Finding Courage in Paradise Lost
“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” ― J.K. Rowling
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“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
I’ve lost a lot of friends over the last two years, or at least people who called themselves friends. But I never lost my kids. Through all the ups and downs, we’ve stayed committed to one another. A little troupe united against all odds.
A couple of days before Christmas, my youngest son and I drove from Thousand Oaks to Ojai to spend a night there. Next month I will take my eldest son and his girlfriend to do the same. I love traveling to far off countries; I also love making this short trip, spontaneously getting in my car and taking off without too much thought or preparation. I love peace and solitude. I enjoy being by myself. I guess that’s part of being a writer. At the same time, my life has often been anything but peaceful. Being in Ojai, reflecting on my goals and finding inspiration in the silence has helped me face the chaos of everyday life.
There were many times over the years when I was filled with despair. When I was angry and depressed and wondered why I couldn’t just win my battles. I fought so hard, surely, I deserved to win. It just wasn’t fair!
But winning isn’t always what we think it is. And patience is a virtue.
With the end of this year and the prospect of 2024 upon us, it is on my heart to share an essay I wrote in 2013, about raising my sons on what I like to call “the mean streets of American suburbia”. It’s not glossy, it’s pretty raw. But we need these kinds of stories to counteract the glitz and the glamour, the fakery of social media.
Do you remember the protests and the riots of the summer of 2020? I read post after post about how we all needed to stand up for mothers of black sons and how they worried every day that their sons won’t come home alive, due to violence at the hands of the police. If I dared to say I understood how those mothers felt, I was called a racist. As a white mother—named Karen, no less—with white sons, how could I even suggest I had experienced anything like the horrors these black mothers had experienced.
At that time, we were being told only one type of person had a story worth telling. The rest of us should just shut up. I imagined what it would be like if all mothers stood together in unison, marched hand in hand, disavowed the violence both in our institutions and on the streets. How powerful that would be. As mothers, we all pray and cry and worry, no matter the color of our skin or our religion or our country of birth. But we were being told over and over that we were not united; that we were not the same. Constant programming by the media destroyed any power we might have had to speak up in unison.
Does anyone remember the tragic death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo. It was only two short years ago. I know, it’s hard to remember when there have been so many stories since then, bombarding us in ever intensifying waves.
We may have forgotten Adam Toledo, but I’m sure his mother has not. After the death of her son at the hands of the police, she described him as a kid who “played with Legos and rode bikes with his siblings”. Of course, that wasn’t the whole story. What had he been doing hanging out in an alley in the wee hours of the morning, holding a gun? Such behavior was as far away from playing with Legos as anything could be.
I don’t know what kind of a mother this young boy had. None of us who read about it in the news could have fairly made that evaluation. A lot of people did, though, immediately voicing judgment of her. Why couldn’t she control her son?
I used to judge other mothers until I found myself in similar circumstances. I chased my son. I tackled my son. I pleaded with my son. To no avail. The streets called and he went. It is only by God’s grace or some kind of miracle that he survived.
Once my sons became teenagers, it was a rocky ride. They didn’t have a father who guided them. We didn’t know at the time, but their father was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease. All we knew was that sometimes he was okay while often he acted paranoid, abusive and downright strange. He was wealthy, with a prominent name and standing in the community, so he got away with a lot. Once he divorced me, I lost the “protection” of my wealthy husband in a community where the privileged can be just as cruel to outcasts as the gangsters in South Central can be to those who live two streets down in “enemy territory”.
I’d signed a premarital agreement and got nothing. I didn’t try to fight it, I just wanted to move on. My ex-husband took me to court for years and made our lives hell, trying to gain full custody so he could stop what little child support he contributed. My kids and I lived under constant stress.
We understand now why their father behaved like that, but we didn’t at the time. Eventually, he lost the court case, after my sons were considered old enough to speak for themselves and the court appointed an attorney to represent them. She was on their side, no one else’s. For the first time, my sons had someone who listened to them. She saw through the pretense and shut down my ex and his second wife’s court case. I had “won” at last, but at what cost to my sons’ psychological state. For years they’d had to live under a microscope, being used as pawns in a game where money meant control. In the process, I’d lost my house and all of my savings, but I was just glad it was over. More than ten years of our lives had gone down the drain. Still, we had survived, and we looked to the future to start the healing process.
Once their father lost the case, it was as if he lost his purpose in life. He went downhill and that’s when we found out what was wrong with him. He would end up spending many years in a care facility. He passed away last year at Christmas time. All the money in the world could not make him happy or save him from a disease over which he had no control. I have nothing but compassion for him.
This experience taught me that yes, there are things over which we have no control. But there are other things over which we do, and those are our actions. It became of vital importance to teach this to my children, to the youth I worked with in juvenile hall, and now, in my writing on Substack.
