After crossing the world one third time in seven months, Henrique arrived on May 9, 2006, in Australia to live there — by default judgment. Shortly afterwards, on the 31st, his brother was born. Within a period of three weeks, therefore, 5-year-old Henrique, who has difficulties expressing his feelings because of autism, was severed from his father, moved to another country, started listening to a different language, and started to share his (also new) physical and emotional space with a brother.
In their December 2005 petition, where they requested judicial authorization to take Henrique away, his mother and step-father informed that the boy was already enrolled in a school, a situation that was allegedly confirmed by a piece of paper signed by the director of the institution. In July, I learned that Henrique never attended that school. Henrique was enrolled in another one, apparently due to his special needs and for geographic reasons, since in Australia this type of division is performed according to districts and the new school is closer to his home. It is nevertheless curious enough that one of Roberta’s claims to expedite the move — that Henrique start school at the earliest, possibly in February, upon commencement of the school year — never really existed.
In May, according to Roberta, Henrique started his activities in an association that focuses on autists and is supposed to develop work that is complementary to the school. The only extra information I received about this work was a summary of the program that was prepared for him. None of my attempted contacts with the professionals involved was ever responded. In March 2007, I learned that he would no longer attend the first association and would move on to a second one. Two months later, I was informed of the name of the new institution.
Henrique is being seen by a behavior therapist who, according to Roberta, exercises him at home and also teaches his mother how to do it. I never managed to establish contact with this professional either. She's been replaced with the school's facilitator.
The judicial agreement provides that I should have “all the necessary support to gain access to the school and the professionals in charge of caring for and providing education to the child, (…) the Plaintiff [Roberta] is also bound hereby to disclose to the child’s father any documents, reports and anything that is of relevance to their common son.” I am still waiting for full compliance with this item 4. Very few of my questions have been answered
In the school where Henrique was and still is enrolled, I was fortunate enough to secure help from the individual in charge of that educational district and therefore found a headmaster who was kind enough to answer some of my questions. When I went to Australia in December 2006 with a judicial authorization to bring my son and didn’t find him because Roberta had traveled in a hurry without even letting him finish his school year, I decided I should visit the school. It is a nice and large place that includes a green area — otherwise, like many in Perth. Henrique is certainly enjoying this aspect.
As to pedagogical development, there is hope in the information provided by the school. I cannot doubt that information, especially since it is much more balanced than whichever I receive from Henrique’s mother, usually accompanied by a host of puerile adjectives, pseudo bucolic imagery, and reports of unlikely conquests. It is a world between Pollyana and Playmobil.
In our conversation, the headmaster was realistic enough to tell me it is not easy to keep Henrique focused on a desk activity very long, and said half an hour — by December 2006, at least — was just as long as it would go. The facilitator (or education assistant, as they name this professional over in Australia) proposes a deal to Henrique which is to let him play outside after he finishes some activity indoors. A clever arrangement which, for that very reason, satisfies him, who can very shrewdly negotiate what he wants, provided the listener is not dumb or dishonest. In 2007, Henrique started to attend morning sessions with a group of other SEN children, and early afternoon regular classes. He spends a good portion of his day away from home, which, given the circumstances, seems to be good.
Though predictable, there were some frustrations in my talk with the headmaster. When I asked what people did when they noticed Henrique trying to communicate in Portuguese, she said they did nothing because they couldn’t handle a foreign language. It was a perfectly logical answer, however anguished I may have felt as I pictured him struggling to express himself in the earnest manner he had learned in Brazil and getting no response.
Pleased to recognize how gentle Henrique was, she said they couldn’t accommodate issues related with his father’s estrangement into his current work in progress. The school cannot get involved in personal or judicial issues, was more or less what she said. Another logical claim, however hard it may have felt to me. If being estranged from his father and moving to another country are decisive factors in Henrique’s life, how can they not be considered in the care provided to him?
Perhaps the answer lies in Australian society’s cultural base. Even though the country was partly built by British Empire exiles, Australia is naturally an Anglo-Saxon nation and has therefore inherited a lot from this tradition. One such instance, a rather big one by the way, is to abide by the law, to respect what’s down on paper and signed. “Here, everything has to be on the book,” a Brazilian told me in Perth.
