Kaylee was a teen mom who weighed just over three hundred pounds, had a two-year-old child, and had recently announced that she was pregnant again. She had been thrilled about it and told me that I was the only one who was excited for her. From her observation, every one else had given her words of caution and advice, and didn’t seem very happy that she was going to have another baby. She was a compulsive liar and when she was challenged on a clear lie she would simply make up another story. Her former support workers had reported to me that she was incapable of telling the truth but I wondered if she simply needed someone to pay attention to her and one way was to get in an argument. She lived with a young man who was receiving AISH funding (Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped) because of his IQ, and Kaylee was hoping to receive the same funding. Her application had been held up in the process for a few years and one of my objectives, as her support worker, was to help her achieve stable funding. She was socially self-conscious and often talked about things in public coffee shops that people found awkward and inappropriate. For instance, once when we were in a Tim Hortons, she described to me in a loud enough voice to be overheard a few tables away, that her weight was due to eating a bag of apples a day, and that she was healthy but there was a lot of fruit sugar in apples. She also finished the conversation by talking about her halitosis and how it was probably somehow related to the apples. She had thrown her head back and laughed as if everyone talked about such things in coffee shops. It was a particular challenge to spend time with Kaylee in public as these kinds of conversations were the norm and I was often aware of the horrified expressions of people who sat close enough to hear her. I wondered if she saw them as well and it was the same principle as in Hollywood: bad press is better than no press. I felt nothing but compassion for Kaylee and we continued to go out in public and have discussions afterward about how our conversations might affect other people. Kaylee had also recently informed me that her brother had raped her a number of times when she was younger, and I was beginning to see that this was a beautiful young woman who had never accepted that she was beautiful. She only saw herself as a reflection of the terrible things that had happened to her and the mean things that had been spoken about her. She needed someone to tell her of her incredible worth and I was determined to help her see it.
The Meeting
The room where the Service Team Meeting was being held was on the second floor of an old school that had been rented to a Human Service Agency. The community had grown older and families had moved into newer houses in the suburbs where they could afford to live. Subsequently, all the new schools were now being built on the peripheries of the city. The walls were covered in peeling pale green paint and the floors were shiny white tiles. The agency had a decidedly Aboriginal focus and I was sitting in a rolling office chair with three other workers who knew each other. From what I could tell it was a supervisor and two front-line staff and they chatted with each other in animated tones to the right of me at the other end of the table. Kaylee, who I had been working with for a few month’s now, had not yet arrived when the Child and Family Services worker (CFSW) strolled in 5 minutes late.
The first odd thing I noticed was that the meeting officially started when he got settled and there was no mention of Kaylee except to ask if I knew if she was going to be attending. It seemed like no one expected her to attend and I soon found out why. The CFSW started the meeting by giving us a lavish account of how much work he had and how stressful his current client load was. The rest of us listened with feigned compassion and moved our notebooks around in front of us, occasionally glancing at the door to see if Kaylee would enter and rescue us. The meeting was then handed over to the supervisor of the newly contracted agency whose job it was to help Kaylee where I obviously hadn’t been able. She pulled out a sheet of paper and sighed, stating that the agency was now requiring each meeting to start with filling in three boxes: Kaylee’s strengths, her needs, and possible solutions. The first box was hardly touched while the group spent extra time citing their expertise on her presenting problems and ways that they would be able to solve them with her. The second odd thing I noticed was that the biggest issue was the cleanliness of her apartment. After much discussion about how dangerous it was to have children in the house that was that messy, the group all but decided that the best option was to give her two weeks to clean it up or risk apprehension of her child. It seemed to escalate very quickly in my observation. I had a sinking feeling that this was not about cleanliness but more about judgments of her IQ, social awkwardness, and her lies. It was about how they believed she was incapable of being a healthy parent.
I thought if was an appropriate time to defend this precious mom. I first spoke of her many strength’s and then turned my attention to the discussion about a messy house. I gave an impassioned talk about how all of our parameters for cleanliness were different and asked that we use Kaylee’s cleanliness as a barometer for her self-worth rather than an ultimatum for keeping her child. I even had a proposal for the group. I would spend the first half-hour of each of my visits cleaning her kitchen and living room for the next six months so that they could be assured that her child had safe living conditions. My philosophy was that when she felt important enough, by having someone continually clean her house for her, that she would begin to feel the warmth of being worthy and important and it would start to show in her taking pride in her own cleanliness. The discussion that followed was hardly inspiring. The debate swirled about whether I was simply enabling her and that when I left nothing would have changed. They were skeptical and cynical. In the end, I told them that I would take responsibility for the cleanliness of her house and if her child became ill from the mess that I could be held accountable. Surprisingly, they agreed. The CFSW dramatically closed his file folder and announced that he was closing the file and he would be happy to have one less case. He stated that if I was so confident that he didn’t need to be involved anymore. The other agency, needing the funding of the open file, also stated that they would not be working with Kaylee and they hoped that I had success. And just like that, the meeting was over and I was solely responsible. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or frightened that I had made a big mistake that was now on my conscience alone. Kaylee never did show up for the meeting and I wondered how I was going to frame the discussion for her.
