Desperately Sad

Here I am, almost 28 years old, very talented, very smart, and interviewing for babysitting jobs. I mean, it's one thing if I'm doing it because it is truly what I want to do with my life. But to do it because I don't know what the hell I want to do with my life is, to say the least, an unhappy experience.

One good thing is that I am learning a ton. I am seeing how different people work. Those who want references and those who "hire" me immediately. Those who involve the kids, those who don't.

I see how people are reacting with each other inside their homes. Yes, with me there it is different than if I weren't but it's still fascinating because how my presence affects them is really interesting.

The last family I visited, lets give them names. Angy - mom. Abe - son (8 years old). Johny - husband/step-dad.

Mom - Asian (I think Hong Kong). Son, Asian look, but very North American. Dad, very Jewish looking.

Abe was disrespectful to Angy. Wouldn't listen to her, argued with her, made fun of her accent. Angy was practically begging him to listen. It was embarrassing for me to see this. When a person's parenting is being totally ineffective, why don't they try to learn more about it? My aunt is 50 with kids ranging from 28 to 13 and she is always in parenting classes. Why is it not accepted to study how to be a parent?

Omigosh. Epiphany. I know what I want to do with my life. 1st I want to get married and have kids. Then I have to give classes and sessions on parenting. Because my theory is that everything begins in the home. I think that will only be more and more proven over the next years. And so, in order to effect change, you must go to the source - the family.

Angy, Abe and Johny are so in need of help. Abe is acting like a teenager. The mom seems to be forcing all these things on the son. He's been playing piano for 3 years!!! He's only 8! And what he played sounded really nice. Shit! What do they expect from him?! When I said I was impressed with his playing, she was sincerely surprised! Oh my God! So she says that most of the kids where he plays are on a higher level than him. No shit!

One of the things she wants is someone to "help" him practice. Oh, you mean sit and breath down his neck?

Damn, I feel sorry for that poor, poor boy. Week after week the teacher sits with him (for an hour!!!!) and one of the things she keeps writing in the notebook is, "Do what I wrote last week." The mom showed me how she has written that about a certain song week after week after week. So in order to know what it is he's supposed to do, you have to go back weeks! And she writes that he's talented and smart but he's not practicing so every week they have to do the same thing.

Does anyone want to stop this stupidity?! Why does the teacher keep teaching him? Why does the mother keep sending him? Why does the teacher keep pushing him to work on the same song if HE OBVIOUSLY IS NOT PRACTICING THAT SONG!? It is crushing this extremely intelligent, talented kid's self esteem deep into the ground. Something that will take years to repair.

When I asked the mother if she knew how to play she said (very longingly), "No."

Damn, damn, damn. She is freakin' living pricariously through him.

Shit. If I ever do that to my kids, GOD FORBID!!!!!!!, please smack me.

There are more things about this family. I can't get into everything. But she is looking for someone to "help" him with his homework and "help" him with his piano and pretty much try desperately not to let him watch tv and play on the computer all day.

I think this is a battle either to be fought by a real expert OR she should stop working full-time! She should be spending the afternoons with him.

I have no idea what is helping her make these decisions but they are both paying and the distance between them is already so apparent. The way he draws away from her when she touches him. The way they talk to each other. And this is only when he's eight.

I never saw an 8-year-old so obviously act like a bitter, angry, hurt teenager. It is a sad, desperately sad, tragic thing.