MintyFresh

When DF was young his parents lived in a small town about 40 minutes away from a major city. He attended the elementary school there until grade two. The elementary school was part french immersion and part english classes, but even the english students learned a small amount of french. We're talking basic words like cahier (note book), stylo (pen), chein (dog) ect... So one day he comes home from school and his mom askes him to get out his notebook and do his homework. He announces, proud of himself for picking up french words: "no mom its called a cahier!". She replied something to the effect of "What the He** is a cahier!". FFIL, who speaks french, explained that he meant his notebook. According to FFIL and DF she proceeded to freakout. They both remember very clearly her announcing that: "I will not have my son be smarter than ME!. The next day she went in to the school a freaked out at the principle for teaching the children french and pulled him out of the school. That school was to only one in their small town so she drove him into the big city everyday to go to school. He didn't have very many friends in the city because he was never allowed to go to city friends houses after school and he had few friends in the small town because especially after the first year, he didn't see any of them anymore. She would pick him up from school and leave him home alone for hours while she worked then went out drinking with friends. FFIL used to work out of town so DF wouldn't get dinner until one of his parents decided to come home at 8 or later. As he got older she left him alone for more and more nights in the week, especially after his parents split up. He grew up mostly alone, with no one around to talk to about homework, bullies, girls ect. This was despite the fact that she worked in the city and most of her friends were in the city. When she was leaving him home alone all night she was driving all the way back to the city. It wasn't that she was saving money by living out of town, she was spending tons of money on gas every month. She just wanted to keep her son all to herself. Like a pet she could visit when she was in the mood.

It wasn't until his last year of highschool that they moved into the big city, and he started making friends. Very sad.