Son 2, Wife, and the math homework

The day after that last exchange of letters – this is still all happening in late February, for anyone who is keeping track – was a long and difficult day on many fronts. Thank heavens it was Friday, but what a Friday!

It started with craziness at work, ... needless, pointless, but exhausting craziness, that left me convinced for the day that nothing I do there will ever make the slightest impact or difference. Really depressing. If I ever bothered to write about work, I could make a whole post out of that day alone. Maybe three posts.

But be all that as it may..

As I left the office to take Son 1 to sports practice, I got a phone call from Son 2's math teacher. He was very worried about Son 2's performance. Specifically, he thought Son 2 really wasn't putting in any time into his work, and his learning was suffering as a result. Concretely, there had been a test not long before. Son 2 did OK on the first half and completely bombed the second half. The teacher handed the graded tests back to the students to study from, but Son 2 showed no evidence of doing so. Son 2 didn't turn in that Friday's homework; when the teacher asked for it, Son 2 stared him straight in the eye and said, "I left it at home." No fumbling in the bag, no anxiety, no confusion -- nothing. There was going to be another test on Monday. I told him I would work with Son 2 on all of the chapter that weekend.

Later on, I asked Son 2 about the homework, and he said the same thing: "I left it at home." I asked, "Where at home?" and he was silent. I asked, "Did you really do it at all?" and he said "No." Turns out he hadn't done it because he had a lot of English homework that night. So I urged him, next time he hasn't done his homework, to own up to it. I said it can be embarrassing at first, but you do yourself more harm in the long run by getting into a habit of lying -- if for no other reason than that you erode other people's trust in you and then you can't get it back. Then I asked him about math, and he began to get pretty upset. He said that in his opinion he was doing all the homework, but he still got D's and F's on the tests. He said he didn't want me to work with him over the weekend because "You always tell me to do the problem a totally different way from what the teacher teaches us to do, and I can never understand how you want me to do the problem!" I said I would be happy to stick to what the teacher tells them. Then I asked if he understands why he does poorly on his tests, and he says No. He is baffled by it ... and, again, pretty upset. So I asked, has he ever gone in to ask the teacher to explain to him why he got a bad grade on this or that test? No. OK, I said, here is something else I am going to ask of you: not only do I want you to tell the truth to your teacher when you don't do the homework, but I want you to go ask him to explain when you don't understand why you did badly. I added that the teacher's whole job is to make sure students understand the material, but that he can't help Son 2 if he doesn't know there is a problem. Finally, the teacher had said that often Son 2 will not show any of his work but only the answers. So I told Son 2 we will have to implement the same rule we have implemented for Son 1: show us every assignment; if it is not neat, or if he fails to show all his work, we rip it up and he has to start over. He was pretty unhappy at this too.

We were sitting in the car discussing this. Once it sounded to him like we were done, he got out of the car and went off to play by himself in some other corner of the complex where Son 1 was still practising. Later on he seemed in good spirits and we talked about other things quite amiably.

We came home. The boys did their chores. I started dinner. Once dinner was in the oven, I sat down to tell Wife about my conversation with the math teacher. Her first question was, "Why did he call you instead of me? Why do all the boys' teachers seem to believe that they have only one parent, and none of them ever contacts me for anything?" I told her I have no idea why the teachers don't contact her, because I can't read minds. (Of course in reality I know exactly why. Wife does nothing on her own part to interact with the school. She doesn't contact the teachers on her own, she doesn't know how to use the school's websites, and she never reads her e-mail which means that she never replies to any mail the school send out either. However I don't want to tell her any of this, because it is true that I think her disengagement is a change for the better, compared to how she used to fight with their teachers, and I don't want to give her ideas about how to engage more.) Anyway, there followed a long and unpleasant conversation in which I tried to urge her that it's not about her but about Son 2 ... that for me to take anything she says seriously, she needs to stop complaining about being slighted or neglected and start focussing on Son 2. Her answer was just that she expected me to say that because I had an idée fixe on the subject, so even though it wasn't true and she really was very concerned about him I would accuse her of the other. And so on. She also touched again on how shamelessly I had cut her out of Son 1's applications to high school. When she first got off the subject of how slighted she felt, and how neglected, ... and of how I have tried to separate her from "her" children starting from when each one first enrolled in middle school so that now she hardly ever sees them (even though she comes to get Son 2 after school every single day now instead of letting him come to my office) ... as I say, when she first got off of that subject, her next remarks were in effect that Son 2's poor performance in math wasn't her fault because she always asks him how he is doing in math and he always says Fine plus he has No Homework. So how was she to know?

