Passing the Baton

As usual, I got to work an hour early so that I could get my walk and run workout in on the relatively well-lit roads around W. E. Sears Youth Center.  I had finished my run and was on my cool-down lap.  Part of my route takes me past the building that houses Phoenix group.

Ahead of me a young female staff stepped out the door.  So as not to startle her, I greeted her, “Evening.  How are you doing?”

She answered curtly, “It’s been one of the worst nights I’ve ever had.”

I stopped walking.

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When you work with young men who have been in trouble, it’s nice to get an easy shift now and then, but each shift tends to have its own challenges.  Yes, it’s nice to have an easy shift from time to time, but the difficult shifts are often the ones when we make the most progress with the boys.

Our boys are with us because they have broken at least one law, true enough.  But that is often more the symptom than the disease.  They may come from any socio-economic group although more often they originate in the more financially challenged grouping and less often the middle-class.

Sometimes they are with us because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or, hanging out with the wrong friends.

Most often those are just easy excuses the boys use to escape taking responsibility for their own actions.
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“The boys give you are hard time tonight?” I asked.

The young staff was holding a cell phone to her ear.  I hadn’t noticed it in the darkness.  She spoke in the phone, “I’ll call you back, dear.  Love you.”

Before I could stop her, she’d hung up.  I apologized for interrupting her conversation with what I soon learned was her husband.

She brushed off my apology, “We weren’t talking about anything important.  I’m getting off in half-hour anyway, so I can talk to him at home.”

I nodded, not sure what to say at that.

 She broke the short silence with, “The boys were a pain tonight.  They just don’t respect female staff.”

I agreed.  “No, many of them don’t respect any staff, but at least put on a show of respect to the bigger male staff and, to a lesser extent, to most male staff, but not so much to females.”

She seemed momentarily surprised that I had agreed with her.  This time it was her who wasn’t sure what to say next, so I continued.  “Most of our boys come from single-parent families, where their mother is the only authority figure they have.  In an intact family, fathers tend to be the disciplinarians and mothers the nurturers.  I know that’s not always true but it gives us a place to start the understanding.

“In many, if not most, of these boys’ families the mother is the primary caregiver, so she’s had to take on both parenting rolls.  All kids try to find a way to manipulate, or get over on, their parents.  Poor Mom, as the single parent, bears the brunt of that.

“Do you have children,” I asked.

She nodded, “We have five, three girls and two boys.”

“Cool,” I said.  “We have six, all boys.  How do you and your husband raise your kids?”

She didn’t hesitate, “We raise them to be responsible adults.  We give them an allowance, but they don’t get it unless they do their chores.”

“That’s the same way we raised ours.  You and your husband share child-rearing responsibilities…and back up each other’s decisions?”

She smiled knowingly.  “Always.”

“Good,” I responded.  “But…”

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I went on, “Most of our boys don’t have an intact family.  Many of them learn how to get what they want from their mom, either by whining, complaining, or through intimidation.

“Sadly, for female staff, the boys try to manipulate them like they did their moms, and female staff usually don’t let that happen.  The boys resent that.”

She arched an eye.  “So you’re saying female staff can’t be as good as male staff?”

I chuckled.  “Absolutely not.  I’m just saying that, as staff, we have to learn what works for us.  We have to learn how to, for want of a better term, manipulate the boys to get them to do what we know they should.”

By this point, she seemed interested in what I was saying, “Why don’t they do that with male staff?”

I assured her, “Oh, they do; at least they try to.  In their lives up to the point we get them, men have been more consistently symbols of discipline.  Think about it, principals, coaches, policemen, all are symbols of discipline.”

She commented, “But women do those jobs too.”

I nodded, “Yes, they do, and some of them are every bit as good at them as any man.”

She interrupted, “Are you saying female staff have to behave like men to do this job?”

I shook my head, “Absolutely not.  Every staff, be they male or female, has to figure out what works best for them.  They have to understand how the boys perceive them, then work with that, not against it.

“Men have their weaknesses, and women have theirs.  Men tend to come into this job thinking that all these boys need is discipline.  When they find out that constant, hard-hearted discipline fails, a lot of male staff give up and quit. 

“Women tend to come into the job believing that the boys just need to be loved and understood.  The problem is, they don’t balance that loving relationship with discipline.”

She interrupted me again, “But I discipline the boys.  I give them consequences when they misbehave.”

I nodded my approval, “Are the consequences reasonable and logical?  Do they follow, or fit, the misbehavior?”

She responded, “That’s exactly what I try to do.  I talk to them, tell them what they are doing wrong and what they need to do to get better, but they ignore me.  They act like they don’t believe what I am saying.”

I smiled, “Do you want to know what one of the most important lessons is that I’ve learned about doing this job?”

She shook her head, “What?”

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I took a deep breath.  “You and I were raised the same way you are raising your kids.  We were raised knowing we would, in fact being expected to, succeed.”

She nodded.

I went on.  Many of the boys in our facility have been told all their lives that they can’t and won’t succeed.  They aren’t smart enough.  They aren’t wealthy enough, white or black enough, whatever.  They’ve heard it so much that they accept it, believe it.  Why work hard for something that won’t ever happen?”

She looked confused, “So what are you saying?”

“You and I and our kids go through life being unhappy with ourselves if we fail, if we don’t succeed.  You and I want the boys in our facility to succeed, just like our own kids.”

More confusion.  “So, what’s wrong with that?”

One of the biggest secrets of our job…one of the most important things we need to keep in mind…is that we, as staff, care more about their success than they do.”

A look of understanding crept across her face.  “So we have to help them learn that they actually can succeed…to help them want to succeed?”

I nodded my head, “Absolutely.”

She smiled, “Absolutely.”

She added, “So why is that a secret?  Why hasn’t anybody told me that before?”

I shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t know for sure, but I suspect a lot of staff don’t realize it themselves.  Goodness knows, I’ve never been shy about sharing it with other staff.”

She grinned, “Well, now that I know it, I’ll see to it that it doesn’t remain a secret.”

I held out my knuckles for a fist-bump.  “You go, girl.”

She shook her head.  “This is not a fist-bump moment, this is a hugging moment.”

A quick hug and she went to get ready to go home, and I moved on to go start my own shift.

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Good luck, young staff.  I wish you many years of low pay and many difficult hours of work with little recognition.  Those things would be great, but they are not why we do this job.

We do this job because we care…probably more than the boys themselves do.

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