He's gone.
It's not official, but SOBF could hear it in his voice on the phone last night; Spawn 2.0 is likely gone for good.
I mentioned before that he had only called a few times since leaving, and the last three times were only to talk to SOBF to ask when his skateboard will arrive. Last night he called to ask yet again, and questioned whether or not we had really sent it, "like that time you said we were going to build a go-cart." He was bringing up things we had planned to do in the past and just never gotten to, or which hadn't happened because life did; something a ten year old can't really be expected to understand, I guess. SOBF thought his tone said it all; accusatory, questioning the veracity of what he was being told, boastful about his weekly allowance and what he's saving it up for (a motor-scooter, apparently). It seems pretty obvious that he's been regaling the Egg Donor with the tales of all the woe which has betided him while living here; all the broken promises, lack of allowance, rules we make him follow, etc. etc. As, to be fair, he would do here if the situation was reversed. I like to think that we'd take it all with a grain of salt, but who knows. We do suspect she's buying it all because it benefits her to do so.
I'm not sure how to feel. On the one hand, I'm relieved, because that child has been a thorn in my backside for going on three years with no improvement. Every time I thought he was getting better he was just behaving better in order to score something. When I let down my guard and gave him the benefit of the doubt he took advantage. I saw no real change in his person over the years, just a change in how he presented himself. All he really got better at was hiding his true nature. To be completely honest, I have been scared, literally scared, of what the future held with this boy, for reasons I've never discussed here. I'm going to do it now, only because I feel the need to get some of this off my chest, and also to illustrate why I use words such as "evil" to describe a young child.
In no particular order, here are some of the things we have dealt with: hoarding of preferred snacks and toys, hiding them so his brothers couldn't eat or use them. Constant lying. Maneuvering to always get something first, or the better of a group of items, or the preferred seat in the car or at the table. Never sharing unless forced and then sulking about being compelled to give something up, to the point where if he was forced to share something he decided he just didn't want it at all anymore. Bragging about how much better at any given activity he is than everyone around him.
Ordering me around like I'm his personal slave. No "please" or "thank you" unless forced. Never apologizing for anything he's done wrong; never so much as admitting he was wrong. No empathy. No capacity to understand how people around him feel.
We found a pocketknife in his school backpack and it took an hour of the most intense grilling for him to tell us where he got it and admit that he had actually put it in there himself. He "hid" a penny behind a battery pack charger for a remote-controlled car, while it was plugged in, starting a small fire which burned the penny to the carpet and caused a 2nd degree burn on his hand, but it took more than an hour to get him to admit he knew anything about it, and even then he tried to blame other people for forcing him to put it there.
He came to work with me on take your child to work day and while playing with the typewriter, wrote "Die [jennaratrix] Die" on a piece of paper, handing it to me with an evil smile on his face, thinking that "I was only kidding!" would be a reasonable explanation.
He has told Spawn 3.0 that he will kill him someday.
When one of the pet rats that Spawn 2.0 took care of died, he didn't cry or show any emotion whatsoever; he just asked a lot of questions about how he died. Like, if I could tell how he died. So many times that I seriously suspect that Spawn 2.0 (hopefully accidentally) did something to him that caused him to die; when he told us that Mr. Whiskers wasn't moving and I went to check, Mr. Whiskers was still warm and had obviously been dead for a very short time, so much so that I wasn't entirely sure he was dead.
I already regaled the haircut incident; that was par for the course. He saved up every real and imagined slight from me to repeat to his mother for sympathy and in order to join her in badmouthing me; she had a very willing participant in her quest to undermine my authority in my house in Spawn 2.0. He was told in so many words that he didn't have to do anything I said, and he adhered strictly to that. There was never a single thing I ever told him to do or not to do that did not result in an argument. Never. We argued every single day without fail, usually about very petty things like homework, getting dressed, bed time and regular chores.
I'm sorry to say it, but I don't miss any of this. Every kind word, every affectionate gesture, every attempt to do the right thing, was just a calculated move to either get something he wanted or disarm us so he could blindside us later. EVERY SINGLE TIME. I can pair every positive act with a request for something, usually something unrealistic. Birthday and Christmas presents were never enough; two years in a row he would get to the last present in, really, a rather impressive Christmas haul, and scream and cry because there was nothing else (my mother witnessed this one year). He was completely inconsolable when a child at his first birthday party here broke the pinata open instead of him; he spent the next hour crying and pissed, and was ready for everyone to go home.
Every child of his age in the neighborhood is "his" friend. When Spawn 3.0's only neighborhood buddy comes over, Spawn 2.0 latches on and eventually separates him from his brother. He is the ringleader in every adventure, and tends to choose as friends children a little younger than him so he can more easily boss them around.
He is a horrid, narcissistic, greedy little brat and I'm not sorry he's gone. I truly believe that there is something wrong in the way his mind works, and have spent the better part of the past three years reading up on various personality disorders to find the best way of dealing with the way he thinks, to some effect but no real identifiable change. I was not and am not attempting to diagnose a disorder; I just wanted to get some advice on ways to deal with people who think the way Spawn 2.0 does so I would know how to (and how not to) react. What I found scared me even more, and to be completely honest - I hope I'm wrong. I don't want to be right, about any of the things I'm unsure of. I sincerely hope I'm totally over-reacting and being an uninformed armchair psychiatrist, and that really, the kid just wanted to live with his mother and was acting out any way he could to get what he wanted. And that now everyone will live happily ever after, marry princesses and live in fairy castles in the sky.
You can see how likely I think that all is. However, it is possible that Spawn 2.0 and his mother are enough alike that living with her really will be the magic fix, at least as far as he is concerned, and the beneficial by-product will be peace in my home. It's really all I can hope for, since the alternatives to that scenario are nothing if not grim.
