Browsing Tag: homework

One day several years ago I got a phone call from one of my son’s 5th grade teacher.  She was calling to talk with me about how my divorce was affecting my son and his school work.  “Divorce?” I said.  “I’m not getting a divorce.”  It seems my son had found a creative way to get out of trouble for not doing his homework by telling his teacher that his parents were getting a divorce and it was upsetting him so much that he was unable to do his homework.  After reassuring her that my husband and I were happily married I also reassured her that this son would be turning in his homework in the future.  This same son is also the one who made bombs in soda bottles which caught our field on fire, climbed out his bedroom window with a 3 story drop below to play on the roof and jumped down our laundry chute and broke the bottom out of it.  He found a way to climb up onto the school’s roof which was supposed to be impossible and then of course the principal wanted to know how he did it so she could prevent other kids from doing the same thing.  My son proudly showed her how he managed it which then promptly negated the effects of any punishment we did. He stuffed toilet paper in toilets to flood them and used a hatchet to chop at the support beams in our then unfinished basement.  He used a rope to tie bedroom door knobs together so his sisters could not leave their rooms and he took things apart just to see how they worked, usually with a hammer.  One time my husband found something broken and yelled our son’s name.  This son asked “Why did you assume it was me?”  And of course my husband said “because it usually is you!” My husband and I talk frequently about how surprised we are that this son of ours managed to live to adulthood.  He crashed several 4-wheelers, rode his motorcycle standing on the seat, and rode skateboards with his friends on their stomachs underground in the city’s storm drainage system.  Why on their stomachs?  Because the pipe was only 2 feet in diameter so they couldn’t sit or stand up.  We despaired over this son and couldn’t figure out why he went from one stupid/crazy/dangerous thing to the next.  He argued with us over everything, and I mean everything.  He once told me that anything I told him to do made him want to do just the opposite.  I often thought that if he had just put half of the energy into homework or something positive the results would have been amazing.  The reason why I’m telling you all of this?  This son who seemed to go from one crazy thing to the next and who I fretted and despaired over has turned out to be a great adult.  He’s married to a beautiful young woman and they have a little girl and he has a job he loves and really works hard at it.  He takes being a good husband and father seriously, and he thanks my husband and me frequently for helping him in his life.  If I had raising him to do all over again I would praise more often, trust a little more, take the long view a lot more and ignore most of the stupid stuff.  Sometimes in the thick of things it’s really easy to lose sight of the big picture, it’s really easy to think that now means forever.  This son who I fretted and worried over has grown up just fine.