In 1986, some 32 years ago now, when my daughter Megan was a strapling girl of nine years, late one autumn Sunday morning on Granville Island, Megan and Jude and I — the three of us having enjoyed our once-a-month breakfast on the Island — found ourselves in the Market wandering up and down the aisles where various of the foodsmiths had set up their wares.
As Megan and I were standing among the throngs of families along one of the aisles, waiting for Jude to make his way back in from the area just outside the southeast doors, where he was on the sunny promenade chasing the birds, I spotted a tall, strikingly beautiful woman in brightly coloured, textured clothing. Megan saw that I had noticed this woman.
Megan looked at me and said, “No, don’t.”
“But, Megan,” I responded.
“Fine, but don’t take too long.”
So, leaving Megan alone momentarily, I approached the young woman, who was standing with her friend just mere feet away. After introducing myself, I said to the young woman (22 years of age, I was to learn), “I took notice of your colourful & artistic presentation of self, your warmly textured choice of clothing, and was wondering if perhaps you are a student at Emily Carr?”
“Thank you for asking,” she responded. “No, I am not a student at Emily Carr. Rather, I am enrolled in the Psychology Department at UBC’s Point Grey campus, where I am currently working on my undergraduate degree.”
“May I enquire as to what year,” I asked?
“Third,” she said.
“Almost fixed, then, I guess,” I said.
“Yes, almost fixed,” she said, sighing just a little, a gentle smile on her lips.
A which point, I bid her adieu, wishing her well, saying what a pleasure it had been to meet her and her friend, indicating Megan standing just a few steps away, and begged my leave in order to return my awaiting daughter.
Upon arriving back at Megan’s side, she looked at me and said, “Well?”
“Not a student at Emily Carr. In her third year in Psychology at UBC,” I said, looking at Megan.
“Oh,” Megan said. “Jude’s going to meet us over at The Loft. I want to get some beads. Let’s head over there now.” And off the two of us went, to be joined by Jude about 10 minutes later.
If you can’t tell from the story above, I am an ineffable, unrepentant, inveterate flirt, as has been the case my entire adult life through until now.
I love women, have always loved women, have found myself gifted throughout the entirety of my adult life with loving relationships of long duration with beautiful, accomplished, tough-minded, take no guff, incredibly bright women of conscience.
Whatever few recommendable aspects there may be of how I bring myself to the world, it is the women in my life who have helped to shape me, and created the man whose words you read on the screen before you.
As it happens, from my teenage years through until the present day, I have never pursued the love of a woman. I possess no desire, nor ever possessed any intent whatsoever, so as to cause concern to any woman, and arising from such have not pursued a relationship with a woman, lest I may cause concern, or interfere with a woman’s quiet enjoyment of life.
Throughout the course of my adult life through until now, there has indeed occurred that rare and salutary occasion when a woman has made known to me her warm feelings of support — but because I am not good at reading signs of interest, the warm feeling must be made well known to me through explicit if gently encouraging conduct, otherwise my relationship with the women with whom I come into contact in the conduct of my life may be best defined as joyous, friendly, and warmly & utterly appreciative.
Every relationship of consequence I have had with a woman, and there have been a few, has come as an utter surprise (an encouragingly pleasant surprise) to me, made plain from that first moment I am kissed unawares, and then kissed again, when I think to myself, “I think she likes me!”
And my heart flutters, a joy washes over me, and I am enveloped in love.
Every relationship of consequence I have had with a woman begins with that first kiss, and you will be surprised to learn has in each case led to immediate co-habitation. Kismet, they call it, reaching across the universe, through time and space to reconnect with someone you have known and who has been a part of your life through the ages, and time immemorial.
And once again, I feel loved and understood, supported and protected, and she having once again found her mate feels loved and understood, supported and protected, and always always she has recognized me, such perhaps that I am once again renewed and reborn, and feel fully alive.
Flirting, though, is not quite that, although it is, still, a reaching across the universe to re-establish a sense of connection with someone you have known always. Innocent flirting. I love both the idea of flirting and the circumstances of flirtation, as a harmless, yet effectual means of establishing an immediate deep, often profound, and enduring connection.
Eighteen months ago, I was invited to a friend’s birthday party.
Attending at the party was an amalgam of persons of conscience of my acquaintance, folks who are comfortable in their own skin, friendly, relaxed and on this day warmly companionable.
