I'm worried.
There's a little boy, the son of a coworker, that I tutor in french on Wednesdays. He's failing out of the incredibly private school that he attends, and he really needs to do this french stuff, and his australian mom doesn't speak a word, and apparently his dad's new girlfriend the french-literature teacher is no help either.
*sigh*
So we sit at the kitchen table at mom's house and fight with his ADD and argue over who should translate which words just so he can understand what the excercise is asking for.
We alternate enthusiasm with pleading with sternness with despair with enthusiasm again. Both of us, our cycles only sometimes intersecting.
We've made a tonne of progress, but nowhere nearly enough for a grade 3 mother-tongue level, which he has to pass next year or get kicked out of school.
His mom's terribly grateful that I'm helping her out, and it's clear that this is because she doesn't want to look bad in front of her ex-husband.
No biggie.
Nicolas is generally exhausted by the time we're done -- three solid hours yesterday, and I don't, from experience, expect much from him except a sense of dread that my presence means more work. That would be understandable.
As opposed to his mum's reaction this morning:
"Nicolas likes you SO MUCH, Gila! He can't wait until you come back!"
"How come?" I asks, I does.
"Because you're the only one who's nice to him."
Given that I spend over half of those three hours scolding him, I'm wondering what his standards for "nice" are.
Granted, I listen to his stories about the art he wants to do, machines he wants to build, I look at his math homework and english book reports and tell him how mature his writing and grasp of logic is for an eight-year-old.
But that's not being overly nice to a kid. That's being human.
I think.
And today, amidst dumpster-diving excitement, I'm worrying about him, and his passive-agressive pseudo-intellectual parents, and wondering
if having children is ever not dangerous.