Both Mr. and Ms. Yanelli came from families in which their parents were struggling economically. Ms. Yanelli’s family, for example, moved frequently. Her parents divorced when she was very young, and her mother (Billy’s grandmother) married again when Ms. Yanelli was two. Her stepfather, whom she calls “Dad,” worked in factory jobs but never learned to read or write. Her biological father died when she was thirteen, allegedly of a suicide in the city prison. Ms. Yanelli is dubious:
He always kept in contact. He always came to see us. He was always a good father. When he was thirty-three years old he hung himself in prison. And there was a lot of debate about—did the policeman do it? There was a lot of stuff with the police at the time. But he would never kill himself. He wasn’t that kind of man. He just bought a boat the day before.
Ms. Yanelli is a worrier. In a life-defining event, the three-year old daughter of one of her good friends died of a brain tumor. For years, Ms. Yanelli restricted Little Billy’s movements even when he was with his father (e.g., forbidding them to go fishing at a local river) for fear that something might happen. She feels that her fear of losing him led her to be indulgent. She wonders if this is the source of his behavior problems at school.
I’m having so many problems with him right now. I don’t know if he’s hyperactive. I mean, I’ve gone through years of trying to find out what’s wrong with him. We’re good to him. I thought at one point maybe that’s what it is; we’re too good to him. He’s got like a mean streak in him. The more you do for him, the more you love him—he’s just got this little mean streak in him and I can’t explain it. But . . . we love him to death. He’s interested in everything. He’s always willing to go, willing to do anything. He’s a fun kid. He loves sports. . . . He plays baseball. He wants to play hockey. See, I’m the kind of mother that—I feel like I’m the one that’s wrong.
Ten-year-old Little Billy is short and pudgy and often wears long T-shirts that hang down over his pants. Still, with his closely cropped blond hair and a stud earring in his right earlobe he also has a stylish air to him. School is difficult, as he expressed when asked what he liked about his teacher, Mr. Tier:
Nothing. Well, I like that he lets you have extra recess. We always go on walks . . . He’s a fun teacher. We learn songs that he makes up, like “The Map Rap.” You can learn a lot from having fun. We have a lot of animals in our classroom. Uh, we have nine fish in a humongous tank, three hamsters . . . (Mr. Tier) used big words . . . he used words like “technically,” “obstacle.” He would use giant words sometimes.
But he also had objections:
Well, when he gets mad . . . he’ll pull somebody by the hair or their ear or hit them in the head with his fingers but it hurts. And when he does that we all go, “OW.”
When asked how Mr. Tier would describe him, he reported:
That I’m intelligent. I’m not just saying that, because I heard him say it. He would say I’m always getting my homework done. And that I’m a really nice boy and he would say that I keep my grades up.
But he also knew of his reputation:
He would say—a lot of people think I’m trouble. He would describe me as trouble, like that . . . He would say—he thinks I have problems at home.
He was aware of the tension between his parents and “the school,” noting that his mother “hates” the principal.
Billy Yanelli’s home is in an all-white neighborhood, but the street demarcating the beginning of an all-Black neighborhood is only a few blocks away. His school, Lower Richmond, is racially integrated among the students and staff. For example, his third-grade teacher, Ms. Green, was African American, as was the school counselor, Ms. Franklin, but his fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Tier, and the principal are white. At home, he mostly plays with white children (including white girls), although occasionally a Black boy from his classroom who lives only a few minutes away by foot will walk over to Billy’s house to see if he wants to play. His father had a best friend from childhood, Mitch, who is Black. Mitch is over several times per week. The stores his family frequents are overwhelmingly white; so is his baseball league.
Similar to Tyrec Taylor, Katie Brindle, and other working-class and poor children, Billy’s daily life is primarily built around playing with neighborhood children, of whom there are quite a few. In the summer his one organized sport, baseball, makes the family feel that they are extremely busy, with practices in the evenings and a game on the weekend. He enjoys it.
I like that I’m catching. I like when I get up to bat because I feel like, sometimes I feel nervous, like if there’s a really fast pitcher . . . I’m afraid I’m gonna strike out. But then, boom, boom, boom, I’m hitting one in the outfield.
Mostly, however, Little Billy plays with children in the neighborhood in the street, watches television (including Saturday afternoon cooking shows), or rides along while his mother does errands. Like Tyrec Taylor, Billy has much more unstructured free time than did Garrett Tallinger and Alexander Williams. In addition, Billy’s parents are very close to their relatives; Little Billy’s uncle usually drops by every day and Ms. Yanelli talks to her mom daily.
My brothers calls me every single day, “What are you doin’?” “Nothin’,” “See you later . . . “ My family talks every day. My other brother will call as soon as he thinks I’m available just to say what are you doin’ and how did you make out at the school this morning? My whole family has total contact every day.
With family, “There’s always somebody there for them and somebody who cares about them no matter what kind of life they have. That’s important.”
Still, the Yanellis are not close to all of their relatives. Mr. Yanelli was working a job with his younger brother, Charlie, and he suddenly saw his other brother, Ray, a drug addict, pushing a cart like an old man. Mr. Yanelli gave five dollars to Charlie to hand over to their brother Ray, but he did not go over himself to visit.
At school, Little Billy usually gets B’s but is considered to be a behavior problem. His mother calls him the class clown. He often is in trouble at school, for example, for throwing rocks, pulling chairs out from underneath other students as they go to sit down, getting in fights with other children, and various other forms of “acting out.” Mr. Tier described him as follows:
He’s a goofball. I’m sorry, but he is . . . You know what a goofball is like. He crosses his eyes. He sticks his tongue out and he makes weird sounds.
Mr. Tier was also troubled by Billy’s difficulty getting along with his peers. The school counselor, Ms. Franklin, agreed:
Billy’s a bright child;, he’s got good potential. [But] his mouth gets him into trouble. He says things to other children that set them off a lot of times. He’ll talk about kids’ mothers . . . He knows how to make other children angry and react . . . I really do feel a lot of his behaviors are inappropriate for a child his age . . . [they are more appropriate] for a much younger child . . . six, seven years old.
Because of his behavioral difficulties at school, the teachers have strongly recommended that Billy see the school counselor on a weekly basis. They have also recommended counseling for the family, which the father considers outrageous. His mother believes it likely that she will ultimately have to acquiesce as she did for the school counseling for Billy, saying, “I feel pushed, I really do.” The school counselor, Ms. Franklin, was aware of her reluctance:
The mom has had some real resistance to his being involved in group therapy . . . It’s taken a lot of work on our part to get her to permit him to be in these situations. I think she has the idea, as many parents have, that therapy means you’re saying your child is crazy. That’s not what we were saying.