Parenting: Keep Your Seatbelts Fastened in the Event of Rough Air
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When my son was in fifth grade, he had a dark view of life in general and of school in particular: “The principal is Pharoah and us kids are the slaves.”
“What about the teachers?”
“They’re the ones with the whips.”
What a metaphor. I felt bad for him. I’d loved school. (Of course I had. School was so much better than home. That’s where I had felt trapped. I took his point.) Still, the intensity of his outlook puzzled me. His father and I had waited a very long time for him to come along and make us a family. He was a great kid and we adored him.
I looked forward to picking him up from school and making the daily Dunkin Donuts run. He loved his donuts.
“It’s cheaper to buy a dozen than to buy one at a time,” the drive-through teen-du-jour said pretty much every day.
“I know,” I’d reply pretty much every day, “but my hips disagree.”
“Mom, come on! Please?”
“No, no, you know how it is,” I’d say pretty much every day. “If they’re in the house, we’ll all eat too many and there goes dinner.”
We lived in a safe neighborhood. He had lots of friends. Our pooch watched tv with him. He had his own room. We read to him every night before bed. I mean, come on. He had a good life. But I didn’t expect him to be grateful. He had no other experience and no point of comparison.
Then again, he has ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) which isn’t easy to live with. Maybe that soured his general attitude. Even taking his medication, he was distractible, inattentive and easily frustrated. Without a doubt that contributed to his sense that school was a prison he couldn’t escape. He struggled learning to read and avoided reading. (That made me sad. I love to read.) He struggled ongoingly with math. We’d tried to help him get his homework done but frankly, the level of family stress and discord that resulted was counterproductive.
Enter Mrs. O’Neill, retired elementary school teacher, now tutor extraordinaire. I’d drop him off at her house at 4:30 twice a week. School let out at 3:00. That hour and a half at home broke up the day’s momentum. As far as he was concerned, he was done. He always put up resistance going to Mrs. O’Neill’s but reminding him there would be cookies usually got him over the hump.
Not this particular Tuesday. At around 4:00, I knocked on the door of his room. Odd—Why was it closed?
“It’s time to get ready for Mrs. O’Neill,” I said through the door.
No answer. No sound of footsteps approaching. I heard a soft rustling. Maybe he was sitting on the bed? I knocked again.
“Come on buddy. Open up. We’ve got to get going.”
Still no answer. I turned the doorknob and pushed up against something heavy on the other side, heavy enough that I couldn’t shove the door open. He must have dragged the chest of drawers up against it. I sighed.
Why is it that just as we think we’ve got the parenting thing nailed down, the kid’s brain makes new connections and leaps up to the next level of annoying smartness?
“Hey! What’s going on? I can’t open the door. Let me in.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“I’m not going to Mrs. O’Neil!”
Now I was exasperated. “Come on, let’s go. We’re going to be late if we don’t leave now.”
“I don’t care! I’m not going!”
“If we don’t show up, she’s going to charge us anyway. She’s reserved that hour for you.”
No answer. Of course he wouldn’t care about that. It wasn’t his money. I contained my growing impatience.
“I’ll have to take her fee from your allowance.”
“I don’t care! I’m not going.”
I heard footsteps. Scuffling. The thud of something heavy hitting the floor.
I huffed in exasperation. Time to pull out the big guns.
“No donut after school tomorrow if you don’t come out right now!”
Long silence. “What?”
“What I said.”
There was the sound of heavy furniture being dragged away from the door. “You can come in.”
I pushed the door in slowly and what did I see to the right? Knotted sheets running out the open window, one end tied around the bed leg. I looked to the left, saw his chest of drawers askew behind the door and my boy, standing tall and proud as he noted that I’d seen his work. He had the same expression on his face as the first time he rode his bike without training wheels.
I turned my head toward those knotted sheets and held my breath to stop myself from busting out laughing. It was a close call. When the wave subsided, I looked back at him, lifted my eyebrows, and said, ever so casually, “So…you were making a break for it?”
“Yes!” He stood taller, prouder. “I climbed out! I sat on the roof. People walking on the sidewalk saw me! I waved at them.”
Oh Lordy. I could see the headline of tomorrow’s paper. Local Shrink Sets Bad Example, Lets Child Play on Roof, Neighbors Appalled. We locked eyes. He smirked a little. He’d waved on purpose, to make sure he was seen. Little stinker. I took a deep breath.
“Well, I’m glad you came back in. You could have fallen and hurt yourself.”
“Oh no, Mom! Look,” he gestured at himself, “I’m wearing three layers of clothes.” Again, that proud look. Again, I swallowed the laugh bubbling up.
“Oh, I see.” I said gravely. “Are you ready to go to Mrs. O’Neill now?” I waggled my eyebrows. “There will be cookies.”
“Okay.”
“Take off two of those layers and move the chest of drawers back where it belongs.” I crossed to the head of the bed. “You can unknot these sheets and make your bed when we get back.” He nodded.
I stuck my head out the window and looked down at the roof overhanging the front porch. At the evergreen bushes that would have broken his fall. I shook my head. I pulled in the sheets, tossed them on the bed, and closed the window.
“See you downstairs.”
What a character! I chuckled (silently) as I ran down the stairs, pleased he’d realized he could fall and taken action to protect himself. Hilariously inadequate of course. His grasp of reality and problem solving skills would only get better as he grew up. He’d be okay.
“Boys!” said my friend of only daughters. “Oh my god. I can’t imagine my girls doing that.”
“He could have fallen and poked an eye out on those yew bushes!” said my husband, horrified. Me, I’d thought cracked skull, brain damage.
“Well, he didn’t. Please congratulate me for not laughing. That would have been terrible. I never, ever, want him to feel I’m making fun of him.”
“Of course not! Well done, Mom.”
“He was so serious. Three layers of clothes in case he fell!” We burst out laughing and felt deeply grateful nothing bad had happened.
Parenting. As the cliches say: Never a dull moment. Not for the faint of heart. Survivor tip: In the event of rough air, keep a keen sense of the absurd to help you keep your cool. Good thing the little geniuses are so cute.
What’s a psychiatrist’s work and life like? Patient ambushes, community curveballs, family shenanigans—you’ll find it all here. Fortunately, flawless performance is not required to be genuinely helpful. Get it here.