mood, she couldn't pinpoint the exact reason although we knew some of it was tied to the kids. Just one of those days we chalked it up to be.

The dish the afternoon cooking class was making was not so much complicated as time consuming. And it took all our resources to keep the loveables in one place, on task, with their potty mouths in check and their fists to themselves.

There are a couple of new female students that started this week, one a tall blonde who has the boy's attention and the other, a chubby brunette who owns some of the most beautiful green eyes I've ever seen.

She also has all the boys attention, but not in a good way. They've been picking on her and made her life at school not so great.

She came in with her dukes up though and it's hard to say who exactly is winning their wars.

Until yesterday, when she met me in the bathroom and pulled two notes out of her back pocket.

"Here" she said, thrusting some folded papers toward me, "this is what they put on my desk".

The notes look like they were done by a five year old, except that they contained swear words and a picture of a penis in the mouth of a crude drawing of a girl's face.

The boys were gaining on her.

I was livid. And sad to my core.

I gave the notes to one of the staff members who works with the kids in the academic portion of the day and we agreed to talk afterwards about what we planned to do to address and arrest this issue.

So the guys were already on my crap list when I met up with them in our kitchen.

It was a rough couple of hours.

And I said, out loud, what I was feeling "this class is outta control".

When we were almost finished I took a walk around back to the equipment rack and noticed that there was something sticky on the floor. Whatever it was, was also on a number of the pans on the shelf. I touched it and it was like glue. Clear, honey colored glue.

Corn syrup?

Pancake syrup?

Honey?

Someone had doused the place with honey.

The shit hit the fan and this usually calm mama started yelling and accusing.

We searched garbage's, which is where they usually ditch the evidence and within mere seconds one of the loveables had gone to the exact garbage container and lifted a discarded piece of greasy parchment paper and plucked out a half empty plastic jar of honey.

I immediately accused this boy of the dirty deed.

He got angry and his voice raised. And he stomped around like an enraged black bear.

And he denied the charges.

The staff said that they would all receive write-ups unless the guilty party stepped forward.

Snowball's chance in hell, was my thought.

The biggest one of the bunch came to me, bent to my level and said, "I'm taking responsibility, I did it".

"You didn't do it" I insisted "you were washing dishes this entire class, you never left the kitchen".

"I did it" he insisted "I can't get a write-up".

I refused to allow him to take the blame for the mess.

Out in the cafeteria all hell was breaking loose as I heard staff and teens arguing.

I heard cussing and threatening.

The sounds of out of control.

When the mess was finally sorted out....

the confession I'd heard ended up being a truthful one.

The confessor wore my disappointment in him like a lead apron.

And while I knew it was a necessary penance, it was hard to watch.

In the meantime, I had an apology to give.

The formerly accused didn't want to have anything to do with me and balked at my order to "follow me" until one of the other youth said to him "maybe she wants to apologize you asshole".

He let me apologize and agreed to forgive me.

The kids gathered around a long table and they sat with the facilitators of what is their next activity, simply called "group".

Group can be anything from playing football to playing board games like Apples to Apples. Sometimes they watch movies, or do projects or just talk.

Today, the masses were spent.

The kids and the staff...wet dishrags.

One of the kids asked to speak and he rose from his chair and addressed his peers.

First he reminded them that he too liked to "play" and "act a fool", but that this class had been taking things too far. Some fun and games were okay, but this all day every day was "getting old". He talked about being on probation and being locked up and how much he just wanted to be out of the program and that he thought the rest of them should have the same goal.

They were silent and allowed him to continue.

He chided them for getting me so upset. And said that he would not tolerate them disrespecting me or my kitchen. He told them that he'd been a long time student in our Day Treatment program and that he'd never heard me say anything like he heard this day.

I'd taken a seat in the back behind the kids and listened too.

My eyes filled with tears.

And my heart, with gratitude and pride for this young man.

When he was finished I thanked him and he took a seat.