Midway through the party, I found myself standing over by the kitchen, leaning against a dividing wall between the kitchen and the dining room, observing all that was unfolding before me. As a trained sociologist, there’s nothing I like better than to stand back and away from what is going on in a room full of people, simply to observe, as if somehow at the end of the event I am attending, my intention would be to publish a reflective academic treatise, a scholarly abstract to be found in an obscure journal.
Some minutes into my casual yet intensive observation of all those persons attending the celebration, a woman of stature, warmth and substance made her way over to where I was leaning against the divide, the woman in her late 30s maybe, no older than early 40s, blonde, beautiful of soul & presentation, self-assured, warm & welcoming.
Unusual for me, all I said was hello — instead of the usual ramble for which I am well-renowned. I felt at ease with her, safe, comfortable & protected.
A few minutes into our conversation, as is sometimes the case, much to my surprise and amazement, I initiated an innocent flirtation with this woman, more to maintain my comfort level and a sense of equilibrium than for any other reason, in recognition that this was a woman of accomplishment and serious mien with whom I was conversing, well above my station I knew for sure, as she casually self-disclosed the most intimate details of her life with me — which could be seen as nothing else but building a sense of trust, a humane reaching out, and quite simply the most healthy act in which any person of character and conscience might engage, to actually reach out and touch another person’s heart, in the process creating palpable contact and connection, which disclosure required of me the necessity to overcome my natural shyness, to listen with intent and a kind and trusting heart.
So, there I was quietly flirting with this woman of accomplishment, becoming ever more engaged and amazed, but calm, in an ever-increasing zen state with every passing moment. The brief encounter I had with this woman of accomplishment has proved over the past 18th months to be my most moving new connection and engagement of character and substance.
During the course of our 15-minute conversation, this woman told me all about herself, about her husband, her family and her children, why she wasn’t living on the west side but instead on the east side of the city, and the circumstances of her life — the only woman, the only person, who at our first meeting has ever trusted me as deeply as was the case here, that afternoon, with so intimate an insight into not just the prosaic aspects of her life, but with a penetrating insight into her philosophical, psychological and emotional makeup, how she derived meaning in her life, the successes of her life and those circumstances where she felt she might have done, and hoped to do better in the future.
No one, but no one is ever self-revelatory — but this vision, this spectral presence of pure loveliness who stood before me on that sunny Saturday afternoon certainly was. I simply stood there transfixed but present, fully appreciative of the gift of trust and connection that was being established, able to engage in conversation as equals, even in recognition of this woman of great accomplishment, astonishing wisdom & utter warmth and kindness.
At which point the woman’s beloved husband popped over to say to his wife that they had to be on their way, after which the two simply vanished.
(Valeria Ciangottini) in the final scene of Federico Fellini’s classic, La Dolce Vita
In my home growing up, my mother was the main breadwinner.
For the early part of my life, my primary caregivers were a series of immigrant women hired to care for my sister and I during the day. In the evening, my father took care of that chore, which mainly consisted of giving us dinner, watching a bit of TV, and putting us to bed.
For the most part, my father didn’t work — but my mother didn’t trust him to care for us, thus the nannies during the day. Generally, around 3:30pm, my sister and I would jump into the family car to pick my mother up from her day job, and transport her to her afternoon and evening job. We’d do the same thing at 11:30pm. Generally, we’d be wrestled from our bed to make the late evening journey to Canada Packers or Swift’s or wherever my mother was working, and needed transport to her overnight job.
All of the above said, in fact — at least in my case — my primary caregiver throughout my young life was my aunt Freda, my mother’s younger sister.
Aunt Freda lived with my family four times a year, for up to six weeks.
Vancouver’s crown jewel, the 1000 acre Stanley Park, the photo above taken in 1958
As I say above, throughout my young life, my primary caregiver was my aunt Freda. During the first 10 years of my life, she cared for my sister and I, fed us, bathed us, took us to Stanley Park in the years we lived in Vancouver, took us on summer vacations, made sure that we enjoyed ourselves, and would learn about the world during the days, weeks & months that she cared for us, and otherwise provide love for the both of us.