A life starts with birth and many things happen thereafter. If a teenager chooses a path of drugs and then violence (and more do than we are willing to admit), he does it because of everything that has led up to that point. And once he makes that choice, or that series of choices, drugs and violence will torment him until he makes a different choice. And pray God it isn’t too late, because the further he goes down that road, the harder it will be to turn away. Habits develop quickly and are hard to break.
There are consequences for actions in life and if we don’t acknowledge this, where are we heading within our families and as a nation? What are we teaching our youth? Just like the mothers we’ve heard about in the news who have tragically lost their sons, there are many others, of all walks of life and all colors, rich and poor alike, who suffer in silence, not wanting to admit how they worry day and night about their children.
It’s easy to put up a facade of the perfect life on social media. It’s easy to take up causes of others so we don’t have to think about our own problems. We need to stop allowing ourselves to be manipulated by a media that is turning everyone into a self-righteous hypocrite. We are all brothers and sisters on this planet. Yet we are treating each other horribly. Why? Because gnawing at each other’s throats ensures that the powerful continue growing more powerful while we grow weaker.
Everything is about “billionaires” now. Wouldn’t you just love to be a billionaire? I wouldn’t. We must refuse to give the powerful the satisfaction of believing their lies and blindly following their lead. We must start facing the hard truths of what our own youth are up to in our own neighborhoods and especially in the privacy of their rooms where they make friends with strangers in new worlds, created by those billionaires. Nobody knows what’s real anymore. It’s all a “false flag”. And if you say you know what’s real, you are derided as delusional, a racist, a bigot, a conspiracy theorist, the list is long.
So, now I would like to take you back 15 years or so and tell the story of what it was like raising my sons on the mean streets of LA suburbia. Because true stories are a sharp sword in this battle against illusion. And God knows, I’ve fought my share of battles.
A few months ago, I walked out of my house to find a razor-sharp javelin stuck in the middle of my front door. It was at eye level, right where my forehead would have been if I’d opened the small window in the door and looked out when I heard the screams and squeals of tires around 1:30 am. I guess if I’d looked, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d probably be dead.
Shortly after the birth of my eldest son, my husband and I had moved to Calabasas, the new Beverly Hills of LA. We thought surely there couldn’t be a safer suburb in which to raise our children. We were the perfect family—really looked the part, church on Sundays, big house on a hill, membership at the Los Angeles Country Club. Seven years later I was divorced, expelled from paradise and living just across the border in Woodland Hills. The perfect façade was gone but I’d never felt comfortable in paradise, especially not when living there required a gate and protection from the outside world. That didn’t sit well with me.
I was happy in my modest home, making the best of my situation, believing it to be a decent neighborhood and close enough to Calabasas, where my ex still lived, meaning our kids would still have access to the preppy schools.
A few years later, I find myself the mother of two teenage sons, one sixteen and one fourteen, fighting for their safety and my own. Their sister made it through the terrifying teens and is in her third year at UCLA Law School, so I know there’s hope.
I believe in my boys; I am proud of them and love them fiercely. They are exceptional human beings. More than anything else in this illusory era, where the concept of standing by your word is virtually unknown, they need to hear me say “I believe in you,” “I am proud of you,” “I love you,” and know that I mean it, so that they can grow into believing it about themselves.
Unfortunately, like so many single mothers, I’ve had to play the role of father as well as mother, doing my best to teach strength, honor, defense of the weak, respect and how to be seekers of truth. As a second-degree black belt and full contact boxing and kickboxing trainer, I’m not a lightweight, but every day is still a battle for my voice to be heard by young men who are finding their way into manhood without a father to guide them.
On that terrifying night, when I heard the screams and screeching tires, and then a few seconds later, two ominous bangs, I didn’t dare go outside to investigate, just checked inside, our dogs barking frantically, my younger son following after me like a frightened puppy and then making a bed on the floor next to mine for the remainder of the night.
After discovering the javelins the next morning (there was also one embedded in the garage door), I called 911 and the police arrived about one hour later. A nasty, creative piece of work, they said. Could’ve killed somebody. Prison style, homemade, with a six-inch nail attached to a steel rod. Shot from some kind of weapon, imbedded at least an inch into the hard wood of the little window in the door.
The police took a report. No, I had no idea what it could be about. There’d been a friend of my older son’s staying with us for a few nights, but I hadn’t seen him in the past couple of weeks. From what I understood, his father had passed away when he was young, and he and his stepmother didn’t get along. The minute he turned 18 and his stepmom lost government support for him, she kicked him out of the house. He’d needed a place to stay for those few nights and I had let him use the garage.
When the young man found out about the javelin, he came back to talk to the police. He explained that he was in fear for his life, on the run from a gang of skinheads.
A gang of skinheads—in my neighborhood?