When I succeeded in pulling her off of this second self-centered topic, she finally got around to expressing at least one genuine concern about Son 2 -- viz., that he simply doesn't (appear to) care how he does in school. He doesn't mind going, but he doesn't care what his grades are. She said she doesn't understand that, because he is curious about everything and loves to learn. But schoolwork? Not a priority. (And of course I said the same thing in this blog, a couple of posts ago.) And she doesn't know how to change it.

She did ask why Son 2 would tell her he had no Math homework when he had? I said I didn't know, but there are a variety of reasons why children lie about such things. They include fear of being punished, fear of disappointing their parents, perhaps fear of burdening them, ... maybe others.

Her second concern is that Son 1 says Son 2 is friendless. Son 2 says he is fine and happy. Wife frets and thinks we should intervene. I checked with her whether she was trying to say she thought there was the slightest risk of bullying or other physical harm, although I can't for a minute believe such a thing would happen at their school. To my relief, Wife agreed. But he sits alone so much! Yes, I said, borrowing a page from my conversations with D; but if there is no bullying or physical harm, and if he appears happy, there is no reason for us to interfere. Besides, how would we? But, she pursued, what if he is lying to us when he says he is happy? Well, I answered, if he says he is happy and he isn't happy, that can only mean that he doesn't want us to butt in. And in that case I think we have to give him that.

Once I was done she walked into the study where the boys were playing a computer game: and sure enough, she started asking Son 2 why he wouldn't tell her if he had Math homework, and also why his teachers always contacted me and not her .... I sprang into the study to interrupt, and to remind her that if I don't read minds then probably Son 2 doesn't either so it's no fair asking him that. And about then, dinner was ready.

By the time I served dinner, I was really wiped out. I have to assume that it was just the result of spending so much of the day in the shadow of either failure or uselessness. (Or both.) And all the discussions about Son 2 -- with the math teacher, with Son 2 himself, and with Wife -- left me exhausted. So I was not at my most energetic when it came to keeping some kind of order at the table. I ate, and I conversed a bit. But by the time Son 2 wanted a ruling on whether he could have more or whether we were saving it for another night, and Son 1 wanted one on whether he had to finish his main course at all because he hated it, I was too tired to think. I had been sitting slouched at the table with my head in my hands for some minutes, and at that point I excused myself and went into the bedroom to lie down. Shortly after, I heard Son 1 get up from the table. And then I heard Wife and Son 2 whispering to each other.

It went on for a minute or so. I pried myself up out of bed and walked out to the dining area. Son 2 got up from the table stared intently at me for a few seconds, and went to join Son 1 in the study. Wife continued to sit there. I asked her what they were whispering about, and she said they weren't whispering. I insisted that I had heard them whispering, and she said that Son 2 had asked what was wrong with me and she had answered that she didn't know. I was silent for a minute or two and then pointed out to her that nobody would whisper to convey that kind of message. In reply, she turned around and accused me of another idée fixe: since I have this fixed notion that nothing she says is true, it doesn't matter what she says nor how true it might be, because I will always accuse her of lying. I more or less asked her with some sarcasm, "Gosh, I wonder why I would do that?" And then I went back to bed. She was saying something to me but I don't know what. A few minutes later, I asked Son 2 what they had been whispering about and he said, "You eat too fast." I figured that had to be no truer than the other, and I dropped it.