If some Brazilian court of justice has authorized Henrique to be transferred to Australia, if there is no document directing the professionals to address me, if there is no certified documentation about my deep relationship with Henrique, why should I even exist there? If I am not a juridical figure, I do not exist.
And, like in any Anglo-Saxon society, feelings tend to be suffocated for the sake of rules, of collectivity, of the alleged common welfare. The problem is that Henrique, despite the Caucasian phenotype, is not Anglo-Saxon, and depends a lot on love and tenderness. I sincerely hope that the Australian professionals give him that, but, being three oceans away, I am inevitably concerned and helpless. I keep wondering where is the pain Henrique expressed in tears when he bade me farewell to return to Australia on January 25, 2007.
The famous “Brazilian resourcefulness” is dreadful to our social structure, unequal and fragmented as it is, even genocidal. But it nevertheless mirrors the underpinnings of our specificity, based on improvisational skills, on overcoming obstacles by virtue of wit and swing, on a day-to-day process of creative rebirth. It is a “fault” of ours that needs to be looked at from a broader, historical perspective.
Feeling as an Anglo-Saxon himself to the extent of referring to the United States as “my country” and living in Australia as a native (not an aborigine, of course), Alves applied that “Brazilian resourcefulness” when he needed to travel with his seven-month pregnant wife to keep from losing his job. On such occasions, the imperfections of our lowly Brazilian book are a blessing to the “conquistadores”. Once the move is made, one resorts to the strictness of the Anglo-Saxon book in order to raise barriers, for instance, to a father’s access to his son. The December 2006 rushed trip to Brazil, running counter to my departure to Australia, was backed by the fact that there was not enough time for an Australian accreditation of the Brazilian Justice. There are other adjectives, but we may use chameleonic when referring to a person who uses that “resourcefulness” to obtain advantages here and strictly abides by the rules to obtain advantages there.
I remember that month of December when I went to the Australian courts of justice to speak about the disappearance of my son; the officer was very correct and polite to me but acknowledged my desire to travel alone with Henrique in an awkward manner, despite the judicial authorization I had produced. Didn’t I have a psychologist’s report stating that it would be good for the child? Or an expert’s opinion to attest my strong and healthy relation with him? That is, any paper signed by an “expert” to provide me with more backing than my very condition as a father who had traveled around the world, spending more than I could afford, to pick up my son so we could spend some vacation together.
In that sense, a report signed by a Perth psychologist and registered in a Brazilian court of justice in December 2006 is meaningful. Attempting to show that a trip to Brazil, even for a mere vacation break and to see his father again after seven months, could be detrimental to the child, said professional wrote that Henrique’s move to Australia in May had been “largely uneventful” (what would an eventful one be like?); that removing the child from his “habits and routines” could make him afraid he would no longer see his mother (what about no longer seeing his father, hey?); and that, having once spent two weeks away from his mother, Henrique took to biting himself (now, how did a newcomer to the case like him learn about a fact that had happened in Brazil, especially when such case never really happened?).
Henrique’s school and virtually all his other activities in Australia are free — how wonderfully civilized! That being the case, plus the fact that my son is now living in another country totally against my will, Roberta still asks me to reimburse her for Henrique’s round trip tickets for vacations in December 2006/January 2007. I bought the ticket to bring him and it was not used because he wasn’t there; I then offered the ticket so that Roberta could use it for Henrique’s return trip, which she refused. According to a message she sent me, I must return the cash equivalent to the cost she incurred to hurriedly leave Perth before I arrived to see my son.
These were some of the reasons why, for the entire duration of 2006, I refused to answer Roberta’s messages as well as her offers that I talk to Henrique over Skype. First of all, the tone of her emails, as usual, was always between pathetic and angry. “Henrique is fine. He had a good trip and is excited with so many new things,” she wrote four days after the escape. “You may visit Henrique whenever you wish, just let me know,” the message went on. When I wished, I let her know, the Brazilian Embassy let her know, but she wasn’t there.
I also consider one specific passage from another message to be rather telling, and I therefore quote, including punctuation mistakes and the poor style of the original: “(…) I know it is difficult for you but, please, do realize it would be more difficult for Henrique to live in a country like Brazil, a country that, despite our wishes, from our hearts, does not offer any perspective of a future for him, that cannot offer him the quality of life he deserves, and that he’s been having here.” In short, autists living in Brazil deserve the difficulties (insurmountable, according to her) that they face.
