Familyhood Read Free

anything, doing his best—at homework or at anything —was a matter of self-respect, and respect for others.
    No takers. I dug deeper still. I explained how failing to do homework properly inevitably leads to a downward school career spiral, diminished earning capacity as an adult, the likelihood of homelessness, and quite possibly a life in crime, which, if pursued without basic math and grammatical skills, could only end in imprisonment or death. I let him know that by failing to do his homework, he wasn’t just letting down his mom and dad (and grandmothers, who were kept apprised of the continuing drama), but also his big brother, and—I hated to say it—the nation as a whole; American kids are struggling so badly in school now that it’s very likely that elementary school homework may soon be sent to kids in India—who will do it faster, neater, more accurately, and—I’m willing to bet—cheaper. Finally, as the great-grandson of immigrants, he was—as an American—failing to hold up his end of the Social Contract.
    Something in there got to him. He apparently hadn’t thought of it like that.
    Overnight, the homework improved dramatically. He started taking it seriously. He wanted to do well, and was firmly committed to never letting his standards drop again.
    I was so happy, I didn’t notice that in the process, he had also acquired a slight nervous tic and wasn’t sleeping very well.
    â€œWhy is he so anxious all of a sudden?” my co-captain wife asked.
    I shrugged. “No idea. But did you see his math homework? He actually did the extra credit part!” I couldn’t help but gloat a little bit. “I think the talk he and I had really helped.”
    â€œDid you actually tell him we’d be thrown out of the country if his homework didn’t improve?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œHe said that you said—”
    â€œNo, no. Well . . . not exactly in those words.”
    Apparently I had over corrected.
    The next night, I went into his room and there was the same kid, hard at work, at his desk—whereas before, his customary work mode had him sprawled across his bed in a sea of scattered Lego pieces and corn chips. This time, it was well past his bedtime as he sat fretting over some long division problems and the fact that he hadn’t yet studied for a vocabulary test.
    â€œIt’s okay,” I told him, as calmly and reassuringly as I could. “You can finish in the morning.”
    â€œNo, I can’t ! I need to finish it now, because—”
    â€œListen to me. You did the best you could tonight and—”
    â€œBut I didn’t finish my—”
    â€œShh, shhh. C’mon. Let’s get some sleep. Tomorrow is a new day.”
    â€œBut—”
    I cupped his beautiful, agitated little face in my hands and said, “It’s just homework.”
    A quiet descended. He was a bit relieved, but more than that, confused. As he looked at me through very puzzled, slightly squinted eyes, I could see him recalibrating everything he had come to understand thus far in life, specifically anything he’d ever heard from me.
    While he said nothing, it was clear to me he was thinking, “You . . . you really don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”
    In a word: not really.
    STEERING, IT TURNS OUT, is not so easy. Too much in either direction is no good. And if you steer too briskly, people can fall overboard.
    I put my son to bed, both of us banking on the hope that the light of day would make the world right.
    But that brief exchange caused me to realize just how much of what parents tell their children—if not all of what we tell our children—is based on remarkably inexact science. We may have a good sense of what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s beneficial and what’s detrimental, but when pressed to act upon those instincts, we are so just making it