Doubt
Two days later I stood in the entrance of Kaylee’s house for my regular visit and was acutely aware of the offensive smell that met my every breath. I was also reminded that Kaylee was a precious and important human being, especially to her daughter and boyfriend, and it was my privilege and responsibility to her help her see her own worth. I told her that there was great news; her file had been closed with Social Services. She was thrilled. There was now one less scrutinizing eye to try to appease. I then told her that I was going to be her only support and the first thing I would like to do was gift her with a clean kitchen. At first she brushed it off as simply a job she was going to be getting to later this week and the reason it was messy was because the apartment was so small. I told her that I would love to do it and if would be my honor to give her a space where she could cook a great meal without having to worry about the dishes on the counter. Eventually she resigned and moved so she could see the kitchen and chat with me while I cleaned. It took about 45 minutes and I sat back to observe my progress. There was a huge mound of clean dishes, two garbage bags full of trash from the floor, and the refreshing smell of liquid detergent still shining on the kitchen floor. The smell in the apartment was no longer pungent and the smile on Kaylee’s face matched the shine in her eyes: she had a clean kitchen. She told me she was cooking a special dinner for her boyfriend and daughter tonight and my heart swelled. The next week the kitchen was back to shambles and again I put it in order, all the while telling Kaylee that she was so important to me that I wanted her to have a clean space where she could be creative with dinner. This was our pattern for about six weeks and I wondered if my idealism was on the verge of cracking. Was the Service team right? Was I only enabling a young woman to not have to clean? I put aside my encroaching doubts and pushed on, this kitchen was going to be my litmus test.
The next week saw a breakthrough. When I showed up all prepared to clean, there was no garbage on the floor and only a few dishes on the counter. I was elated and Kaylee had a special request. She wanted me to help her clean out the pantry because she wanted to use it again. She had begun cleaning every couple of days and was starting to cook healthier meals but needed more space to put groceries. I had a little bit of a tear welling up in my eye from how proud I felt that she was feeling worthy and precious and wanted to show love to her little family by giving them healthy meals. For the first time, we tackled a cleaning project together. It went so quickly we even had time to clean and rearrange her daughter’s room. She was like a new woman. She laughed and talked and we even exchanged the few jokes we each could remember. In a nutshell, we bonded a lot that day. Another thing that began to happen was that when she told me something I knew not to be true and I gently told her I knew it wasn’t, she would relent and tell me the truth. It was not an outcome I expected to see from cleaning her kitchen and telling her she was special and unique. Her stories in coffee shops also took a dramatic turn and our discussions were pleasant and much quieter. I had made it my mission to help Kaylee see her own worth and the tool I used was cleaning her house for her. For the next few months I saw more evidence of her accepting and loving herself. Little stories trickled in about how she helped a lady cross the street, had given someone change at the store when they were a little short at the till, and how she had started going for walks to try to lose weight. It was truly dramatic.
Saying Goodbye
The day of my closing visit revealed a Kaylee who would have been impossible to imagine when I first met her. Her and her boyfriend had started saving their money and had rented a 3 bedroom house, he had started a job at a parts counter in an automotive store, and Kaylee had continually been losing weight from eating healthy and going for regular walks. She now owned a bike, had two healthy daughters, and every room in the house was tidy. She had a pleasant disposition and didn’t need to tell crazy stories and argue over truth to get the affirmation she craved. She had learned to love herself and it was like someone had turned a light on inside of her. She had asked me to come at 9am for breakfast and when I arrived there was an incredible array of food on the table. She had made eggs benedict from scratch, cooked bacon, had fresh fruit, coffee, and juice spread out on placemats. She had included her 4-year-old daughter in the preparation of breakfast and she bubbled with delight at how much fun it had been to cook with mom. We reminisced about some of the tough times and conversations we had and celebrated the amazing amount of work she had done to shape her current life. She asked if I thought she was a success story and I turned the question back to her. She thought for a minute and stated that she had always believed that she was the kind of person she was now but she had been hiding behind a lot of anger. I was astounded. Her insight was amazing. I agreed with her and told her in no uncertain terms that she was the perfect example of what success looks like: she had learned to love herself and in doing so had learned to love others around her.
As I drove away for the last time, hugs and goodbye’s all done and waving madly out the window, I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if I had simply agreed with the Service Team and given Kaylee a two week ultimatum to have her house clean or risk losing her daughter. I’m sure the outcome would have been much different and I was glad I had taken a chance on her. I knew a beautiful life story would continue to unfold and I was immensely proud of the hard work and effort the whole family had put in.