The escape, the lies, the blackmailing messages — such as, “if you want to have a report from the school, ask me and I’ll send it to you” — and all the pain that is the result of being away from Henrique and the uncertainty about his conditions have made me refuse contact over Skype. I therefore went seven months without having contact with my son, something I later regretted. But I did send gifts with cards on his birthday — those that, in December, I saw in a pile of trash — and on Children’s Day.
As per agreement signed in January 2007, I accepted to communicate over Skype, which we have been doing every Wednesday. It is not always possible to see and hear Henrique as quietly as I would prefer, but I show him things around my place, I notice he recalls them, and I like to hear him say “hi, daddy” and to know he hears “hi, son”.
In their December 2005 petition, where they requested judicial authorization to take Henrique away, his mother and step-father informed that the boy was already enrolled in a school, a situation that was allegedly confirmed by a piece of paper signed by the director of the institution. In July, I learned that Henrique never attended that school. Henrique was enrolled in another one, apparently due to his special needs and for geographic reasons, since in Australia this type of division is performed according to districts and the new school is closer to his home. It is nevertheless curious enough that one of Roberta’s claims to expedite the move — that Henrique start school at the earliest, possibly in February, upon commencement of the school year — never really existed.
In May, according to Roberta, Henrique started his activities in an association that focuses on autists and is supposed to develop work that is complementary to the school. The only extra information I received about this work was a summary of the program that was prepared for him. None of my attempted contacts with the professionals involved was ever responded. In March 2007, I learned that he would no longer attend the first association and would move on to a second one. Two months later, I was informed of the name of the new institution.
Henrique is being seen by a behavior therapist who, according to Roberta, exercises him at home and also teaches his mother how to do it. I never managed to establish contact with this professional either. She's been replaced with the school's facilitator.
The judicial agreement provides that I should have “all the necessary support to gain access to the school and the professionals in charge of caring for and providing education to the child, (…) the Plaintiff [Roberta] is also bound hereby to disclose to the child’s father any documents, reports and anything that is of relevance to their common son.” I am still waiting for full compliance with this item 4. Very few of my questions have been answered
In the school where Henrique was and still is enrolled, I was fortunate enough to secure help from the individual in charge of that educational district and therefore found a headmaster who was kind enough to answer some of my questions. When I went to Australia in December 2006 with a judicial authorization to bring my son and didn’t find him because Roberta had traveled in a hurry without even letting him finish his school year, I decided I should visit the school. It is a nice and large place that includes a green area — otherwise, like many in Perth. Henrique is certainly enjoying this aspect.
As to pedagogical development, there is hope in the information provided by the school. I cannot doubt that information, especially since it is much more balanced than whichever I receive from Henrique’s mother, usually accompanied by a host of puerile adjectives, pseudo bucolic imagery, and reports of unlikely conquests. It is a world between Pollyana and Playmobil.
In our conversation, the headmaster was realistic enough to tell me it is not easy to keep Henrique focused on a desk activity very long, and said half an hour — by December 2006, at least — was just as long as it would go. The facilitator (or education assistant, as they name this professional over in Australia) proposes a deal to Henrique which is to let him play outside after he finishes some activity indoors. A clever arrangement which, for that very reason, satisfies him, who can very shrewdly negotiate what he wants, provided the listener is not dumb or dishonest. In 2007, Henrique started to attend morning sessions with a group of other SEN children, and early afternoon regular classes. He spends a good portion of his day away from home, which, given the circumstances, seems to be good.
Though predictable, there were some frustrations in my talk with the headmaster. When I asked what people did when they noticed Henrique trying to communicate in Portuguese, she said they did nothing because they couldn’t handle a foreign language. It was a perfectly logical answer, however anguished I may have felt as I pictured him struggling to express himself in the earnest manner he had learned in Brazil and getting no response.
Pleased to recognize how gentle Henrique was, she said they couldn’t accommodate issues related with his father’s estrangement into his current work in progress. The school cannot get involved in personal or judicial issues, was more or less what she said. Another logical claim, however hard it may have felt to me. If being estranged from his father and moving to another country are decisive factors in Henrique’s life, how can they not be considered in the care provided to him?