In fact, my Aunt Freda was the only person who ever told my sister and I that she loved us. My father didn’t do that or even hint at it, love seeming to be a word not in his vocabulary, and most certainly my mother never told my sister and I that she loved us — although I think she showed it in many ways — and neither did anyone other than my Aunt Freda.
Aunt Freda was, for all intents and purposes, my mother — that’s the role she chose to play. For whatever reason, I was her favourite — any depth of insight into life, I gained from her. Our conversations lasted hours — she wanted to introduce me to the world, to make me aware of my environment, to help me to see that I was part of a human collective of those who lived around me, and as the years went by, farther afield, as she helped me to see that I was part of the world community.
Theatre Row along Granville Street, where are the movie palaces were, in the late 1950s
Aunt Freda loved the cinema, particularly Oscar winning fare, so going to the movies, and discussing them afterwards with her became a feature of my life from an early age, from about five years of age on, as I didn’t speak until I was five years old. As anyone who knows me would tell you, I’ve been making up for the loss of words in my first five years, ever since.
Aunt Freda hated my father. I don’t mean that they just didn’t get along — which they didn’t — my aunt Freda had a visceral hatred for my father.
Mainly, she thought him weak and incompetent, unknowledgeable about the world, incurious, possessed of no discernible or recommendable parenting skills, a “dullard” as she often called him. And my aunt was feisty — although my father occasionally hit my mother, mainly in retaliation for her cruel words to him, he never moved against my aunt; he knew that she would deck him, and send him into paroxysms of pain.
No, my father actually tried to change who he was, to become the person my aunt thought he should be, and during the course of his life to some greater or lesser degree, he achieved that in some measure — by the time my sister was eight years of age, and I was ten. By that time, he’d learned to read — with some assistance from me — and became the loving parent my aunt had always thought he should. My father loved my sister more than he did me — which is often the case with opposite sex children, as a matter of course in life — leaving the love I had come to need to my aunt.
1903: In the early part of the 20th century, my grandfather escaped the Ukrainian pogroms, an ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population that was taking place across eastern Europe that resulted in the murder of tens of thousands of Jews.
My aunt was short, with dark curly hair. In retrospect, I suppose my aunt Freda looked like the quintessential small Jewish woman — which she was.
Although my mother denied her Jewishness all her life, my aunt Freda — and all of my mother’s family — were forbidden from ever discussing my Jewish heritage with me, although in subtle ways my aunt introduced me to my heritage, swearing me to secrecy about my grandfather — her father — escaping the pogroms in the Ukraine at the turn of the last century to make his way to Canada and a new life, defining the pogroms not in terms of Jewish repression, but repression of the immigrant peoples of the Ukraine.
Whenever my aunt was around, my life was filled with joy.
Once my mother had taught me to read in the summer of 1957, after which I emerged as a top student through all of my academic years in public school, my ability to read opened up whole new vistas in my relationship with my aunt — who gave me books galore, so that at any given time I was reading at least three books. We’re not talking children’s books, either — but weighty political tomes, the work of Marx and Engels, Emma Goldman, J.D. Salinger, James Baldwin, John Steinbeck, and Mark Twain, among other influential writers of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Even for all that, my repertoire of authors I’d read was still lacking by the time I began university, a feature of my existence that Cathy set about to change. As I’ve written previously, two or three times a week, in the early years of our marriage, Cathy would hand me a book, and say to me, “Take this book. Go into the bedroom. Read the book. Don’t come out of the bedroom until you’ve finished reading that book. When you’re done, you may come out of the bedroom — but be prepared to discuss the book.”
And we did.
As I have indicated earlier, although I am possessed of many failings, one of them is not choosing to listen to women. I depend on women to make me a better person, to hold me to account, and — for the most part, and with rare exception — I have found in my life, whether it be my aunt Freda, or Cathy — the mother of my children — or any number of other women who have taken me under their wing (even if, in some instances they are some years my junior), that by following the advice and instruction of these women of conscience and remarkable intelligence and caring that I have become a better person, a more well-rounded person, and as I have written previously, the recommendable aspects of Raymond Tomlin are due almost entirely to the women in my life who cared enough about me to help me to be a better, more whole, more self-confident and more loving person.
Aunt Freda was a vegetarian, or more accurately, a vegan — no dairy of any kind, would only eat whole grains (which meant she did all her own baking), her diet rich in raw fruits, greens and plant-based foods, no sweets of any kind, sprouted foods whenever she was able, no eggs or seafood.