In some ways the whispering gets to me more than any of the rest of it, anything else in the whole bleak and depressing day. This is a continual feature of Wife's relationship with Son 2; the two of them will sit off together somewhere and whisper to each other. I have no idea what they are saying, but obviously whatever it is at least one of them thinks it is better not to be overheard. So it is something that is bad in some way. Also, it encourages the formation of a little alliance inside the family -- an alliance where Son 1 and I are on the Outside and therefore are implicitly Them, the enemy. Or maybe it is just me and not Son 1. But I fear that it is deeply destructive. And it makes me feel completely helpless, not only over Wife's behavior but over Son 2's future. Honestly the whispering makes me fear that I have lost him. Oh, not yet, not technically -- but the whispering, which has been going on for years, makes me believe deep in my heart that losing him is inevitable. Wife will hold onto him and twist him; she will fill his head and heart with the vilest and emptiest lies about me; and I won't know what she has said so there is nothing I can do to counteract them. By the time I can say anything, Son 2 will have been conditioned to disbelieve everything he hears from me, so he will reject it out of hand. And since Wife will never understand Son 2 -- because he is more like me than anybody -- she will have no idea what she is doing to him. But I fear that she will warp his native goodness; that she will corrupt him morally before he ever had a chance to acquire much integrity of his own; that she will misshape his communication skills so that he can communicate just fine with her but so that he will be unable to communicate at any deep or meaningful level with anybody else -- and that all this is inevitable. And it will ruin his life. And he will reject any overtures on my part to help, because he will have been trained by her to distrust me. And if he ever -- ever -- reconsiders, if he ever stops to look at all the data to realize that she is the liar and she is the twisted and tortured and chronically malicious soul, hateful and hating and destructive on every level ... as I say, if he ever stops to see these things, I fear deeply that it will be only when he is in his thirties or forties and his life has been ruined by her influence and I will be already dead. It's like I said earlier, about Tartuffe and his family, that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto generations and generations. And it makes me so profoundly depressed to think these things that it just about shuts me down completely.

And what can I do about it? I can't reason her out of it -- she thinks she understands Son 2 better than I do, so my advice doesn't count. I can't forbid it -- Wife acknowledges no authority higher than her own desires, so the most a prohibition would accomplish would be to make her hide better. Nor would the fact that she was having to hide something I had forbidden give her any pause; she would rationalize it to herself so there was nothing wrong at her end. Suppose we divorced tomorrow: the household would be torn in half, and Son 2 would figure that this proves Mom was right -- Dad really is a selfish asshole who cares nothing for her suffering or how this now puts her out on the street with hundreds of antiques and no medical insurance. So Dad cannot be trusted. So the whole inevitable process continues to unroll, except faster. I feel like my hands are completely tied. I don't know what to do.
__________

I wrote all that to D, who had some advice to pull me out of the depths of self-pity into which I had allowed myself to sink.

Let's focus on Son 2 first. And let's do so by comparing him to my son. There are several reasons; My son has every bit of Son 2's sensitivity and he is also very intelligent. Relevant too is his experience with Wife. [At one point, one summer, D’s son flew out to stay with us so that Wife could teach him Latin. That was back when D and Wife were still friends.] She used to talk to him the same way she now talks to Son 2; they whispered together, and she spent hours alone with him. Much of the time, Wife talked about you, and my son broke down; he remembers the time spent at your house as the most miserable period of his life. I recognized the emergency and pulled him out, at considerable financial cost, and he never resumed his Latin lessons with her. But here's the most interesting part of the story; he has nothing unkind to say about you. He completely realizes, without any discussion with me, that your situation was quite untenable at that time and that she was mentally unbalanced and manipulative. He left the situation and never looked back.

Lessons for you? Son 2 is far more resilient than you think. If you provide some boundaries and structure, he will be fine. First, divorce is imperative. Read the NY Times editorial on divorce, February 18, 2010. The author is absolutely correct when she asserts that children are not forever damaged by parents who separate. They are injured by the constant conflict in the home to a far greater extent. My God, Hosea, your words about Wife at the end of your letter "... the twisted and tortured and chronically malicious soul, hateful and hating and destructive on every level..." should tell you to run, leave, start over and live again.

Second, Wife has no business picking Son 2 up from school every day. Split the time; half the afternoons, he needs to come to your office. Do not ask Son 2 whether he has homework; keep tabs on that by using the website the school provides parents or call and ask for the assignments. I never made homework into a character issue; it is simply that Son 2 has not internalized the need to do all his assignments yet, so provide the structure he needs to complete them. I used to make the children do all their work in front of me.