Perhaps the answer lies in Australian society’s cultural base. Even though the country was partly built by British Empire exiles, Australia is naturally an Anglo-Saxon nation and has therefore inherited a lot from this tradition. One such instance, a rather big one by the way, is to abide by the law, to respect what’s down on paper and signed. “Here, everything has to be on the book,” a Brazilian told me in Perth.
If some Brazilian court of justice has authorized Henrique to be transferred to Australia, if there is no document directing the professionals to address me, if there is no certified documentation about my deep relationship with Henrique, why should I even exist there? If I am not a juridical figure, I do not exist.
And, like in any Anglo-Saxon society, feelings tend to be suffocated for the sake of rules, of collectivity, of the alleged common welfare. The problem is that Henrique, despite the Caucasian phenotype, is not Anglo-Saxon, and depends a lot on love and tenderness. I sincerely hope that the Australian professionals give him that, but, being three oceans away, I am inevitably concerned and helpless. I keep wondering where is the pain Henrique expressed in tears when he bade me farewell to return to Australia on January 25, 2007.
The famous “Brazilian resourcefulness” is dreadful to our social structure, unequal and fragmented as it is, even genocidal. But it nevertheless mirrors the underpinnings of our specificity, based on improvisational skills, on overcoming obstacles by virtue of wit and swing, on a day-to-day process of creative rebirth. It is a “fault” of ours that needs to be looked at from a broader, historical perspective.
Feeling as an Anglo-Saxon himself to the extent of referring to the United States as “my country” and living in Australia as a native (not an aborigine, of course), Alves applied that “Brazilian resourcefulness” when he needed to travel with his seven-month pregnant wife to keep from losing his job. On such occasions, the imperfections of our lowly Brazilian book are a blessing to the “conquistadores”. Once the move is made, one resorts to the strictness of the Anglo-Saxon book in order to raise barriers, for instance, to a father’s access to his son. The December 2006 rushed trip to Brazil, running counter to my departure to Australia, was backed by the fact that there was not enough time for an Australian accreditation of the Brazilian Justice. There are other adjectives, but we may use chameleonic when referring to a person who uses that “resourcefulness” to obtain advantages here and strictly abides by the rules to obtain advantages there.
I remember that month of December when I went to the Australian courts of justice to speak about the disappearance of my son; the officer was very correct and polite to me but acknowledged my desire to travel alone with Henrique in an awkward manner, despite the judicial authorization I had produced. Didn’t I have a psychologist’s report stating that it would be good for the child? Or an expert’s opinion to attest my strong and healthy relation with him? That is, any paper signed by an “expert” to provide me with more backing than my very condition as a father who had traveled around the world, spending more than I could afford, to pick up my son so we could spend some vacation together.
In that sense, a report signed by a Perth psychologist and registered in a Brazilian court of justice in December 2006 is meaningful. Attempting to show that a trip to Brazil, even for a mere vacation break and to see his father again after seven months, could be detrimental to the child, said professional wrote that Henrique’s move to Australia in May had been “largely uneventful” (what would an eventful one be like?); that removing the child from his “habits and routines” could make him afraid he would no longer see his mother (what about no longer seeing his father, hey?); and that, having once spent two weeks away from his mother, Henrique took to biting himself (now, how did a newcomer to the case like him learn about a fact that had happened in Brazil, especially when such case never really happened?).
Henrique’s school and virtually all his other activities in Australia are free — how wonderfully civilized! That being the case, plus the fact that my son is now living in another country totally against my will, Roberta still asks me to reimburse her for Henrique’s round trip tickets for vacations in December 2006/January 2007. I bought the ticket to bring him and it was not used because he wasn’t there; I then offered the ticket so that Roberta could use it for Henrique’s return trip, which she refused. According to a message she sent me, I must return the cash equivalent to the cost she incurred to hurriedly leave Perth before I arrived to see my son.
These were some of the reasons why, for the entire duration of 2006, I refused to answer Roberta’s messages as well as her offers that I talk to Henrique over Skype. First of all, the tone of her emails, as usual, was always between pathetic and angry. “Henrique is fine. He had a good trip and is excited with so many new things,” she wrote four days after the escape. “You may visit Henrique whenever you wish, just let me know,” the message went on. When I wished, I let her know, the Brazilian Embassy let her know, but she wasn’t there.