When my aunt ate well, I ate well.
Around the dinner table at night, on those extremely rare occasions when both my parents, my sister and my aunt were sitting around the kitchen or dining room table, my parents would make fun of what my aunt would eat for dinner — we’re talking the 1950s and 1960s here, not exactly a progressive culinary era for working class families — but she soldiered on.
My father was smart enough to keep his own counsel when it came to criticizing my aunt — he took her criticism of him to heart, and as I say above, made the attempt at becoming a better person.
In taking my aunt’s criticisms to heart, even though she hated him and made no bones about displaying such, I believe that my father actually thought that my aunt Freda cared enough about him to make him a better person, that he interpreted her demands of him as a caring that was all but absent in his life. To some degree, I’ve adopted much the same philosophy.
My aunt was also a vagabond, but a vagabond who typed at 160 words a minute, and took shorthand at up to 60 words a minute — her stenographic skills much in demand across all of Canada, for many many years.
For 50 years, my aunt traveled the country — there was no city or medium-sized town where she didn’t work, and given her skill set, jobs were easy to come by, references at the ready for her from previous employers.
My aunt would work three or four jobs a year for two to three months — in St. John’s Newfoundland (the only place she ever worked twice), Regina, Edmonton, Hamilton, Windsor, Saskatoon, Halifax and Victoria. My aunt would write to me from these far flung places across Canada where she’d taken employment, promising always to return in “just a few weeks.”
In the summer months, my mother, sister and I would travel to whichever western Canadian city she was working in — she always took employment in an easily accessible by rail western Canadian city, in the summer.
My mother, sister and I would stay with her in her small, one-room “apartment” (more like a tiny hovel, but still), in order that we might attend Klondike Days in Edmonton, or the Calgary Stampede, or the Red River Exhibition in Winnipeg, or whichever town had a fair that summer that my aunt felt was recommendable and worthy of my family — always sans my father — taking in with her, always enjoying our truncated time together.
Of course, part and parcel of that was the train ride to and from whichever western Canadian city we were visiting, but that’s a story for another day.
When my family — including my father — moved to Edmonton in the summer of 1959, I spent the month of July in High River, Alberta staying with my grandfather on his massive family farm, and much of August in Lethbridge with my aunt Anne, uncle Dave and their children, my cousins, before moving into the rental home my parents had found for us in Edmonton, where I began Grade 4 in September 1959 — a fortuitous circumstance that would change my life.
In the late 1950s, Alberta had legislated an academic programme of excellence for students into which I was enrolled. In British Columbia, the province had adopted two educational streams: academic and vocational. If you happened to live in a working class area of the city, you were almost automatically streamed into the vocational programme.
When I returned to Vancouver for Grade 7, in the late summer of 1962, as I had been enrolled, and done well in Alberta’s Enterprise Programme of Excellence — as it was called at the time — upon my return to Vancouver to attend Templeton Secondary school, of all my friends with whom I had attended Grades One through Three, I was the only child / student who now found himself enrolled in the academic programme at Templeton.
I recall at the graduation ceremony in 1968, how disappointed many students were to find that graduating in the vocational programme did not make them eligible for entry into college or university, that they’d have to start all over again. Rank class discrimination, that’s what it was plain and simple — kids came from poor families, and they’d become the “worker bees” as we were so often told while attending Templeton Secondary.
Two stories about my aunt, both of which are Edmonton-based.
Borden Park, in northwest Edmonton, at 148 acres one of the city’s largest parks
In the summer of 1960, after my family had moved to north Edmonton from the inner city, on my August 11th birthday that year, my parents had taken my sister and I down to play at Borden Park, in northwest Edmonton, not too far from where lived, a massive green space in that area of the city, sometimes used as fairgrounds, with a community centre, tennis courts, a pool, and outdoors, for younger children, and teenager and adults.
The day was sunny and bright, the sky a deeper and richer blue that I can ever recall having seen prior to that date.
As it happened that year, my aunt Freda had not come to stay with us during the first seven months of the year — her services were required in St. John’s, as she found herself working on a inter-governmental project of some great import to both the province and the federal government. Of course my aunt wrote to me frequently, but beautifully handwritten letters aside, I missed the dickens out of her, and in my letters to her, I begged her to come and stay with us in Edmonton.
