Sunday night, at approximately 8:00, Hammerhead sat down at the computer to write a report on the Civil War that was due Monday morning.
"It's going to be easy," he said. "I have lots of notes and points, and all I have to do is string them together with transitions. I'm really, really good at transitions."
"You are?" I asked.
"Yeah. On all my papers, my teacher writes, 'Good Transition' and stuff."
He worked on the paper until about 8:30, and then brought it up to read to me. Before he started, I asked him if he wanted feedback. He said he did.
"So the point of my paper is to talk about whether racism is better today than it was during the Civil War," he said.
In retrospect, it would have been a good idea for me to have a couple tequila shots before allowing him to begin. And after he had read his first sentence
("Although many people disagree, the facts are that slavery is still prominent in our country today, but not as extreme as it was in the times of the civil war.") it was too late.
This opening statement, aside from getting my heart rate up and producing that dreaded itchy feeling I get whenever I hear anything inane, was a very solid indicator of the quality of what would follow. Fortunately, I have had two natural home births, during which I learned various techniques that helped me through excruciating discomfort, such as breathing, visualizing a favorite place, and biting the insides of my cheeks to distraction.
"During the times of the Civil War," I heard Hammerhead say, as I alternated between deep breaths and cheek biting,
"black people were not allowed to go into some stores, attend certain schools, or be completely free."
I really like Alta, I thought to myself. That amazing snow. That slow double chair. No snowboarders. Those chutes. Alta is really, really special.
"And there were racist cults like the Ku Klux Klan and Confederate groups. Despite the fact that these "cults" still exist today, they are not as powerful and active as they were in the 1800s."
He went on in this general vein for another paragraph or so, and then cited the bravery of certain people in the times of the Civil War, such as Rosa Parks, who sat on a seat in a bus that she was not supposed to sit on. I breathed, I bit, I visualized.
When he read his final sentence, which ended with,
"so although slavery is not as predominant today as it was in the times of the Civil War, it still exists," and beamed at me with pride, I said, "Well."
"What?"
"Well, I think you have confused two very different eras in American history."
"What do you mean?" he frowned.
"Well, there's the Civil War, which took place in the 1800's. And there's the Civil Rights movement, which took place about a hundred years later, in the 1950s and 1960s. Rosa Parks was an icon of the Civil Rights movement, not the Civil War. There were no buses in the 1800s. Also, you keep saying 'slavery' when I think you mean 'racism.'"
And then I
turned away. I did not lecture about the hour, the procrastination, the sloppy work in general.
"So I should fix those things?" Hammerhead asked the back of my head, as I wiped down the kitchen countertops.
"If you want your paper to make sense, you should. And some other stuff, too."
"Like what?" he asked.
"Well, I think that to the slaves who were bought and sold like property, separated from their children and spouses, beaten or killed if they tried to escape, with no basic human rights to speak of, identifying their plight as one of mere discrimination is more than just a little understated."
"Oh, I know," he said with authority. "But black people couldn't go in stores or certain schools, too. That was part of it."
Breathe, breathe, breathe."I'll fix it," he said. "But you know the sad thing? I could turn it in just like it is now and get an "A."
Pause.
"How should I fix it?"
Instead of telling him he should fix it by throwing it away, studying the topic so that he knew what he was talking about, and starting all over again with solid facts instead of confused opinions, I turned to him and gave him a few basic pointers on how to write a coherent paper in general. He spent another half hour on it. He read it to me again. It was better, but it was still far from good.
"Do you want more feedback?" I asked him.
"No," he said. "I'm done. I've turned the computer off and I'm done."
"Okay," I said. "Goodnight."
Two or three years ago, this would have become an enormous fight. Heck, even last year, to tell you the truth. But, through the wisdom of our family therapist (gosh I miss him) and the experience of the trauma those fights Hammerhead and I used to have caused, I have learned so much about letting go. The lousy education he's getting, the low standards at his school, the poor study habits he has--these are not my problems to fix. Help when help is asked for, in the amounts that are wanted. Then stop.
Monday morning, he woke up early, turned the computer on, and made a few more changes, much to the frustration of Jeep Boy, who worried they would be late for school.
"This is poor planning," Jeep Boy said to Hammerhead as he typed away. "How long have you known about this project? Three weeks, right? And you're sitting here at 6:30 in the morning working on it. You're not going to be able to get away with this when you're in high school."
Hammerhead looked at Jeep Boy and smirked. "Shut up," he said. "Listen to who's talking. Last week you had me finish your homework for you in the car on the way to school! So shut up!"
Jeep Boy looked at me helplessly. "It was just three math problems," he said.
I just smiled.
Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last.*
*Sort of. I have to note this.