I also consider one specific passage from another message to be rather telling, and I therefore quote, including punctuation mistakes and the poor style of the original: “(…) I know it is difficult for you but, please, do realize it would be more difficult for Henrique to live in a country like Brazil, a country that, despite our wishes, from our hearts, does not offer any perspective of a future for him, that cannot offer him the quality of life he deserves, and that he’s been having here.” In short, autists living in Brazil deserve the difficulties (insurmountable, according to her) that they face.
The escape, the lies, the blackmailing messages — such as, “if you want to have a report from the school, ask me and I’ll send it to you” — and all the pain that is the result of being away from Henrique and the uncertainty about his conditions have made me refuse contact over Skype. I therefore went seven months without having contact with my son, something I later regretted. But I did send gifts with cards on his birthday — those that, in December, I saw in a pile of trash — and on Children’s Day.
As per agreement signed in January 2007, I accepted to communicate over Skype, which we have been doing every Wednesday. It is not always possible to see and hear Henrique as quietly as I would prefer, but I show him things around my place, I notice he recalls them, and I like to hear him say “hi, daddy” and to know he hears “hi, son”.
Sometimes I am also happy to notice indirect conquests, but they don’t always last long. On February 22, 2007, Roberta wrote to say that Henrique was having swimming lessons on a daily basis. He wasn’t in 2006. It seemed more like a reaction to the fact that, in December, I had enrolled him for classes during the vacation period in Rio. As swimming pools are one the things he enjoys most in life, he loved it, but Roberta didn’t like it as much. After returning to Australia, she insisted, in her emails, that I said the names of the gym center and the teachers, so that she could gather some information. I spared them that torture.
In Brazil, my mother and I always wanted to have him attend swimming lessons, but we never came to terms with Roberta on the financial aspect because she would be responsible for outlaying that since I paid for the school and the more expensive therapy. He was finally enrolled to have those lessons in 2005 by his step-father, who is a would-be bodybuilder. Some evils come to good, though. Unfortunately, on April 25, 2007, another message, boiled down to a “no” in response to my question, said the classes were not daily. Apparently, there is only one per week, though the rather unclear bit of information does not allow me to say that for sure.
One of the least obnoxious changes to Henrique’s life lies amongst those that disturb me the most. In order to facilitate the professional’s and the other children’s communication with him, as the school headmaster explained to me, Henrique was now being called Ricky. Since Henrique is my grandfather’s name, so lovingly given to my only child, replacing it with such an anglicized nickname that is so unlike him is the cream of this personality encroachment crop. It’s as if Henrique, already usurped of his right to frequently see his father and to express his desires, was also prevented from retaining his name, his identity (with double meaning). It’s as if he were treated as a hollow object, everything a person should not be, especially a child, especially an autist, especially when one is loved by so many people — from whom he was, nevertheless, separated.
In Brazil, my mother and I always wanted to have him attend swimming lessons, but we never came to terms with Roberta on the financial aspect because she would be responsible for outlaying that since I paid for the school and the more expensive therapy. He was finally enrolled to have those lessons in 2005 by his step-father, who is a would-be bodybuilder. Some evils come to good, though. Unfortunately, on April 25, 2007, another message, boiled down to a “no” in response to my question, said the classes were not daily. Apparently, there is only one per week, though the rather unclear bit of information does not allow me to say that for sure.
One of the least obnoxious changes to Henrique’s life lies amongst those that disturb me the most. In order to facilitate the professional’s and the other children’s communication with him, as the school headmaster explained to me, Henrique was now being called Ricky. Since Henrique is my grandfather’s name, so lovingly given to my only child, replacing it with such an anglicized nickname that is so unlike him is the cream of this personality encroachment crop. It’s as if Henrique, already usurped of his right to frequently see his father and to express his desires, was also prevented from retaining his name, his identity (with double meaning). It’s as if he were treated as a hollow object, everything a person should not be, especially a child, especially an autist, especially when one is loved by so many people — from whom he was, nevertheless, separated.
No comments:
Post a Comment