A Case of Emotional Baskets

There are things, simple things that I ask my 10 year old son to do.

Put his bowl in the dishwasher after meals; be ready to leave for school by 8:40am; hang his coat on his little peg when he comes in. Yet, whether I remind him in a gentle voice or a booming one, once or a thousand times, he just can’t do it.

It makes him angry, that he can’t remember to do these things. His soft, beautiful face becomes broody and overcast. His anger turns in on itself and he lashes out, cursing himself for his failings. Somewhere swirling in the depths of him, I sense the murmur of shame.

Some months downstream of all these reminders, all this nagging, it occurs to me that maybe he just can’t do it. I read somewhere that, at the level of brain development, it isn’t until the age of 16 that boys can reflect on the consequences of an action rather than just ploughing ahead. So, maybe it has something to do with the thickening of his hippocampus or the messages to his amygdala. Either way, my repeatedly asking him to remember these chores serves only to undermine his sense of himself as capable, effective young man. And the reality is, he is all of these things. And more.

In this sense, I think, he’s just like me.

In my post Levitating Trains of the Mind, I wrote about the gulf between where I’d like to be in my life and where I routinely find myself. I want all these little holes I’ve carved into the hummus of my life to add up to one big one. I want to put my coat on the peg but mostly I just end up leaving it on the floor.

But, maybe, just like my son, the way my brain has developed, that twinkling tangle of nodes and synapses, will not allow for that to happen. And, just like my son, I get angry with myself and I feel ashamed because, I’m asking of myself the impossible. Just like Ella…