Before, she didn't have much to back it up. She's tall and insanely skinny but not particularly threatening. You wouldn't look at her and worry about meeting her in a dark alley.
But now, she has the skills. The skillz. She's really good at taekwondo, which she has been taking since the beginning of the school year. Her forms are perfect and her kicks are beautiful, high and precise. She can spar and scrap.
Sometimes these factors - the protectiveness and the fearlessness, plus the skillz - coalesce in ways that are not so positive, at least as far as school is concerned.
Josie has a group of friends she hangs out with. Many of them are African-American. And one day, a bunch of boys from another grade were harassing Josie and her friends, calling them names and using racial slurs.
I got a call from the principal later that day. I sighed, bracing myself for the news. My kids don't get in trouble that much, but enough that I feel like a day without a call from the school is a good day.
Turns out, Josie was not a fan, at all, of her friends being called nasty names. She and her friends told the boys to stop, but they didn't stop. So Josie decided to take matters into her own hands.
Or more precisely, her feet. Because when one of the boys wouldn't stop with the name calling, Josie hauled off and clocked him in the side of the head with a perfectly placed roundhouse. And then maybe a few well-placed punches.
This is a no-no at school. And a no-no under the tenets of taekwondo - it's only to be used for defensive purposes.
I was proud of her for sticking up for her friends, but I knew she needed to be punished - you can't just go around beating people up.
The thing I had a problem with was the punishment itself. Rather than suspend her or make her participate in some restorative justice efforts, she was barred from recess, couldn't go to "specials" - art, gym, that sort of thing - had to eat her lunch in the office, and couldn't hang out on the playground after school. So basically, if she wasn't in class, she was spending the day in the office.
FOR THE REST OF THE SCHOOL YEAR.
I call bullshit.
This happened in late February. By the time spring break was rolling around in late March, she was a basket case. She cried before school, she cried after school, she missed her friends, she couldn't play, she got no exercise during the day.
One of her good friends - the same one who asked me if I was ever going to get married again - said to me, "Wendy, I think Josie really needs some therapy."
I set up a meeting with the principal, basically to say, enough is enough. She's learned her lesson. And the punishment is destroying her.
To her credit, the principal agreed. She and Josie drew up a behavior contract together, decided on rewards and consequences, and Josie got her privileges back.
"Ok, Jos. Remember, you can't use your taekwondo to beat people up. I know your friends were getting picked on, and it's always important to stand up to bullies and to stick up for your friends. But no matter how justified, kicking a kid in the head at school is never going to end well."
"OK, Mom."
Fast forward a week or so. Zeke is having his first experience playing organized youth soccer. For the past five years, he's only played flag football, but all of a sudden he's crazy for futbol. He watches Cristiano Ronaldo videos and teaches himself dribbling skills. He's really good.
"Where'd you learn how to do that?" I ask.
"Self-taught. YouTube," he replies.
So I signed him up to play soccer with the Colorado Rapids youth league. He was so, so excited.
His coach was a complete dick. He didn't teach them anything about the game. He didn't teach them about strategy or how to move on the field, how to play their positions, stuff like that. And he spent the practices yelling at the kids in a nasty way.
At the first game, the coach told Zeke to play defense. Zeke went and stood where he was told. And he tried to play the ball, but he didn't really know what he was doing, and he made mistakes.
The coach's response was to scream at him, and say that he was a terrible player, the worst kid on the team, he should never be allowed back on a soccer field. The other kids were yelled at too, but Zeke was standing the closest to the coach, so he bore the brunt of it.
Yeah. I know. I wanted to throttle the guy, too.
So, Zeke is standing on the field crying and being berated. The coach then pulls him from the game and continues to yell at him while Zeke sits on the ground with his head in his hands, sobbing.
Jason and I watched this unfold, horrified. We both had tears in our eyes.
I said, "this is awful. I can't stand to see him treated this way."
Jason said, "me either. I'm going to go get him. We're done."
So we went and got Zeke. Jason had a few choice words for the coach. We left, and told Zeke he never had to play for that team again.
Josie, as it turns out, had a few choice words for the coach as well. Zeke was riding with me, so we had already gone towards my car. Jason was driving with Josie, and they had to pass the coach again on the way to his van.
Josie went up to the guy and said, "you can't treat my brother that way! My brother Zeke is the best brother in the world and if you're mean to him I'm going to use my front snap kick [she actually used the Korean name for it, but I don't remember what it is] and kick you right in the nuts!"
So.
Maybe she still needs to internalize the lessons of her past a bit more.
But still. In a fight for justice, physical or otherwise, I want her on my side.