The idea that Son 2 doesn't care about doing well at school is appallingly off the mark; he cares way too much and is literally frozen at the idea of disappointing you both. After all, if he is as smart as you both have loudly proclaimed, how can he ever struggle or ever admit he doesn't understand something? God in heaven. Slow down this process, experiment with time and place to figure out when he is most productive. If he wants to read and play video games while at your office, fine, as long as he understands that he must produce all his assignments for you to look over at home or in the morning...with enough time to make adjustments. He will learn to internalize the need to do his work without supervision; both my children did by high school, but middle school is the time when those skills are developed in high-performing children. For now, manage, lightly and impersonally, Son 2's homework time. It means having a certain peacefulness about it.

Look around the corner; if he is likely to suffer from depression or mood swings, you have to capture bits of time when he is productive. You often push yourself beyond the breaking point (last night, sitting at the table with your head in your hands in a perfect example; I have learned that your face is differently blocked every time you become depressed. It's a dead giveaway; look in the mirror if you don't know what it looks like and you'll be able to recognize it from now on). If you push Son 2 beyond his breaking point, he will either dissolve or lash out at you. You'll make some mistakes, but don't take it personally. Concentrate on re-building the relationship and try again.

Son 2 was telling the truth when he said that Wife was talking about how fast you eat. I've heard that complaint a score of times. It is part of her conversation about your boorish manners. You do not eat exceptionally fast; I have watched you carefully after all the stories I've heard, and it's like your snoring; it's a non-issue. What is extremely clear to me is her constant desire to make you out as a monster of some sort; rude, uncultured, temperamental and unreasonable. Wife will continue to do this for as long as she lives; she has no other narrative. All you can do is what my son did; walk away. Your kindness coupled with despair makes that very difficult to do, but it is absolutely necessary. "All creative activity requires boundaries"...this must be my favorite piece of guiding wisdom. Son 2 will have many conflicting emotions and viewpoints about his parents, but both of your children know, in their bones, that your relationship with Wife has been a train-wreck for years. Get out. Free your children from an atmosphere of venom and hate. That's really what boarding school represents, isn't it? Both Son 1 and Son 2 need to see that you, an adult man and their father, can be happy, that you can be at peace and restful. Why not be that person you were meant to be?
__________

The next day was Saturday. I took Son 2 and his math book back to my office, where we could work undisturbed, and we went systematically through every problem on the relevant assignments plus the old tests.

D was right about one thing – Son 2 proved himself far more resilient than I had feared. After a good night’s sleep and a good breakfast, he was happy and chipper throughout the morning. Halfway through the day, we broke for lunch and dropped into downtown. We stopped at a little cafe off the main street, a place which looks like a burger joint except that it actually serves upscale salads and grilled halibut, and has a wine list as long as the menu. Son 2 really enjoyed it. (And truly, I picked it partly because Son 2 was along; Son 1 would have preferred a real burger joint.) He had a lunch involving grilled swordfish; I had the small Greek salad. And after lunch he returned to his task with renewed energy and focus, so it was clearly the right time to go eat.

One odd thing was how Son 2 described the day after we got back home. I should clarify that my contribution was only to organize his work -- do this problem now and those ones next -- and to urge him to slow down and be more cautious when he was starting to speed up and ignore critical details. But he solved all the problems. So when we got back home, Son 2 was talking with Son 1 while Wife listened on, and Son 1 asked: "So, how do you think you'll do on the test Monday?"

Son 2: I'll bomb it.

Son 1: Dude, how is that possible? You just spent all day with Dad at his office studying.

Son 2: Aha, but you are assuming that I was listening.

Son 1 laughed but Wife came to me concerned that maybe I had been lecturing all day, and Son 2 had been tuning me out and playing me for a fool. I paid no attention to the fear, because I knew better. But I thought it was interesting that Son 2 would spin a story like that. I guess it isn’t cool to admit to studying, plus he made his brother laugh. He talked about lunch, though.

So maybe I need to lighten up, just a bit.