But it was not to be, for all the reasons she explained in her correspondences.
While playing on the park’s roundabout, along with a number of other children pushing the roundabout to go faster, despite the hot sun beating down from above, I felt a chill run through my body, a pang that was so chilling as it shot through my veins that I alighted from the roundabout, and moved away onto a quieter green space nearby, just standing there shivering, for a moment wondering what was happening to me.
Turning away from the screaming children on the roundabout I began, alone, to walk north, away from my sister. Neither Linda nor I had seen my parents in awhile, who’d told us they had some business to attend to, that we’d be fine in their absence, and I was to take care of my sister Linda.
I continued to move north along the green grasses, at first slowly, hesitatingly, when looking off into the far distance, I saw three figures walking closely together, indefinable figures, the sun obscuring my vision, the distant figures almost apparitions, as another pang of cold shot through my body, at which point I began to run, to run faster in the direction of the three apparitions than I had ever run in my life, because I knew who the middle person of the three was, even if I could not properly see who it was.
And I began to cry, running across the green field sobbing, running as fast as I could in the northerly direction of the three figures who I could not quite make out, but I knew were my parents and my aunt, and I ran and ran and ran, tears now gushing down my cheeks on that 10th birthday summer’s afternoon in August of 1960, on a day I will never ever forget.
And when I was upon my parents and my aunt, I jumped into my aunt’s arms, wrapping myself around her, my head on her right shoulder, the two of us holding each other as tightly and closely as we could, both of us now crying, my parents standing back in wonderment, their faces lit up smiling.
Placing me back on my feet, my aunt looked at me and said, “Raymond, I have arrived in Edmonton just this day, only an hour or so ago, so that I could be here for your birthday, to take you and your parents and Linda to dinner tonight. And I have presents for you, as well, which I will give you when we return to your home, and before we go to dinner tonight.”
The presents? There were two, as promised: an Underwood typewriter that would allow me to type ever longer letters to my aunt as she found herself in some far flung location in Canada — with the facility to type easily and well, a salutary talent and much-used skill I employ to this day — the second present, a toy 8mm movie projector that both reinforced my love for film, and a device that would bring me much joy in the months to come.
Running across that green field in Borden Park on the day of my 10th birthday resides in me still as a signal and much cherished event in my young life, making me aware, if I was not already aware, that there are more than three dimensions in our existence — because I knew that my aunt was in the park minutes before I saw her and ran into her arms, when she told me she loved me, as I knew she did, and as I loved her.
My aunt stayed with my family to the beginning of my Grade 5 school year at Eastglen Elementary School, after which she was off again, this time to Saskatoon, where she worked through until February, when she returned to Edmonton for three weeks, then after traveling back to Saskatoon, where my mother, sister and I would spend the better part of July 1961 with her.
In the winter of 1962, my aunt made one of her now more infrequent visits to stay with my family, my mother working three jobs still, my father working at the Post Office, my sister and I alone at night.
One near frozen mid-winter February evening, after making and serving dinner to my sister and I, a dinner almost needless to say in which a delicious salad was featured prominently in the dinner — having arranged with a neighbour for babysitting for my sister, my aunt asked me if I’d like to go to see a film with her on the south side, near the university.
Of course, I said yes.
That evening, I saw my first foreign film, my first Fellini film, and a film that would go on to win the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award late the very next month: La Dolce Vita, a film I fell in love with, as did my aunt, a film my aunt and I talked about all the way home on the bus, a film that began my life long love affair with sensuous European women onscreen, and with foreign language and world cinema.
In all the years of my young life there was love in my life only when my aunt Freda would arrive to stay with us in our home. Not until I met Cathy in late 1969 did I feel love from anyone other than my beloved aunt Freda.
My aunt remained a fixture in my life through all the years of my attendance at university and throughout the years of my marriage, the woman I look upon as my “real” mother, the mother who loved me, and cared for me, who knew me better than any other person in this world, and the person — along with each of my two children — I will always love most.
At the outset of 1978, Cathy and I moved from the Interior to Vancouver, in order for me to begin a Master’s programme in Education at Simon Fraser University, the Master’s a requirement for me to assume the job of Principal at the school where I’d been teaching for the previous 2½ years.
