Thursday, November 18, 2004

America's Most Wanted: After Jordan disappeared, they called the police on ME!

Two months ago, I wrote an article entitled "Calling the Police on your Own Child". Little did I know that the next victim of Jordan's parents' love affair with calling "911" was going to be me! Now I know how Jordan must feel. It's like being in an episode of "America's Most Wanted" Or, more exactly, like being in an episode of "As the World Turns".

If you have been keeping up with my serialized episodes of the "Jordan" soap opera, then you know that in the last four years this completely normal child has been regularly shipped off to mental hospitals, group homes, psychiatrists and rehab centers (and he doesn't even do drugs!). In the last six months alone, his parents have shipped this kid off to two "Behavior Modification" boot camps in the Utah desert and one of those "Schools for Troubled Teens" in the mountains of Montana.

Recently, tracking down Jordan's current whereabouts has been like being in the cast of "CSI".

Anyway, on "As the World Turns" last week, Julia asked Lisa for help, Craig asked Lily for help and Barbara and Rick proved once again why they were in desperate need of it. Me too! Looks like I too could use some help.

Apparently Jordan's parents have started craving their fix again -- they just LOVE to call the police -- and since they can't call the police on Jordan any more (the local police department steadfastly refuses to send a squad car to outback Montana) and nobody has robbed their house lately, Jordan's parents have been looking around for someone else to call the police on.

Lights! Sirens! Action!

They gotta call the police on somebody, right? But who? Who will the world turn on next? Last night an officer called to tell me that Jordan's parents have just called the police on ME!

Jordan's mother actually called them and said that if my daughter and I didn't stop trying to find Jordan, they would serve a restraining order on me.

I never had a restraining order served on me before. Even my arch-nemesis George Bush knows better than that! I'm completely harmless! (Unless of course the pen actually IS mightier than the sword -- but you couldn't prove that by the last election, LOL).

The police officer I talked with last night, however, was hopeful that I wouldn't get restrained. Apparently the whole police force is disgusted with Jordan's parents and are rooting for me. According to one of many officers on the case, "They call the police at least once a month and every time they call us I have to make out a report."

Once we found out where Jodan was, we started sending him post cards. "Hi, Jordan. How are you? We miss you." That sort of stuff. But writing to Jordan is apparently a no-no. Not only do Jordan's parents object but so does the "school". That makes me worry.

According to the International Survivors Action Committee website, http://www.isaccorp.org/, a major sign of danger to watch for in a teen behavior modification program is when "Verbal and/or written communication between the child and his parents, siblings, grandparents, etc. is prohibited, restricted, or monitored on any level."

The "Behavior Modification" place where Jordan is at now looks really good on their website -- http://www.monarchschool.com/main.html -- but they are not giving Jordan his mail. Perhaps they afraid that I am a drug dealer? Or perhaps they are afraid that I will send Jordan an Emancipated Minor declaration and they will be out their $400 a day.

At this point in time, however, all I would like is a statement from Jordan saying, "This place is all right. I am okay." And it would also be nice if his parents stopped calling the police on me also. Enough of the soap opera. It's time for everyone to get back to real life!

And it's time for us to be kind to our children. They are our future.

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This is where it starts: People hurt their children. People drug their children. People hunt their children like animals. And when those children grow up, they justify to themselves the right to go to "war" -- doing to others what has been done to them. THAT is how the world turns. Hitler, Saddam, Bush: Raised by authoritarian parents. Have pity on them, out there alone in the woodshed -- and then stop creating more of them.

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A Jordan soap opera update: Jordan's father just called my daughter and said he wanted to be her friend. No mention of the police at all. Guess they found someone else to call the police on?

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My Counterpunch article on Jordan: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:5NZwj-GQ-foJ:www.counterpunch.org/stillwater09032004.html+%22jane+stillwater%22&hl=en

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For ATWT fans, here's the latest story line: Once Will leaves, Barbara lures the policeman inside for coffee, then goes upstairs to nap. Meanwhile, at the Snyder Barn, just as Paul is expressing his concern to Hal for leaving Will alone with Barbara, Will arrives. Will goes to his Aunt Kim to tell her about his conversation with Barbara and even though he says Barbara was fine with everything, Kim is concerned. Meanwhile, Barbara climbs out of her bedroom window and struggles to remove her electronic tracking anklet, vowing to get to the wedding.

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How DO your raise a decent child?: Read John Gray's book, "Children are from Heaven". It will get parents through anything. And his ideas and techniques also apply to politics and international relations as well.