“I am a black
West Indian British-born woman enjoying working as a legal secretary. I am
writing about Darren, my 15-year-old son - who has been an increasing problem
recently with his joy-riding. He keeps doing it and I can’t stop him. His
father lives sometimes with us and sometimes with another black woman nearby
who is with child by him. Darren and his father despise me for my concerns -
calling me a wimp and saying I do not understand men or black culture. My
next-door neighbour - a white professional woman - said much the same. I am
worried Darren will end up in one of these special units for young offenders.”
Ms L.A.
Ms L.A. enjoys her responsible job but
everything else in her life looks problematic. She has a teenage son in
difficulties and a part-time partner who will soon have a child by another
woman. Even before we consider her feelings about black culture or her
partner’s encouragement of delinquency in their son, her painful personal
predicament needs acknowledging.
As psychotherapist Dr Estela Welldon
comments, “This mother is facing a difficult time which can only get worse if
it is not addressed. I would not be surprised if she experienced serious
depression. Her son is behaving delinquently, her partner is devaluing her and
conducting another relationship and once the new baby is born her son is likely
to experience her as even more devalued than before. Indeed, without help, the
mother and son are also likely to continue sabotaging their family unit-
spoiling the support they could get from each other.” Ms L.A. enjoys working
within a legal environment and yet somehow she has selected a partner who
breaks relationship codes and encourages a son to break legal codes. Is she a
victim of male delinquency or are all three somehow influencing and maintaining
this state of affairs?
Whilst mother and son are unable to support
each other, father and son are joined in a delinquent pairing using” black
culture” as an excuse aided and abetted by their white next-door neighbour as
well. Lennox Thomas, clinical director of Nafsiyat, the multicultural
organisation that provides brief psychotherapy, consultation and training to
agencies who work with these issues, will have no truck with such excuses
whether they come from white or black individuals.
“The father has left his son without a good
male image. That is something he is responsible for but is abdicating. Blaming
black culture is denigrating what is culturally good about Caribbean living.
Indeed, what the father is doing is operating a kind of thinking adopted by the
rest of white society whilst at the same time being part of the problem”. He
understands joyriding as Darren’s attempt to find strategies to get his mother
and father together to take control of him.
However, it does not look as if the father is
wanting such agreement to be reached. Almost at the moment of bringing a new
life into this world, he is placing all soft vulnerable feelings into Ms L.A.
only to mock her as a wimp. In a controversial new book, “Why men hate women”
psychotherapist Adam Jukes underlines a view that all men, forced to move from
an initial identification with mothers, hate in female attachment figures, the
vulnerability they cannot tolerate in themselves. He argues that for most men
the impact of that first loss is a wish to relate to women through control and
domination.
Ms L A is bringing complex gender issues. She
is being castigated as a no-good male - a wimp- as punishment for trying to
uphold a legal boundary and her partner is seeing their 15-year-old boy as an
equal man. Encouraging a son to joy-ride to avoid being a wimp is worrying
parental behaviour in an adult male.
How about Darren? Is his behaviour serious?
Dr Christopher Cordess, consultant forensic psychiatrist, comments “The
joy-riding is clearly compulsive as he keeps doing it. Joy-riding is a strange
name as it can end up with such tragic consequences. However, it is the risk
element that is so exciting for such teenagers. That excitement can often be
the way out of a rather desperate situation - in this case the parental one-
and a misguided attempt to enlist self-esteem. A lot of other offending
behaviour tries to do that too. This behaviour- whilst looking innocuous can
have disastrous consequences. It is necessary to understand the child and the
particular symptom as well as improving car locks! Delinquent behaviour needs
early intervention before it gets too strong a hold on the personality”.
Dr Cordess also noted Ms L A’s fear and hope
that Darren might end up in a secure unit. Like other professionals, he has
serious reservations about these proposed new units since the statements of
policy have concentrated on care, education and control but there has been no
mention of treatment in general or psychological treatment including
psychotherapy in particular. He chairs a newly formed network of professionals
concerned with the young criminal mind and current policy, research and options
for treatment.
What about the new baby? Is the timing of
this letter linked to particularly difficult feelings about this event? Ms.
L.A., her partner, his new partner, Darren and the new baby make a complex new
family unit. A birth can evoke fears of displacement in the most stable unit.
Support now might make that new experience more tolerable.