For Cathy, life in the Interior had proved challenging. While I taught school during the day — my life all but consumed by my teaching and involvement in the politics of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation — although for a time Cathy had worked at the Ministry of Human Resources in town, it had become increasingly clear that life in a small, Interior rural town was not for her; Cathy wanted what life could offer in a thriving metropolitan centre.
Leaving my job in the middle of the school year was not easy — for the children in my class, for the kids’ parents, for my teacher colleagues and for our friends, all with whom I had become close. If we were to preserve our marriage, though, a return to Vancouver is what was required. For many years, Cathy had sacrificed much for me — now it was her turn.
2182 East 2nd Avenue, in the Grandview Woodland neighbourhood of Vancouver
My father had found us a house at 2182 East 2nd Avenue, right across the street from my childhood home, and nearby Garden Park. Our furniture was moved down in two big trucks. I left in the first truck, Cathy in the second truck a few days behind, as she wrapped up our affairs where we had lived for the previous 2½ years. The second truck arrived at our home on East 2nd Avenue on January 1st, our belongings were disgorged from the truck, and preparations were made to set up home in our new surroundings. Odd thing, though: Cathy never moved into that home on East 2nd Avenue.
Megan was all of eight months old at that time, while Jude was 2½ years. Cathy took Megan, who was still nursing, and moved in with a friend. I was left with Jude. Now, Cathy had a history of long standing for leaving for weeks at a time, only to return home as if she’d never been gone, our relationship returning to the bliss that had almost always been the case.
Although we weren’t living together, we still communicated every day.
Before returning to Vancouver, Cathy had enrolled me in classes at Simon Fraser, and in early January despite the upset of Cathy’s and my unusual relationship, I began school. Cathy was unwilling to care for Jude, would keep Megan only because Megan was still nursing, Cathy advising me to find child care for Jude. I was unable to secure child care for Jude up at SFU, but was able to find child care at nearby Grandview Terrace DayCare (not the child care centre in Grandview Woodland that goes by that name today), on East 7th Avenue, just north of Vancouver Community College. I would drop Jude off at 8am, head off to classes on Burnaby Mountain, returning to pick him up at 5pm. The routine worked, and we were fine.
A couple of weeks into my new school year, and Jude’s tenure in his first child care centre, when picking him up from daycare one afternoon, upon entering the child care facility, I became aware of the supervisor of the centre roughly manhandling a crying three year old boy, and was even more startled to see her slamming the distraught young boy against a wall.
I immediately moved to intervene on the boy’s behalf, expressing grave concern to the daycare supervisor on her rough treatment of the boy. The supervisor turned to me and told me to “Fuck off,” threatening that if I didn’t step back that my own son would be subject to similar treatment.
An aside, in addition to holding a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology, I also have a Bachelor of Education, with a specialty in Early Childhood Education, and was granted and held a daycare supervisor’s certificate, awarded automatically to all those graduating with an ECE BEd. I knew what I saw was wrong. I had noticed rough treatment of the children earlier, while dropping Jude off in the morning, but nothing as injurious and alarming as I’d witnessed that chilly, unnerving afternoon.
As I was preparing Jude to leave, putting on his coat and galoshes (it was winter, after all), I witnessed the daycare supervisor pulling a small chair out from under a young girl, and saw the same supervisor kick, yell at and threaten another child. Again, I intervened on behalf of the abused children, and again was told to “Fuck off” by the supervisor. A couple of parents present to pick up their children, and two other child care workers saw both the conduct of the supervisor, our interaction, and her response.
Jude and I exited Grandview Terrace DayCare as quickly as we could.
Upon arriving home, I called Cathy and told her of what had happened that afternoon at Jude’s daycare centre. Here’s what Cathy had to say …
“Pull him out of that daycare, don’t go back there again. Find him new child care.” I expressed concern to Cathy about the welfare of the other children enrolled at Grandview Terrace, to which Cathy responded, “It’s none of your business. You’re always tilting at windmills, looking for problems to fix. You have this ‘save the world’ complex that, although I found it moral in the early years of our marriage, I now find it tiresome. Pull Jude out of Grandview Terrace, find him new child care, and leave it at that. Get on with your life, go to school, and let someone else fix the problem. Jude’s not going back there, so it’s no longer your concern.”
