Truth and Consequences

Arriving home yesterday evening, I could hear the screaming from the street. Once inside the stair, I recognised the voices and realised with heartsink that this rammy was being enacted inside my own flat and refuge.

Two Fraggles were conducting a high-volume row in my hallway, oblivious to my entrance. My phone rang, and one, clearly the worse for drink, delivered articulate but outrageous abuse and vitriol down the headset to a remote Fraggle's mother. My own Fraggle, the luckily sober Big Wan, was hiding in another room. As all three Fraggles rapidly exited the flat, I was the recipient of another phone call from the hapless Fraggle mother, who delivered some context. I learned the pissed Fraggle had spent much of the afternoon delivering abuse and vitriol to his unfortunate Fraggle victim via my telephone and PC.

This was not what I need on any evening, and most particularly that evening. My home had been squatted, my resources hijacked for a hate campaign, and my son had failed to act when action was needed. I'm medium fond of the pissed Fraggle, who's received the benefit of much free advice in my auntie capacity. But he was already on two strikes for disobeying my no-smoking rule; three strikes and you're out.

The disrespect for my person and home and Big Wan's failure to manage the situation were disappointing. Worse was my ethical duty to speak to the pissed Fraggle's parents. For were it Big Wan, I would wish to know of such behaviour from another parent.

To his credit, the pissed Fraggle later phoned to apologise, and we had a chat covering the need to walk away from rage, that intoxicants cloud your judgement, that age 16 is a temporary mental illness which resolves, and that despite his remorse I was still duty-bound to speak to his parents, who love him and therefore need to know when he's heading off-base. When the Big Wan was but a twinkle in the eye, I never dreamt that this would be part of parenting.