Mourning

I did get an apology from my godson's dad about his behaviour on Sunday- he was having a bad day apparently. But I have been preoccupied with how unhappy I am about the situation as carer for a bright kid who wilfully refuses to do... anything it seems to me, that doesn't involve playing and communicating on his computer. He is of above average intelligence his teachers say (mind you, they seem to think that because he reads for his own pleasure) but he does speak three languages after the various accidents of his upbringing to date. But he gets below average marks at school mainly because he is "demotivated by school" because "the best it can offer will be 40 years of a job I'm going to hate". I did laugh when he said that: the idea of securing a job that would keep one for 40 years is at best naive and I tried to explain that the sure way of getting an unsatisfactory future is to mess up his time at school. Of course it is crap to get people to make decisions at 16 that are likely to affect them for the rest of their lives, but until the system is changed, you have to make the best of it. As someone who has short-listed people for interview, there just isn't time to review candidates who have "scraped through" on the minimum pass rates, but as long as he passes, my godson doesn't care and won't be influenced- he knows what is best for him he is arrogant and condescending in the face of any alternative perspective. When I talk about what he will do in the future, he tells me that some of the online tournaments in which he participates have multimillion dollar prizes. So that's OK. Oh, and apparently he is writing a book...

I am in mourning for the selfish expectations I had when I agreed to foster him through his senior school years. Yes: I thought I could influence if not shape him, a mistake most parents make I assume now, I would be happy if he left me capable of independent living. He is a polite kid, he will stand mute until I have finished talking to or admonishing him for something, all the while he shows no emotion or sign that anything is actually being absorbed and is very likely to do/not do whatever I am talking about at the very next opportunity. Gradually, I have dropped my expectations; I have stopped trying to get him to take school more seriously- it was pissing me off to the point of wanting to bash him, if he wants to spend all of his time indoors before a computer screen- so be it. When he was on "study leave" from school to revise for his exams he thought he was doing well to put in half an hour of revision Monday to Friday- not "per subject" but in total. I DO expect him to keep the room I have given him tidy, but I suppose he thinks that as I have backed down and given up on the rest I will do so on this issue. Incidentally; when I mentioned to his father that he has to sort out his own laundry- because he was invariably forgetting to include things like sports gear etc he exclaimed "You make him wash his own clothes!!!" to which I replied "no, I ask him to put his soiled clothes into a machine that washes the clothes for him. When I was younger than him I was actually washing my own clothes by hand in the bath!" And if he doesn't wash his clothes he can be that smelly kid that noone wants to talk to. A few days ago I was at the door to his room and told him to open the windows when he is in all day as it stank. I later discovered that he had a basket of clothes unwashed since he was last at school. Some of the clothes had begun to rot to the point that they remained stained by bacterial colonies even after being washed at 60 degrees and had to be discarded.

I never had the sense of entitlement that most young people seem to display today. I never went on about what I didn't have in comparison to most of my peers at the local grammar school, I was clearly from a poor family, but I counted the days till I could be free of that environment. I sometimes think my godson would register somewhere on the Autism scale: his lack of empathy is profound. I tried to discuss this with his father and used the example of the hundreds of young people with whom I have worked in the past to great success but solicited the glib response that "bringing up children is a lot different to running youth clubs". -A comment that reminded me that though we have known each other for over 20 years, there have been long periods (years) during which I simply ignored him for his unspeakable arrogance.

So I confess to counting the days till my commitment is ended and I am mourning what I feel sure my godson could have achieved. I feel that I have put in a valiant effort, but when I realised that the only person who wasn't that bothered about his own success and who seemed vaguely entertained by the coterie of adults trying to share their insights with him, was my godson, I realised life would be easier to join his side. So, as long as he keeps his room tidy I am sure I can survive the next two years. 

I hope he confounds all expectations and becomes a success in his life but...