Oh yes, said the two officers. It seemed the gang was well-known to them. When the police pressed the young man about why the gang was after him, he finally admitted that besides being Jewish—cause enough for a conflict—he’d bought weed off someone from the gang, and they claimed he owed them money. The police admonished him to make better choices in the future and the young man agreed, explaining that he had to try and stay alive for the next three weeks, at which point he could join the army. Then, he’d be safe.
Safe? I thought.
But to this young man, fighting in Iraq was safer than living in or near Calabasas.
Once the police were gone, I called another single mother who lived in a gated community and often took in troubled kids. No problem, she said, she’d make sure he stayed safe until he could join the army. I didn’t know at the time that she had a drug problem and was well-known for using drugs with the youth she invited to stay with her. The facade in these wealthy areas hid a multitude of horrific problems. I only found out the truth about her years later when I was told she had committed suicide. So much pain hidden behind walls and gates and doors.
I called my son, and he said not to worry. Word was out that the young man was gone, and I wouldn’t have any more problems. I didn’t.
A few months before the javelin incident, my older son, who was fifteen at the time, had been attacked by a seventeen-year-old on the Calabasas High School wrestling team. My son had gotten into a verbal argument with the wrestler’s younger brother, who was my son’s age. That, added to the fact that we no longer lived in Calabasas but in Woodland Hills, “the wrong side of the railroad tracks,” was enough justification for the wrestler to want to do serious damage to my son and make it clear that he should stay out of the wrestler’s “hood.” Within a few seconds the wrestler, supported by back-up of about thirty of his “homies,” had my son in a head lock and threw him to the ground. The wrestler bashed my son’s head twice into the concrete and then yelled that he was going to “curb stomp” him, just like he must have seen in “American X,” and started dragging him towards the curb. Someone else yelled “shank him.”
All of this was filmed on a cell phone and immediately put up on MySpace by the perpetrators.
As the wrestler was dragging my son to the curb, someone cried that the police were coming, and the gang dispersed in their BMW’s and SUV’s. My son and his four friends, who were all too young to drive, and wouldn’t have been able to afford cars anyway, were left to make their way home on foot. I got a call from another mother about what had happened, and I jumped in my car to find my son.
I piled him and his friends in the car and drove them home. My son’s forehead was expanding into a big bump. It looked like his nose might be broken but fortunately, it wasn’t. Long, angry scrapes ran down his chin, shoulder and arm. He and his friends were angry, and I worried that this would escalate. My son had made the wrong choice by arguing with the younger brother and continuing the argument with the older one, to the point where a confrontation had occurred. Still, such experiences were part of growing up and learning the right way to behave. Curb stomping and videos on MySpace were another matter, taking the common fistfight to a whole new level. The desensitization and disassociation from reality that those kids must have felt in order to premeditate filming the violence and then posting it online was chilling.
Nowadays, everyone has a phone with a camera, and you can see people filming violent attacks that are so commonplace, nobody thinks twice about it. It’s gruesome to see these videos posted online, nobody helping the victim, everyone hoping their video will go viral and they will get their ten seconds of fame. It all started back then.
I knew what my son needed in those angry moments wasn’t me, but his father to talk to him. Sadly, as was so often the case, his father refused to “get involved”. It was my problem, not his.
I called a mentor of my son, a retired boxer, and he came right over. He talked straight, about how he grew up without a father, becoming an angry teenager who thought he needed to prove himself through violence. As a result, he’d been shot, knifed and spent time in prison. He told my son that you never start a fight but if someone is determined to hurt you, you do what you have to do to survive. He said, learn right now how to keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut, and always, if possible, walk away. In fact, if you can run away, do it, never think you have to prove your manhood to a punk. He spoke with authority and compassion. He talked of honor and respect and doing the right thing. My son listened.
I’m thankful to say that my son and his friends decided not to escalate the violence. Convincing them to go down to the police station to file a report was something they were not willing to do, and I understood why. They did, however, agree to speak to the police if they came to our house.
“Anyway, nothing will ever happen,” my son and his friends said.
“Why,” I asked.
“Because the wrestler is the son of …,” they said.
I’m not going to say the name here. It’s someone powerful. Suffice it to say, I was stunned.
The next day, I went to the Calabasas sheriff’s station to file a report. I told the officer everything that had happened and explained that if they came to my house, my son and his friends would give statements. I gave all the proof they needed to back up what I said, including printouts from MySpace. The officer nodded sagely. Oh yes, they knew who these guys were. He promised to follow up immediately. He never did. No one ever came to interview my son or his friends.
I went to Calabasas High School to talk to the vice principal, but he said they could do nothing since it hadn’t happened on campus. However, he gave me the contact information for the mother of the young man who had done this to my son. I wrote her a letter, requesting that we meet in order to get to the bottom of what had happened and bring reconciliation. I didn’t hear back.
