Parents were milling about in the hallway outside the classrooms. Suddenly, H’s grandmother approached me. She held a small envelope, the sort that Japanese usually use to put money to give to children.
“This is your son’s money. ¥1,000. Your son gave it to my grandson yesterday when they played together.”
I did not understand what she was talking about. I repeated what she said, with an emphasis on my son’s name, wondering whether she made a mistake on which kid gave her grandson the money.
“The teacher did not talk to you yet?” She explained that yesterday, her grandson came home with money my son gave him and three other boys. Grandma called the teacher about the incident and the teacher said he would call me.
“Here is the money back.”
I took the money still not understanding what had happened. Yes my son did ask permission to play with his friends yesterday afternoon but why did he bring money? Did the money come from our coin jar or was it his own stash? Why did he give it to his friends? The grandma said four boys received money. Did my son give away ¥4000? That is not a small amount.
As soon as the bell rang to end the school day, I called my son into an empty classroom and showed him the envelope. “Can you explain this to me?”
He burst into tears. He said it was his own money and only two boys received money, H and R. He does not remember how much money he gave. He did not know why he gave the money, he just did.
There was not enough time to discuss this further so I left the matter and went to speak with his teacher.
“I’m sorry I learned about the incident about the money just now from H’s grandmother.” I said to the teacher.
The teacher was taken aback. “Your son told me that you were aware of the whole thing and that you did not have any problems about his giving his money to friends. He said that you told him that since it was his money, he could use it however he likes.”
“The last bit is true, that it is his money and I do remember telling him in the past that he could use it however he likes, but I did not know that he was going to give it to his friends, and such a big amount too. I would not have approved of that.”
I said that I will try to figure out what was going on later tonight when the family gets together at dinner.
To give some context to my day, I have to explain several things.
Physically, I felt dreadful. My period was overdue and when this happens, my lower back and legs feel weak and achy, my belly bloated and heavy, my head hurt, and I am inclined to throw up. All that pressure building in my belly waiting for release made me temperamental.
For the past two days, I have been jotting down notes for a piece I want to work on but have had no quiet time to write. There was always something else that needed to be done. There was creative pressure building up as well, and the frustration of being unable to find time to express it was making me irritable.
That day, a Wednesday, was especially busy for me. I had work, class observation, PTA duty. I had to pick up my son from daycare and bring my daughter to her basketball practice (about a 20-30 minute drive away depending on the traffic) but before that, stop at a store to get some art materials she needs, stop at the supermarket to pick up ingredients, go home to make dinner, then head back out to pick my daughter up from basketball.
I was in the kitchen, harried, trying to get dinner done before I had to head out to pick up my daughter when our doorbell rang. It was our next door neighbor, K’s mother. She said the teacher called her just then to tell her about the money incident. I was surprised. My son said only H and R received money. Now K too? K’s mother said her son was out for soccer practice and could not confirm what happened or how much money he received. She also explained that some kids bring money when they go out to play because they buy sweets at a nearby store.
My son lied to his teacher about my awareness of the incident. Next, he lied to me while he repentantly cried in the empty classroom about how many boys were involved. He lied to me about what they did when they went out to play. I thought they were playing in the school yard. Is that why he comes home with no appetite for dinner?
But I did not have time to confront my son. I had to leave my cooking halfway done to pick up my daughter. All through the drive there and back, I was stewing.
When we got home, I was so angry but knew better than to open my mouth. I let my partner talk to my son. Over dinner, I was quiet and talked about other things. Somehow, my son mentioned that he got only 27 out of 50 questions in a kanji test. I snapped.
“Show me your homework,” I demanded. “I do not check your homework because I trust you when you say you have done it but now I should be checking if you do it because you have been lying to me about so many things.”
Things slid downhill very very quickly after that. My son tore the cover of his kanji workbook, then threw the class photo he received that day from the PTA into the trash.
My partner had been trying to talk to my son and coax him to talk to me. When my son entered the kitchen, I confronted him about his torn workbook and the crumpled class photo.
This infuriated my partner. “Can’t you give our son a break?,” he bellowed
What ensued was one of the ugliest fights we have ever had in our marriage. He goaded me and I lashed out in animalistic rage. There was screaming and pushing. Our two year old cried.
We all went to bed angry and hurt. The marriage advice not to go to bed angry does not work for us. At the end of a day as exhausting as this, we just do not have the bandwidth to repair.
The next morning, my partner and I calmly talked about the things that set us off.
When my son was feeling horrid about all the things that transpired yesterday, he began muttering about how he is a bad, bad person and does not deserve to live. My partner saw his boy self in our son’s feelings of worthlessness. That I continued to berate him brought out the Papa Bear in him.
All children lie. In Philippa Perry’s book The Book You Wished Your Parents Had Read: And your children will be glad that you did, Philippa shares what the principal at her daughter’s secondary school, Margaret Connell, told the parents: It doesn’t matter how great of a relationship you have with your children. They will lie to you. And our job is not to make a big deal out of it. Lying is adaptive and actually an accomplished thing to do if you consider how it requires the child to conceive of an alternative reality and keep track of it.
I made a big deal of the whole thing. To be fair to me, aside from the multiple stresses I was dealing with physically and internally, I was barraged with one lie after another in quick succession.
“He was scared of you,” my partner explained. “Maybe what is more important is not so much whether he lies or not as how to create an environment of trust, that we trust him that in the end, he knows the right thing to do.”
“It is very sad though that our son feels the need to give money to the boys to buy their friendship.” Because that was what it eventually boils down to, even though our son could not articulate it as such. At the bottom of it all, this was what bothered me the most and what I masked with anger over the other less important bits.
At 9:30, K came over to return the ¥500 he received. He stood stiffly and said he should not have accepted the money in the first place.
When we closed the door, my partner asked my son, “Hang on, why did you give him only ¥500 while you gave the other boys ¥1,000? Do you have, like, different levels of friends? Like he was only at the ¥500 level?”
We began giggling, then the giggles turned to laughs but as my son started to explain that he did not keep track of how much he gave to whom. He thought he gave only ¥500 yen to H too.
“But his grandmother returned ¥1,000, so that means we made ¥500. Good on you,” my partner said.
By this time we were clutching our bellies laughing. Laughter and a sense of humor is one of the most effective salves of a hurt relationship.
Later I hugged my son tight. There is so much I cannot protect him from, so much I cannot give. Except a safe place where he is loved, no matter what, in this reality and in all other alternative realities.
becoming sherilyn 