Beta Mum's Blog Beta Mum on 06 Sep 2008 09:51 pm
Is it Worth it?
My little boy - well, he’s 9 now - asked me a question at bedtime tonight.
“Mu-um.”
“Ye-es.”
“Can you change your job?”
Uncertain silence from me. Then the question to which I do not want to hear the answer.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t see you enough.”
And with that his voice wobbles and breaks and he starts to cry.
Not for effect or from anger or because he’s really hurt himself.
But for real.
“I ’specially miss you at bedtime.”
Now this is odd, because it’s almost always me that puts them to bed.
I point this out, and he sobs,
“When you went out with your friend the other night Daddy didn’t even bother to come up and close my curtains. I had to go down and get him.”
I refrain from starting a rant along the lines of -
“Curtains? He didn’t pull your curtains? He wouldn’t notice a curtain if you wrapped him up in it and rolled him down a mountain. He’s the same with unmade beds, empty loo rolls and dirty socks scattered across the floor. They do not reach his cerebellum. They stop somewhere around the level of - its only a duvet, it’s not that hard to chuck it on a bed, can’t you do it? - with a note of injured fury in his voice.”
Instead, I climb up into Ben’s very high bed for which there is no ladder, and lie next to him for a cuddle.
We talk for 20 minutes or so, about working, school, Mums and Dads and bedtimes, until he’s feeling happier.
Then I have to climb down again, without the aid of a ladder, to communicate our conversation to the Father Who Does Not Notice Curtains or Other Minor Irritations Because he has his Mind Fixed Firmly on the Bigger Picture.
He’s in the middle of his crossword, but when I tell him of my conversation with our son he shows a modicum of remorse and leaps up to pull the curtains closed against the gathering darkness.
on 08 Sep 2008 at 9:02 am 1.Bev said …
Bless him. I bet the cuddle and chat helped him imensely.
Yes, men do seem to have this “mind block” over such things, you could have been talking about my husband. Discussing it with him is as effective as hitting my head against a brick wall, he ums and aahs in the right places and continues in the “normal” way!
on 08 Sep 2008 at 12:26 pm 2.Potty Mummy said …
God, that all sounds so familiar. Except we have blinds. And I don’t work. But other than that…