Last night, we were unfortunately caught up in Ballet Town's Hallowe'en hoopla. Fille & I dawdled after her class, having dinner at the Uzbeki place on the main drag. When we came out, it was dark, and down the street we saw ... a throng of people, led by searchlights. Also, the main drag was lined with spectators. Holy hell, we have to get out of here! I told her and we hustled it out.
I had a book to drop off at Ballet Town's library, but when I got to the parking lot behind the library, that it shares with the municipal building, there were cones & a group of bystanders. I pulled over to the side of the road to get out and information-gather from the natives.
"You can't park there," one of them said.
"I know that," I said. "But you are cordoning off my usual parking space. I have a book to drop off and --" That was as far as I got before they started piling on with unhelpful suggestions, every one, no one getting to the answer to the question I parked my car to get out & ask. "Are you ever going to let me talk?" I asked, with no eyelashes.
After that, I found out that the facing street was not one-way heading on the grim course to Ballet-Town Parade, which was the confirmation I had sought. Going around the town & coming back on Library Road, I again pulled the car over in front of the (closed) library to dump the book in the drop box. Some Halloweeners were coming down the street with cats & bumblebees in strollers.
"You can't park there," one of them said.
"Why don't you mind your own damn business?!" is what I asked him. God, enough, Ballet Town! Twice each week is enough of you!
Fille (sexy ghost!) is on her own tonight, with Mari & her best pals. Garçon did not get to have Hallowe'en, which is baffling to all of us, but this is what he chooses. He fell behind on his school work in a battle of wills (with whom we are not exactly sure), and Hallowe'en was at stake. Well actually, it started out with Astro Boy being at stake, but then came into the week facing Hallowe'en, still with him stonewalling & alternately trying to get himself out of the weeds, and by the time he got down to business last night, he just did not have enough time to complete his work.
He worked somewhat feverishly today, my son, and then at 3ish (our Hallowe'en parade -- park where you feel like it! -- starts at 4) he came to me with a sad + unacceptable attempt at his last two assignments -- one-page wrap-ups of relevant extra-reading . "This is really the best I can do with this, Mom, I'm serious."
Mari & I had to explain to him that the truth was that this was the best he could do in the half-hour he had left, and the fact is that if a person is going to wait until the last minute to meet a deadline (never mind that putting me into the last minute for reviewing when I was trying to get my other child out the door is unacceptable, but group lead-time is not a concept we have worked on), they had better make certain they can crank out work that meets the standards in that last minute.
So, I am home with him while Fille & Mari wind their way back from the farthest reaches of our route. Then (!!!), Mari told him that if he were to complete his revisions, he would take him out when they returned (spoiler!), but no. My son is upstairs in his room, right now. Ok. Whatever.
This is obviously larger than trick-or-treat, or homeschooling, or whatever. People are quick to say, "Send him to school!" as the problem manifests itself aroud his schoolwork, but it is not a schooling issue, this is a parenting issue. It is very trying and I am never sure what to do, or -- this occured to me a couple of days ago, while I was stewing over this latest -- maybe there is nothing to do.
Much is made of how Fille is all into ballet & we go along, because it is her thing & not ours, but ballet still requires that we do something. Maybe our job with Garçon is to do nothing. He does not at all do anything in a way we find logical or sensible or anything. Mari & I (and Fille, to boot), do not do things the hard way. We choose what we want, we set the goal, find the most direct route between A to B , get in front of what we can and try to stay loose for the rest. A. Eyelashes or B. Mind Your Damn Business, it is your choice when you get in our way. I think that our flexibility is key and also, ironically, the thing we are not using to its best advantage with our son.
But the ballet thing was making me think -- Fille has a thing she wants to do, and it makes us go "???" but we do it for her, because she wants it, it is part of her being -- but again, it requires that we do something. Drive the car, write the checks, think about performative gender and stereotypes & inhibitions and pervasive cultures! Fend off stage parents! Buy tights a lot! So even though her way is mystifying, the doing & the direction is very familiar.
Our son is not so. We are trying to sort out a lot lately how much of this is us and how much is him and what to do about it, or if there is anything to do. We make our expectations very clear and we also are deconstructors and simplifiers and a lot of our previous conflict with our son has been about the fact that our feelings are so hurt because we try to make things clear and easy to achieve with him, but he blows it off, insists on doing his way. Also, we do not get our way with our son, which is troublesome to us, and also, because we are Doers, we want to find the way to get our way. Mari and I most certainly relate strongly to the child's will. Just having to do with him, we feel like as he grows older, the stakes get higher, the things he will lose out on more valuable, but at the same time, he is only 10.
Also, so what about our way? Who can say that anything is right about it for our fin de siècle little boy? Maybe he will develop some interesting + important method we cannot even yet conceive of! Time travel! Or something! But not if he does not make it through the 5th grade. See? I am narrow-minded, but I am sorry! How is this happening? This child!
I was talking to a girlfriend of mine the other day -- she has one daughter, who is 30. I am not the kind of person who pretends that everything is just great, unless I think doing otherwise will bore you to death or give you social poisoning. So, she asked, and I was halting and a little hesitant, but I told her more or less what was going on this week and how it was relevant to the whole of him, as a piece of it. She said that we could not do more than we were doing. So, all we can do is deliver the consequences, but we cannot, like, make him see that the consequences will be so awful before the consequence comes down.
Obviously. Anyhow. This is way more intense than I thought it would be. It is all that wiccan self-reflection shit in the energy of this time, surely. If you have made it this far, internet, I salute you!

