Truth to Power

 It's not easy speaking truth to power. There are consequences to this, I guess that is what makes it easier to lie and save face. 

Or not say anything at all.

I have not come up with any easy solution, my plan is to write about what I know.  In my small library universe which was a microcosm of the world - if the world was a like a ghetto in West Auckland, it was easy to see. The little kids feared the big kids would beat them up. They would run into the library and hide and often that fear was real. It was not unknown that there would be death threats, if not from older siblings, even from parents themselves. 'My mum/dad would kill me' was not actually an idle threat. 

Sometimes these parents would be - out of it, preoccupied, on drugs, fighting each other, absent or in jail. Often the children would be whangaied - fostered out or looked after by their grandparents, aunties, uncles...and me. 

I remember a few of these children would always hang out in the library. Not ostensibly to read books, but because being out in the playground they would be teased, bullied, ostracised or shunned. Teachers would leave them alone if they went to the library. They would beg and plead to stay in the library well after lesson time had started. It was always hard saying no. 

This annoyed the teachers though some children claimed their teachers didn't care and let them do what they want. Perhaps they had run out of patience - though they certainly tested mine at times. I had books to process and library things to do, though I let them do little jobs like water the plants and tidy up, it was something they had control over, when they had little control over their lives in the classroom and at home. 

Most of the clingy children came from broken homes. They didn't know where they would end up on any given day. It was not something I inquired about but they would say things like 'my mum hates my dad' or 'my mum IS the dad' or 'when I grow up I'm going to earn a lot of money to look after my mum'

I once flatted with  a 'broken home' family and the ten year old boy would say of his parent's separation 'I got used to it'. They would spend half the time with their mother and half with their dad and he was not allowed within 100 metres of their home thanks to a restraining order. Eventually I had to move out when the mum moved in with her boyfriend, and there was an incident when the boy twisted my arm, (as a joke?!) then laughed when I cried and I couldn't work for a week, but I ended up forgiving him. I never saw the dad, the mother would never mention his name. 

I have since known so many divorcees/separated parents its not funny and wondered if there was an epidemic of couples who don't talk to each other anymore. Some don't even stay together after the minimum two years. There is that book in the library called 'Are you my mother?' but I think a more apt title for this day and age would be 'Where is my dad?' . 

One heartbreaking book I read, which is quite an old story now is Jacqueline Wilsons 'The Story of Tracy Beaker'. Tracy is one of those obnoxious tough kids who is always getting into trouble. She lives in a children's home called 'The Dumping Ground' and longs to be adopted or fostered out, and makes up fabulous stories about her absent mother, who she claims is a movie star and thus is far too busy to be a mother to her. She's a handful for her eventual social worker (lesbian) foster mother who turns out to love her unconditionally. Tracy's dad is never mentioned apart from the fact that he ditched her and then her mother had a succession of scumbag boyfriends who beat her up. 

Yep life is tough in the 'hood. 

This kind of chapter book wildly popular with young readers who devour orphaned childrens novels by the dozen from The BFG, The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables, Annie, Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, The Memory Thief, Because of Winn- Dixie, Baby Sitters-Club (divorced and dead parents), Pippi Longstocking, The Last Kids on Earth,  etc etc.

Not to mention 'The World's Worst Parents' one of the books by David Walliams. Of course there are 'normal' middle class family novels too but these tended to churn out self-centred narcissists like The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dork Diaries and Dear Dumb Diary. 

The senior children were often told they had to read chapter books, but most of them didn't enjoy the way children get depicted in them. I often found the dramas in them too complicated, and the parents were often terrible examples. And besides, He who must not be Named trope got old after a while, like Darth Vader in the Star Wars series. 

So I didn't mind that children gravitated towards Where's Wally, or stayed in the realm of safe making friends mode, like the Elephant and Piggie books, where there were no parents or teachers telling them how to behave.