jekyllandhyde

Nights like these plant a kernel of anger in me that will never go away. There's a relatively new kid in the boys' cottage at work, a 16 year-old who's been pretty withdrawn but is slowly getting better. He has a history of gang involvement, but every time I've spoken to him he's seemed pretty shy and easygoing. I learned tonight that he really doesn't want to be part of the gang culture, but his mother, who's on parole, is constantly pushing him into it. She's big on the gang life, apparently, and uses this kid's younger siblings to guilt him into it because it supposedly brings in money.

This is a good kid, from what I can tell, and he wants to stay on a positive path in his life, but his mother is constantly dragging him back to a negative path. And being at my shelter has actually helped him -- his parole officer swung by today and said he's been doing really well in school since he started here, and that he smiles more (whereas getting even one smile out of him per day used to be a great accomplishment). And yet of all people, his mother is the one that's fucking up his life, and she isn't going away any time soon. She's just like Namond's mother in Season 4 of "The Wire." Also, apparently the gang she pushed him into is a bad one -- the type that won't let you leave once you're in.

Like I said: stories like this one get to me. And they make me mad -- and all the more so because they also remind me just how little influence I really have in certain situations, especially those about which I care the most.