The birthday present

Then

When I was a teenager I was a wannabe Goth. I used to regularly frequent an old warehouse that had been turned into an indoor market for people with alternative tastes. There was a shop selling Dr Marten boots, a tattooist and piercer, a shop that sold glow in the dark neon club wear that I was too young and too vanilla to actually wear. Upstairs there was a cafe that specialised in amazing vegetarian and vegan food before being vegan was really a thing. I used to go in with my school friends who would humour my alternative leanings whilst harbouring obsessions with boy bands and high street fashion. And we would order vegetarian quiche or jacket potatoes accompanied by up to three different salads - brightly coloured grains and vegetables. I felt the height of alternative sophistication with my fake nose ring and my badly applied eyeliner.

And there was a huge shop that covered half of the ground floor of the warehouse. This shop sold everything. Brightly coloured semi-permanent hair-dye, studded dog collars, and the hugest array of T-shirts. Many of the T-shirts had slogans that I didn’t really understand but I would pretend to as I introduced my friends into what I wished was my world. Other T-shirts had swear words, sometimes with letters asterisked out, that nonetheless I would never have been allowed to wear. I bought several T-shirts from that store. Mainly black and with slogans that I felt were witty and edgy - ‘you’re just jealous because the voices are talking to me’ and ‘normal people scare me.’ My particular favourite was a tight black V neck with tiny black writing - ‘I blame the parents.’ I had no idea what was to come.

Fast forward fifteen years and I was making my way in the world. I had lost touch with my school friends and had settled further north in Newcastle. I had first moved up to do a psychology degree then and then stayed to complete an Msc and PhD. I had begun this journey with a vague idea of being a forensic psychologist, having watched episodes of Cracker when I was a small child and , whilst terrified of the violence, being fascinated by the precision with which Fitz solved the crimes by getting into the minds of the perpetrators. I was sure that there is no such thing as a bad person - we are all the product of our circumstances and experiences - and knowledge of psychology would enable us to unlock the reasons why people do bad things, and potentially create a better world in which bad people are no longer created. I couldn’t have known what was to come.

I spent a couple of years in academia, writing papers about the rise of ADHD and autism diagnoses in children. I then specialised in childhood trauma and its links with criminality in adulthood. After a few years in the dryness of academia I retrained as a psychotherapist and was let loose on real people with real problems. With my previous academic experience I was called as an expert witness in criminal trials in which defendants were claiming diminished responsibility due to childhood trauma. When I spoke at the trials I found myself looking into the eyes of some quite dangerous criminals and seeing the frightened child within. I became part of a parliamentary steering group which was looking into alternatives to prison sentences for offenders who had come from abusive backgrounds. As an advocate of rehabilitation I felt I was doing good. But I was part of what was to come.

The Regime

In 2030 Britain passed what was known locally as ‘Mum’s law’. Formally it was the Parental Reparation Act. It began as a means of lessening the sentences of criminals if it could be proved that their childhood experiences might have impacted on their life choices in adulthood. Offenders would be given individual or family therapy instead of long prison sentences and in the long term this would be more cost effective to the tax payer and result in a reduction in repeat offending. It began as a compassionate move towards understanding and rehabilitation. And there was a public outcry.

‘The snowflake generation takes no responsibility,’

‘The liberal agenda is putting us all in danger.’

‘Blame the parents? Then punish the parents!’

It was the last headline that really stuck. Within two years of the original law being passed it had been completely transformed. Instead of the reduction in prison time funding therapy and rehabilitation, for every year taken from an offender’s sentence, a year’s prison time was given to someone deemed responsible for the offenders criminality. In other words - the parents.

I was lucky. My son Henry was a good boy. Many of my friends had not been so fortunate. When the law was first passed there were rumblings that this would become a parental witch-hunt and several of my friend’s husbands upped and left the second their offspring hit puberty and started to answer back. They figured that the mothers could face the consequences when their kids went off the rails. I have watched my neighbours being taken off to prison because their sons were caught underage drinking or their daughters missed too many days of school.

And so ‘Mum’s law’ was born. Within five years of this progressive legislation coming into being it had become twisted into a maternal prison. Mothers became afraid of their own children. And children became untouchable. When I was a teenager my mother warned me against becoming pregnant young. She told me - slightly tongue in cheek - that it would be a prison sentence. Today that is exactly what it is. We are completely powerless over our own children.

We were all scared but I was lucky. I am lucky. As I said, my Henry is a good boy. We are more like best friends than mother and son. He is 17 and works hard at school. We don’t have much money - almost everyone was hit by the recession - but we can spend a fun afternoon window shopping in the posh part of town before sharing an ice-cream sundae and walking home. Henry always tells me that he is going to do really well in his exams and then he’d get a really good job and buy me all the lovely shiny things in the fancy shops that we look in. I had no reason to doubt him.

The Locket

It was 10pm on a Thursday evening and I was watching television. It was my birthday so I allowed myself a glass of wine. God I know how to live! Henry was out with a friend. I tried my best to hide my disappointment when he told me he was going out instead of spending the evening with his boring old mother on her birthday.

Then there was a knock on the door. It was two police officers. A man and a woman. It was the man who spoke.

‘Dr. Thomas?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dr. Thomas. You are arrested under the Parental Reparation Act. You do not have to say anything But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

Before I could speak I was put in handcuffs ready for the humiliating spectacle of the walk to the police car.

‘What has he done?’ I whispered. The female police officer looked down. I wondered if she had children. I wondered if she knew where they were this evening. I wondered if she knew how easily this could happen to her.

At the station I walked past my boy, sipping a cup of tea in the visitors area as I was led through for questioning. He was 17 but looked so much younger. What had he done? He looked frightened. When he saw me all he could say was ‘I’m sorry.’

In the interview room the police officer introduced himself as PC Dave Middleton. He passed me a necklace in a plastic evidence bag.

‘Do you recognise this locket?’

I did. I recognised it instantly. It was a gold heart shaped locket with an intricate floral design engraved on it. We had seen it earlier that day when we were window shopping. It cost about a month’s salary but Henry saw me staring at it. What the fuck had he done?

‘Your son and his friend broke into Exley and Co. jewellers at around 8pm tonight. They were apprehended at around 8:30pm and this was in his possession. Did you know of your son’s whereabouts?

‘I thought he was at his friend’s house.’

‘You often let your son out without knowing where he is?’

‘He said he was going to his friend’s house.’

‘And where did he learn to lie?’

And so it went on. I sat in the interview room for an hour while the police officer twisted my words until I broke down. I raised a liar and a thief.

Now

I never got my day in court. That interview on my birthday was my only chance to speak up before being taken off for ‘Mandatory Parenting School.’ It’s a women’s prison with a weekly lecture on the importance of raising law-abiding children.

Yesterday I got a visitor. My Henry! He looked so smart. Bless him - he had dressed up to visit his mum in prison like kids used to dress up for church on a Sunday. Before Mums’ law came in, Henry would have gotten himself a criminal record for stealing that locket. That would have stayed with him for years as he applied for university and applied for jobs. As I look over at my sweet boy I try to convince myself that this is for the best. I am one of the lucky ones. This is my first offence and the necklace was returned. I am due to be released in a month. I will have a record for the rest of my life. But that’s ok - I tell myself.

As we sat across from each other I looked at my son as he bravely fought away the tears.‘Why did you do it?’ I asked him, already knowing the answer. Why did you steal that locket?’

‘I wanted to get you something nice for your birthday.’

As I sad, he is such a good boy.