I was dumbfounded at Cathy’s instruction — as my wife of nearly a decade, and given my activism on child care issues, she had to know that I wouldn’t just walk away; it simply wasn’t then and isn’t now and to this day in my nature to walk away when any person, child or otherwise, is in jeopardy.
Within 48 hours I’d secured new child care arrangements for Jude, at Hastings Townsite Child Care, run by a young woman named Sue Stables.
Contrary to Cathy’s instruction to me, I did not forget what I’d witnessed three days previous at Grandview Terrace, on East 7th Avenue. I made arrangements to speak with the Grandview Terrace supervisor, meeting with her one afternoon. Upon entering the facility, I again witnessed her abusing a child, in fact several children, before moving over to meet with me. Again, I expressed a concern respecting her “handling” of the children, and again I was told to “Fuck off.” An unsatisfactory response all around.
I had a list of the Grandview Terrace parent phone numbers, and a Board of Directors membership list. I contacted the President of the Board that evening, and made arrangements to meet with the Board later in the week. I met with the Board, told them of what I had witnessed, expressing concern as to the welfare of their children. The Board members listened intently, with the Board President, a man, finally speaking up, asking …
“What do you want us to do about it? Sometimes children get out hand. Sometimes children need a little bit of rough justice. We know how the supervisor approaches her job, and we approve. Quite obviously, you don’t, and you’ve pulled your child from Grandview Terrace. As a parent group, and speaking on behalf of the Board, we’re quite happy with the existing circumstance, and will do nothing to respond to your concerns, because they are not concerns that we share. Now, if you could just leave so that we can get on with other business, we’d all appreciate it.”
I spoke with Cathy that evening, told her that I’d met with the Grandview Terrace Board, to which she responded angrily, “I told you, it’s none of your business. If the parents are happy with what’s going on, let it go.”
Anyone who knows me would know that I would not “let it go,” never have, never will. Children’s well-being was in jeopardy, and I wasn’t going to walk away. The very next day, I made arrangements to meet with the supervisor of Daycare Information, an office operated by the Ministry of Human Resources. As it happened, I knew the supervisor, a woman with whom I’d worked closely in the co-operative movement some years earlier, and with whom I’d worked toward creating child care in British Columbia.
My friend and former colleague listened to what I had to say, and after asking me a few follow-up questions, she committed to the conduct of an investigation into my concerns. Over the coming months, the two of us kept in touch, working together from time to time. The results of the investigation were published, and made public, in November 1978.
Note should be made that there was no reporting legislation on issues related to child abuse, and the Socred administration of the day was not about to bring in any such legislation. People turned a blind eye to child abuse, including teachers, who throughout the 1970s (and earlier), 1980s and early 1990s in British Columbia were not allowed to report child abuse, or intervene on behalf of a child, as instructed by district administrators, arising from a fear of suit being brought against school districts by irate parents. The same discouraging ethos existed in the realm of child care.
In point of fact, it wasn’t until 1993 in British Columbia that a BC NDP government made it the law that adults witnessing, or who were aware of, child abuse would be compelled by law, and under penalty, to report it.
Here’s what occurred from the time of my reporting to Daycare Information on what I had witnessed at Grandview Terrace Daycare …
1. A Daycare Information staff person was sent to meet with the supervisor, her staff, and members of the Board at Grandview Terrace. Each denied any wrongdoing, and were unco-operative with the Daycare Information staff person, as was recorded in the final report;
2. An undercover investigator was assigned to work at the Grandview Terrace, as a “student” from Langara’s Child Care Programme on a work practicum. The investigator brought both audio and video equipment with them. Over a period of six weeks, video was filmed of the ongoing abuse of the children enrolled in the centre by all three child care staff, as well as by parents;
3. By April, Daycare Information secured a Court Order removing the daycare supervisor and child care staff from the centre, as well as the members of the Board of Directors. An administrator was assigned to run the affairs of the child care centre, and a new supervisor and staff were hired and installed;
4. The Vancouver Police Department and the Ministry of Human Resources worked together to further investigate what had been occurring at Grandview Terrace;
5. In June, the Crown charged the daycare supervisor with child abuse, and child endangerment; the child care staff were charged with child endangerment.
The case was brought to Court in September, the outcome of which was this: the supervisor was found guilty on both charges, but given a conditional discharge and a probationary period of five years. The lawyer for the daycare supervisor and the Crown made a joint recommendation to the Court on the conditional discharge that would stipulate that the supervisor would never again work in any capacity with children, not as a child care worker, a teacher or in any other capacity in which she might come into contact with children. The judge so ordered.
