467 x 56 = late.

[jackshoegazer]

Not a good morning.

I just found out that Ethan is failing math. Not because he doesn't understand, but because of late or missing assignments. When I presented Ethan with the list of assignments, he got very upset, saying he already handed in a lot of them and the only reason they were late was because they were from days when he was sick. He's a very smart child, so what could the problem be?

This always happens when his mother is his main go-to for school. Because of my car problems, I've not been around as much the last couple of months, and this is what happens. In the third grade, when he was with her more for school, he had this problem all the time. She can't keep him on task, because she can't keep herself on task. She never checks his assignments, never goes over his work, apparently never even checks to see if he has homework.

It also doesn't help that he's got a bad case of the absent-minded genius. When I became his main contact for school last year, suddenly his grades sky-rocketed back to respectable levels. Remember earlier last year, when his mother was complaining that she felt left out because I had so much to do with his schooling? She takes a more active role, supposedly, and this is what happens.

I told Ethan to tell his teacher I would stop in after school to talk to her about this. Now that my car is back to normal, functioning order, I will make sure I'm around to get him back on track. I've never thought myself much of an authoritarian, a provider of structure, but compared to his mother, I'm apparently an entire skeletal system.

This is the part of being a parent that I never anticipated, which brings out aspects of myself I wouldn't normally attribute to my personality. That's good, right?

Comments

[jenmarya.livejournal.com]

I waited 40 years to have a child, carefully choosing a guy I trust/ respect to avoid this kind of thing. Just reading this makes my stomach knot up. I just really wish for all three of you that it wouldn't have to be about her at all and could just be about Ethan. As long as she isn't doing anything actively to prevent him from accomplishing things, it isn't her fault, right? (Dunno any parent who checks their child's every assignment, btw.) Ultimately Ethan is responsible for Ethan, right? I mean, Ethan can play you two against each other with this lack-of-structure thing ad nauseam, right, and avoid all responsibility by passing the buck back and forth? He wouldn't do that, I'm sure, but it's a dynamic to avoid like the plague. How you three interact is a hell of a lot more important than a grade.

When my parents split up and then my mom remarried, my dad faded a bit into the woodwork. Later, around the time I was almost institutionalized for anorexia, he told me that he thought he didn't have to be there since I had a new father, and more to the point, he wished he had been able to teach me the beauty and symmetry of mathematics. I really don't know how math would have improved my life, but having all three parents really be there for me without all their sharp angles between them would have helped immeasurably.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Ah, see he isn't playing angles here. His mother is just very lax about his homework, because she forgets too. At my place, the rule is that homework is done before anything else, whereas at her place, she says, "Oh, do it later!" and then forgets to make sure he did it later. He's only ten, so I don't see a problem with checking to make sure he got his work done. He's at the age where he's just starting to form his own study habits and I'd rather him be quite dilligent about them, hence enforcing the structure now, and then his mother undermines all that by not paying attention to it. Then she gets into arguments with him, assuming that at ten, he should already have these miraculously rigid study habits that she's never had, ever.

This is why I'm taking primary custody after this year, so I can best gethim ready for his later years of schooling and I can be there full-time for him.

[jenmarya.livejournal.com]

Oh okay, with "do it later," she actively undermines his intent to work. That's a horse of another color.