I suppose the poor guy had no idea what he was getting into. After all, it wasn’t him who had denied my son his right to bussing citing “issues of safety”, but a colleague of his that he might not even know personally. All I knew is that a bus driver was getting on my case for parking in a bus zone while dropping my kid off at school despite the fact I had moved forward enough for him to pull his bus into the space and even though two other cars were sitting there already who had a lot less potential for being moved quickly. Hell, my car was running idle.
At that moment; He represented everything that was wrong in my life.
To give you some background I have a son who is autistic and has a mental handicap. It is a deadly combination as he is unable to relate to the same world we live in, he has no use for verbal communication and he will never be able to do very much on his own despite being fully functional from a physical point of view. Quite simply, if he wasn’t mentally challenged, he has the body of an Olympic athlete.
Herein lays the problem. As my son got older his body language and occasional bursts of outrage were less easy to control as he was much bigger and stronger. As a small child he probably didn’t hit anyone because everyone was bigger than him. Now, unfortunately, he is bigger and stronger than most and he no longer fears adults. He will always be able to go to school as Belgian law requires it, but other privileges were slowly taken away.
Boarding School from Monday to Friday? Taken away when he was 14 years.
Bussing Services? Taken away at 15.
He is too young to be put in a centre for adults, but too big and strong for staying where there are young children. It is a horrible age and no one seems to have a solution despite a lot of people getting involved and “offering their opinion”. The fact remains that despite the social miracle that is supposed to be Belgium, there are holes in the system as there are simply not enough beds available for the people who need them most.
If you think about it, if a normal kid had hit people as much as my son and disrupted schools and classes in the same way he would be removed from our care and put in a juvenile home. Since my kid is handicapped it is considered “normal behaviour” and we, as parents, are left to fend for ourselves. So here we are years later and my wife has lost her job, gone into depression and numerous other problems too varied to name largely because of the pressure this whole situation has put on us. The loss of the boarding school had been tough enough, but the loss of the bussing service was an even bigger blow.
So here this guy was in my face telling me I had no right to park in front of the school for 30 seconds. Not a great move. I found myself taking a defensive stance and getting ready to rumble. This is not me. This has nothing to do with the person I am. But there I was ready to go at it over a stupid parking space.
Things like this make me more understanding as to how other things happen in life. Road Rage is an urban phenomenon that demonstrates how we are willing to act out against perfect strangers in a way we never would do if we weren’t protected by a steel chassis and travelling 55 mph down a highway. Would you dare flip a stranger off while passing them on the side-walk? Most of us would say “No”. However, how many of those same people have flipped off people in other cars without giving it second thought?
We’ve got a lot of benefits in Belgium, but even this place is not perfect. Like in any system there are those who are left behind and, in this case, it is us. No place for a boy who, very honestly, is a danger to himself and to those around him.
No Boarding School.
No Bussing Service.
No Parking Space.
