My anger towards my children’s mother has diminished. My dislike for her has not, but anger hasn’t helped anyone achieve their goals. So I have been patient and refused to be drawn into argument, even when I have been insulted on the phone. I’ve just ignored it and focussed on the children. There’s no changing some people. Insanity is defined as expecting a new result from the repeated application of the same inputs. I guess I’ve decided to give up on insanity. If a personality cannot be changed from within a relationship, I must have been barking mad to expect any change from without! So I even bought her a coffee. After all, she is the children’s mother. If I dont’ buy her a coffee, out of spite, or a sense of revenge, or whatever, my kids will think less of me. The decree absolute happens tomorrow. Life is changing this week. I must change along with it.
So after buying coffee for her mother, I helped my younger daughter yesterday afternoon with a fun approach to subtraction in Starbucks, Maida Vale. She began the afternoon carrying her prejudices of recent parental tuition experience. She half-expected me to be impatient. She was half-susprised when I reminded her of how I used to teach my daughters. Her recent, “alternative” home tuition method included shouted taunts of “moron”, “stupid” and “bloody idiot”. You know, the kind of life-affirming, nurturing support in teaching that you expect from a mother, the kind that makes you cry, and to believe that you are less than you are.
Within a few minutes of her time with me, she was smiling, laughing, participating and learning. Within half an hour, subtraction was no longer a terrifying subject. It was fun! I can’t tell you how much I love teaching my kids. My younger is especially receptive, as she has had less time with me than I would have liked. Towards the end of the maths lesson (she had also read a couple of chapter of her English homework assignment to me), she drew a picture of a girl crying, with the subtitle “I don’t want you to go”. This breaks my heart, as it would the heart of any father I’m sure. However, I appeared (and it’s appearance that counts) healthy, confident, funny and clean! (Only I was aware of my personal ming levels, and my standards are pretty stringent!)
And for those who are taking an interest in my personal hygiene, I had showered and shaved the night before, and my clothes are clean. I believe that a short period of privation is an important lesson. My relatively happy acceptance of a difficult period should not be misconstrued as a voluntary embrace of ascetism, or God forbid, martyrdom.
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