When I first had Nathan, people were coming out of the woodwork to tell me how to raise him. This generosity with advice seems to have leveled off and I’m not sure if it’s because I seemed ungrateful in the past or if there just isn’t a mother out there who knows what to do with the drama of the school-aged child.
Never have I felt so all alone as I did the day my son came home with his first diorama project.
Now, back in the day we called these shadow boxes. I remember virtually nothing from my shadow box days except that I hated them. This was due in large part to my tendencies toward Big Ideas and Poor Execution. If I stretch back into the corners of my memory I can almost recall a fuzzy image of me standing at my dining room table doing the child’s equivalent of swearing while my mother sat on the couch not helping. But that could have been any of the dumb assignments that kids get that seem to have no real reason to exist other than to teach them that life will be filled with many nonsense assignments that drive everyone crazy and to just suck it up and get them done.
The day Nathan was assigned this project, he came stomping and huffing out of school and, when I met eyes with the teacher, she gave me the he’s-your-problem-til-tomorrow look I’ve come to know so well. I asked why the grumping and he explained.
The children were going to randomly select the animal to be the topic of their project and Nathan expressed that he hoped he picked animals he knew about. The teacher said she hoped he picked something new. This offended him to the core of his being because obviously she just didn’t want him to be happy.
More to the point, I thought, was that she obviously didn’t want ME to be happy.
After a full meltdown at home, I learned the root of the problem was that he didn’t know how to do the project and if he at least knew about his animal (gorillas) then it would be easier. But now he had to learn about gorillas AND dioramas and this was all just too much for my dear little anxious one to handle.
He was given four weeks to do the assignment and every day it wasn’t completed meant a day that Nathan a) yelled at me because it wasn’t done yet, or b) cried that it wasn’t done yet. All of the teacher’s reminders, I’m sure directed to the entire class, were translated by Nathan as personal attacks on his work ethic.
Tired of all the melodrama, we gathered supplies and I guided him through his first project of this magnitude. No sitting on the couch not helping for me! I didn’t need a parenting manual to tell me what to do!
He turned in his diorama and accompanying two page report with bibliography on Tuesday, a full three days before it was due. For as pleased as he may have been to have this off his plate, I was doubly pleased to have it off mine.
After school, I asked how the day went.
“Fine, but my gorilla fell down and she wouldn’t let me take it home to fix it so now I’m going to fail just like she wanted me to all along,” he complained.
Well, okay then. The drama continues.