The abusive and unrepentant child care supervisor continued to maintain that she had done nothing wrong, and proved as verbally abusive to investigators as she had been with the children. At no point did the supervisor admit wrongdoing, or come anywhere close to accepting responsibility for placing the safety interests of children in jeopardy.
The two other child care staff were given an absolute discharge, and instructed that they could return to work in child care only if they were to complete a one-year child care course at Langara College, under the strict supervision of the administrator of that programme.
The Ministry of Human Resources apprehended three children who had been enrolled at Grandview Terrace, agreeing to return the children to their parents on the condition that the parents enroll and complete a three-month parenting course provided by the Ministry, their children to be returned only on the satisfactory completion of the course. Such was ordered by the Courts, and it was carried out in full I was to learn later.
The remaining parents who had been aware of what had transpired at Grandview Terrace but had done nothing to intervene to maintain the welfare of the children enrolled at the child care centre were also ordered to take the parenting course, the order also stipulating that each of these latter parents must meet with a social worker from Daycare Information once a week in each of the coming three months.
Throughout the entirety of the process above, Cathy was adamant that, as she said … “You stuck your nose where it didn’t belong,” adding, “I don’t know what it is with this complex you seem to have where you feel the need to rescue the world, but I’m sick and tired of it.”
In the early years of our marriage, the refrain I heard daily from Cathy …
“You are the best person I have ever known. You are kind, and honourable and a good person. I know that anything that you set out to do will be the right thing, the moral thing. I trust your judgement in all matters, I love you, and I will always support you in whatever you do, whatever cause you champion.”
I sometimes think that for the years of our marriage, Cathy created something of a monster, someone who truly believed he could do no wrong — which, as we all know, is impossible, because all of us are fallible, all of us no matter our good intention are likely to commit an act, however unwittingly and however unintended the consequence, will cause someone else anguish and pain, and will disrupt their lives in ways that are hurtful.
As for my activist and leftist friends, none were in the least supportive throughout the entire investigatory process and my involvement in it, as they were focused more on the “bigger picture” of social change and not, as they explained to me, “the picayune concerns of one child care centre.”
And so it is, most often with some activists on the left — it is ideology over practical concern of remediation respecting the lives of individual persons, even children, and their personal circumstance, and their personal pain.
In November, I was contacted by Daycare Information and was told that I was to be given a Humanitarian Award at the Annual General Meeting of the Early Childhood Educators Association, arising from my activism for child well-being. In fact, I was awarded the next month, in early December, where I was called a “hero” by the President of the ECE Association.
Let me be clear: there’s no heroism involved when an activist simply sets out to do the right thing, the moral thing, whatever the trying conditions that might accompany the fight for what is humane and proper, and that which serves the human interests of an individual or groups of persons.
Upon hearing of the proposed award, Cathy was no more happy with me than she had been at the outset, critical and, as it happened, well on her way to divorcing me, now leaving me with custody of both Jude and Megan.
As to my friends there was, as I expected there would be, a round of, “I knew you were doing the right thing. I’m glad to have stood by your side to offer you the support you needed these past months,” which declaration was a re-imagining of the truth, and what had actually transpired.
In the coming years, I would continue to advocate for the interests of children, both on a global scale, and as an educator working in classrooms across Metro Vancouver, often at much expense to myself, and rarely if ever with the support of my contemporaries, nor with Cathy’s support, nor for that matter the support of administrators in school districts in our region.
Throughout my life, I have always sought to do the moral thing, whatever the cost to myself — and, often, it has proved to be at great cost to me.
At month’s end, with great reluctance I will cut back on my ongoing coverage of the 2018 Vancouver civic election, in order that I might work on the correction of a circumstance that has long been of grave concern to me. Once again, I expect little or no support for my endeavours — save, perhaps, that of my friends David Eby and Spencer Chandra Herbert, two of the most moral men I know, good and great on issues of societal concern, and much beloved by many, and just as good on issues relating to personal crises. Both are amazing men of grit and compassion, and I am fortunate to have both men “on my side” — which, as you surely must be aware if you know me at all, is not an easy task, nor one which is entered into lightly.
