Mum upset by unsigned note berating her son
It wasn’t the start to the year Ana Gray had hoped for. The 28-year-old solo mum from Napier checked her letterbox yesterday to find an angry unsigned note, threatening to call her landlord and child services because of her son’s yelling.
Her heart sank as she read the anonymous note.
“If you don’t stop that kid yelling I will ring child support and report you. We all getting sick of the yelling and also ring your landlord,” the note said.
“That kid” is Ana’s seven-year-old son, Wiremu. Five years ago, he was diagnosed with autism and Global Development Delay (GDD). Yelling is just part of how he copes with it.
She knows the yelling gets on people’s nerves. It gets on her nerves, too, and she has to deal with it every day. The anonymous note has brought on additional stress to an already tough situation.
“I would have preferred being spoken to face to face so I can explain our situation,” Gray said. “It is very hard for me doing this on my own.”
Because the note wasn’t signed, she doesn’t know who sent it.
The solo mum, who has three other children, says “he has become more difficult to handle”.
On a Facebook post, Gray apologised to her neighbours for her “disruptive” son.
“We’re only trying to live life as each day goes by in the hopes that things will only get better for us,” she added in the post.
Things might, indeed, get better soon.
“The help I need is well on its way and I couldn’t be happier about that,” Gray told the Herald.
The family is on a waiting list for Wiremu to see a paediatrician.
“Now that he is older things have changed and he has become more of a challenge for me.”
Her landlord has known about her son’s diagnosis and never had any complaints until now.
Gray has been living in the Napier flat for eight months, and says she’s happy.
“I love my son to pieces. He may not be perfect to others but he is perfect to me,” she says.