Another of the youths, one who has been steadily spiraling out of control began to talk. He started describing his life and how hard it is. How much he hates it. His sick mother, his lazy sister. Whose boyfriends he has to fight with. His hatred for his hard nosed Probation Officer and his desire and need to get out of his neighborhood. Where he knows he has no real future.

A real one perhaps, but not the one of his dreams nor of his potential.

The other youth sat still, every eye on him, and let him get it all out.

I wanted to gather him up on my lap and pat his back.

And tell him that growing into a good man is going to be the hardest and best thing he is ever going to do.

That everything would be okay

 I wish it were that easy.

Thanks for listening.

Rough & Toothless bakes a cake.....

My kitchen classroom is filled with juvenile offenders. They have mouths dirtier than gas station toilets. They try to out-thug each other by telling stories about the first time they smoked weed (usually about age 8 or so) or what happened the first time they stayed a weekend at JDF (Juvenile Detention Center) and had to prove “who” they were…fighting for a “position” in the pods (the community area where their individual cells are contained).


I fight with them constantly about the cussing. I won’t tolerate it. And trying to explain to a 6’1” juvenile criminal missing all of his front teeth and carrying around a bullet, lodged somewhere in his neck, that he can not, and will not, swear or talk about how he smoked crack once with his grandma, while in my kitchen.

All I can say is that there are days my job drains me of all my energy.

And my optimism.

Hectic and stressful, and many days are just plain freakin odd.

And scary too.

I often find myself thinking, “Why don’t you just bang yourself in the head with a rolling pin” that may get their attention. Or at the very least..it would put me out of my misery.

Some days though, I know I’m in the right place.

And I know exactly why I am where I am…and I don’t even glance at the rolling pin.

Yesterday was one such day.

The (loveable) thugs and I worked on potato dishes and desserts for our Thanksgiving feast.

I hand picked a group of teens, including “RT” (Rough & Toothless, the one with the bullet) to make cakes.

I could tell by the way his hands shook while holding the egg that I handed him that he’d never cracked one before. I don’t like to call them out on things like that, it embarrasses them. So I joke with the group…”I know most of you have thrown eggs at houses or cracked them over someone’s head… but if you’ve not cracked an egg to cook with before, I want you to watch how it’s done.”

“ Hear me when I say…I   do   not   want   any   egg   shells   in   our   food.”

I demonstrate how to do it and they follow my lead. So proud, when they do it right.

I fight disgust too every day at my job…disgust at the unfairness of life.

I think of my own three children, and see them, a couple of neighbor kids, and me making chocolate chip cookies. How they would take turns cracking eggs and using the mixer. Then lick the beaters and wait for the hot cookies. When they were done we would eat them and watch movies.

Then I look at what is before me… a roomful of almost fully grown men (and women) who have never cracked an egg. Used a mixer. Had a mom express how proud she is of them.

No time for that when you’re smoking crack with grandma.

Or dodging bullets.

Or fighting for respect at JDF.

No time to learn to bake a cake.

Not all of them have shit for parents…but the ones that do, I gather more tightly under my wing.

Rough & Toothless loved making the cake. He hung on my every instruction. And it appears he may be a natural.

It was a hoot watching him fit the oven mitts over his large paws and I stifled a giggle when I taught him how to test for doneness using a toothpick. He jabbed it in and jerked it out like he got an electrical shock.

“Do it like this” I said “slowly, that way you can see if any of the batter sticks to the toothpick”

When one of the cakes, baking in a glass pan, was taking longer time to bake Rough & Toothless sat and watched.

He’s usually the first one out the door.

Class had been over for ten minutes and he was still waiting for it to be done.

“You go ahead and go” I told him. “I will stay and get your cake out. I promise I won’t let it burn”

Once more he checked it for doneness. Closed the oven. Pried off the mitts.

“Thanks Ma” he said as he left the kitchen “I’ll see you tomorrow”.

Some days I can’t believe I call my work a “job”.

Thanks for listening......

Frosting on RT's cake.

I had to bring the cake home with me...sadly, RT skipped school today :-(