I felt powerless. If I felt like that, how must my son be feeling? What, I wondered, was all of this teaching our youth? That justice is a sham. That bullies prosper.
The fact is, that while the words “equality,” “justice,” “honor” and “truth” are flimsy platitudes slung from pulpits and podiums by hypocritical, marketing-branded leaders, on America’s streets there is an ever-widening gap between the rights and privileges of the wealthy and the lack thereof amongst the poor.
Not long after the fight incident, my son and his best friend, who were on their skateboards and hurrying to get home, were stopped by the police because it was a few minutes past 10 pm curfew. The excuse given was that a robbery had been committed in the area and they “resembled the description.” I learned this was a common reason given for such stops and searches. The police searched their backpacks and found some cigarettes. In better days, the police would have dropped my son off at my house and given him a good talking to. But now, with the city needing to rake in as much money as possible, my son and his friend were issued tickets and had to go to juvenile court.
My son and his friend stood before a judge in a small room at the courthouse. They were each fined $495 and ordered to attend a class, similar to traffic school, and told to come back in a couple of months with a certificate of completion. If they did this, the fine of $495 would be reduced to $135. Both boys attended the class, and the reduced fine was paid.
I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been able to afford to pay the ticket? Or the classes? How do single mothers in more dire circumstances than mine, perhaps who don’t speak English or have no transportation, deal with these minor run-ins with the law, having an angry teen in the house, or maybe two or three? Or what if their son simply refused to go?
I have personally known parents and kids in this situation, where the crime started with something insignificant but because the child failed to comply with the court order or the parent couldn’t pay or wasn’t able to get time off work to take them, the problem escalated, the fine grew bigger, until the parent and child became so overwhelmed that their already fragile relationship was ruined. As a result, the child ended up being sent away to camp or juvenile hall—where he then became the hate-filled, violent young man that he had never been before the court intervened in the first place.
Thanks to the powerful corporations that feed our children’s minds on a daily dose of violence and disrespect (and don’t tell me that a daily dose of violence and disrespect doesn’t influence young minds) children think that by forming gangs, wearing colors, fighting over a piece of concrete, they are expressing their independence, when they are only doing what they have been taught to do by the opportunistic media giants who crave to eat their souls and bleed them dry.
As adults, as communities, we are responsible to uphold to our children a standard of behavior that they can respect and feel proud to emulate. They are trying to grow up and learn how to be decent human beings. Who is teaching them? The voices of parents are all but drowned out by a media that caters to their impressionability, telling them how to think, feel, look, act; exerting pressure on them and their parents to spend huge amounts of money in order to do so.
And now, since Covid locked kids indoors for two years, addicting them to devices that introduced them to fake friends and turned them into caricatures of themselves, it is a hundred times worse than it was when my kids were young. Yes, the streets are dangerous. But virtual worlds are even more so. It’s become that much easier to feed youth indoctrinating lies and sell them drugs to dull their minds.
It’s beyond tragic that my sons know at least twenty young people from school that have died over the years from suicide or drug overdoses, including my younger son’s best friend. The young man who started the trouble with the javelin incident went to the army where he became addicted to heroin. I don’t know where he is today. I pray he’s okay. Yet, I am happy to say that many others overcame the challenges of growing up on the mean streets of LA suburbia and are now sober and wise adults.
For me personally, I did what I had to do to defend my sons and my home the best way I could. Raising my children as a single mother taught me to stand on my own two feet, with my eyes wide open and my head out of the sand. Because in the neighborhood where I lived, in every neighborhood, it’s better to face reality, than to be ignorant and foolish.
As we move into 2024, truth will continue to be muddied and people will forget history, even their own histories. Friends will become enemies. Those who stand up for truth will find themselves increasingly unpopular. I hold onto Matthew 5:11:
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Setting the example for our children can feel futile and we can easily give up. Don’t. Even if it seems like the whole world is against you, keep going. Stand up for truth. Have compassion. Take responsibility. Our children need this example more than ever, not just with words but with the way we live our daily lives.
This Christmas, as I walked along that pathway in Ojai, looking back over the years, I had a lot to be thankful for. All three of my children have grown into resilient, independent thinkers who pay no attention to the lies of the media. That doesn’t mean all the challenges have miraculously disappeared. Far from it. But they have the tools to fight those challenges.
Coco Chanel said, “The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”
Let’s think aloud.
LOUD.
Thank you for joining me on this writing journey over the last couple of years. God bless you all!
Love your watercolors! Thanks for sharing them. The mouse staring out the window and pondering the majesty of the night sky is understated and eloquent.
I am so glad you shared all this, I would have never guessed what you have been through around raising your children and also what you do in your spare time (train and teach), which is inspiring all the way around. Thank you.