This will be really petty but things have been a little
heavy of late.
Preparing some bagel with cream cheese and salmon for our son.
‘Mama makes it better than you,’ says our son. ‘Fair enough,’ I respond,’but
mama is busy, so why don’t you help me to get it right?’ And I made no more of
it.
A little while later, She decides to make a point of
this.
‘So, I make bagel and salmon better than your dad?’ she
asks, looking triumphantly at me. ‘Yes,’ he responds, ‘but (without any
prompting from me by way of words or looks), dad makes better bacon sandwiches,
Bolognese, chicken …’
I do not respond or react but his response was interesting in
that he appeared to be defending me.
She and our son have this very frequent homework drama. She
is busy doing something else when he is doing his homework, doesn’t really help
him, then corrects late in the evening and ritual drama ensues around, ‘you
must take more care, look how long I am having to work because of you etc.’
I would probably let him make his careless mistakes so his
teacher could correct them and he would soon learn; now, he knows his mum will
correct him. Or, as I usually do when I sit down with him, correct as we go
along as I am focusing on him and his work.
So, anyway, he and I work through a work-sheet on Sunday
morning and she sits down to correct on Sunday evening. She does notice one
mistake I had missed but there are several others in another sheet.
‘Look, I thought you and baba had corrected these sheets but
I am finding lots of mistakes. And my show is starting on TV. If I had known
you had not, I would have done this earlier.’ (No, she would not have – history
attests to that!)
My son and I are both compelled to point out that the sheet
with several mistakes was completed under her supervision. There is a
half-hearted attempt at laying the blame with, ‘I thought you would check it.’
But she does not pursue that, knowing she was in the wrong.
This continuous need to be correct, better than another
rather than oneself, to search for blame … how is that the natural state?
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