A Seven-Year-Old's Inquiry

The summer has churned by quickly and the time that we could count upon with the leisure of the long, warm days has not accumulated as I would like.  Days have ended with G too tired to do much more than eat his dinner and begin the rituals of bedtime. There are still the books, the tooth brushing and the requests hugs to fold ourselves into the end of the day.

Friday night though, he asked:

"Why did you take your ring off?"

It has been nearly eight months of separation, but the ring came off 3 years ago.  Part rite of passage, part cry for attention, it came off to do the dishes and I a particular pique, I decided not to put it back on.  The in-laws had asked about it and now my son. Few others noted it, but never his mother.

I stalled and redirected for a moment with a comment, but he held me accountable.  Ultimately I was relieved that he asked.  There are things that need to talk about and waiting until I perceive he is ready for certain talks may let too much time pass.  When others have asked me how he is doing with everything, I cite the greater calm that has prevailed since I moved out. Fewer tantrums, with me at least, are a positive sign.  There were times when he would be violently inconsolable, my perception being that he was picking up on the tension between his parents but without ever seeing a fight, he only had the differences in parenting styles to cue him that something was vaguely awry. Whatever he had evidence of never lined up with the tensions that he picked up on.

I proceeded cautiously, holding myself to the conviction that I was only ever going to hold myself to account, rather than blame his mother.

"Mum and I never communicating very well. I'm not very good at asking for things.  I've always hoped that I could model the way I want to be treated and demonstrate the things that are important to me but that didn't work."

He did not interrogate further. In the past he is said that he thought everything was okay and that we were happy. There was normalcy, at least for him but in that familiarity he remains attached to there were those tantrums.  They have ceased, at least with me, over the last eight months.  There have been a few occasions when he has sought the restoration of that past, with the orchestration of a group hug or a round robin of kisses.

For the most part, he has managed with the parting. I'm a few floors away, living in the same building and our ergot has adopted "upstairs" and "downstairs" to refer to our respective homes, if either or both of them ever equate to the place that he recalls me being in during those earlier chapters of his life.

Never sure if I've said enough, too much or too little, the night routine commenced and he fell asleep after a reading of Dr. Seuss' "Tad and Todd."

In the morning, I let him know that I was proud of him for asking the tough question and that it would always be welcome and encouraged. Beyond that it was a skill that would put him ahead of me and serve him in good stead in the years to come.

From the Mouthes of Babes

As the day wound down, I picked up my son at after school care. The routine is familiar. I trudge in after running the 10K from the office and track my son down, whether he is outside, in the gym, playing or doing crafts somewhere. Even if he misses me or is eager to get home, there is a long-standing desire to hang out a little longer. He could be waiting for the end of a movie, waiting for his turn at something or just too caught up in what's going on to bring it to an abrupt halt. I log him out of attendance and for the time after that, I start to wonder if I am on staff and then after a little longer I wonder if I should call it a day, log him back in and head home for his mother to attempt to pick him up.

Yesterday afternoon, though, I walked in to hear him riffing on one of my paternal rants. It was laughably cringe-worthy to hear my 7-year-old telling one of the younger kids that he should not be touching another person's stuff. He does listen to me. It is the kind of thing that I tell him when we and are walking to the train station and he gets curious about whatever he sees and wants to pick it up as his own, or if he balances himself on a car mirror so he can kick the icicles off the undercarriage or the scuds that accumulated in the wheel-wells. (I know, I know; a scud is something else entirely but it's the aptly sludgy word for that unnameable clog of snow.) Ever-conscious of a scenario where someone storms out to tell my son to get off the lawn or stop touching the car, I warn him about other people's property. My warning has expanded in length over the years as I try to give my son the full rationale rather than the harsh admonishment and I had that mix of amusement and nausea as he nailed me verbatim under different circumstances. The younger kid was touching one of my son's toys.

In many ways it was a bookend. I recall my first time teaching nearly 30 years ago where I seemed to be teaching with a voice and demeanour that left me waiting for one of my students to tell me, "You're just like your father." Despite that consciousness, I was perceived to be my own self rather than an amalgam of my parents' and ancestors' influence.

As we turned in for the night and the zone-out music was cued up to lull my son, I let him know that I heard him and he cringed at the revelation just as badly as I did. It was a treasured embarrassment and there will be variations as more of my chestnuts crystallize.  I know the day will come when he will dust off my other chestnut about the difference between knowing and doing. On this night, I actually took the time to double-down on that line and tell him, for the first time, that knowing but not doing is "not knowing."