Monday, September 03, 2012

labor day and boys' labors

We had a great weekend with four families out at our favorite lake.  The weather was a bit cool and breezy, so we didn't do much swimming.  But otherwise it was a classic Labor Day weekend:  lots of sitting around a campfire and talking and laughing, and way too much food.  No matter how well we plan, we always end up with enough food to sink a ship.  Fortunately we adopted four extra teenagers for the last day, because otherwise we would have ended up with a mountain of uneaten food.

Today's topic is boys.  I know several of you have sons, so I'm looking at you.  How do/did you handle school stuff?  Nell was always so excited about buying her school supplies and getting them all labeled and organized.  And I have to admit that she takes after me in that regard.  I adore Staples, Office Depot, and school and office supplies in all their various incarnations.  I have boxes of pens and markers, a shelf full of notebooks, a drawer full of post-it notes, sharpies, staples, various different kinds of binder clips, scissors, three different kinds of tape, glue, etc etc.  I can spend hours searching for exactly the right writing instrument when I begin a new project--which is both the perfect start and the perfect way to procrastinate.

Then there's MadMax.  Other than the fact that he would get in trouble at school, MadMax would not care one whit if all he had in his backpack was a single half-used spiral notebook and a stub of a pencil.  I asked him the week before school started if he wanted to go shopping for school supplies and he looked at me like I had asked him to drink poison.

He came home after the first day of school with syllabi for his various classes, many of which I had to sign and return.  A couple of them had a detailed list of supplies needed:  three red pens, graphing paper, two black dry erase markers, etc. This afternoon I asked him to make a consolidated list that we could take with us to the store, and from the blank look on his face, you would suspect I was speaking Martian.

So I scanned the lists and dictated to him while he wrote things down.  Then I dragged him around with me this afternoon while we went to Target and Staples to make sure he had everything on the list.  We found it all except a compass (for Geometry), which was nowhere to be found the week after everyone else had already done their school supply shopping.  We hope he will not need it for awhile.

I am not one of those hover-y mothers that leans over her children's shoulders while they do their homework and surreptitiously corrects it.  I have helped with school projects, but I have never done one for them.  I have (*clears throat*) allowed them the privilege of getting frustrated and angry and despairing over their homework without bailing them out.  (Not that I never help, but I don't want them to get in the habit of having me sit there with them every minute while they're studying.) 

But I could not leave it up to him to get his school supplies organized, because I knew it wouldn't happen.  So I put the dividers in his math binder, with a section of college-ruled paper and a section of graph paper.  I gathered together the index cards, red pens, and dry erase markers that he needed to hand to his Spanish teacher.

And I can't tell if that's OK, or if I'm just enabling him.  I remember in college smirking at the boys who had never done their own laundry, whose mothers had written their personal essays, who hadn't the faintest idea how to fix their own lunch.  And here I am, raising a boy who is well on his way to being One of Those.  What do you do?  How much do you help?  I suspect I am babying him too much, but I can't quite make myself leave him to his own apathy about this stuff. 

I didn't have brothers, and this was never a problem with Nell.  This is all new to me.  Advice required.

9 comments:

  1. Since I'm pretty much in the same boat there with you concerning my boy child, I'm hoping someone comments with something constructive.

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    1. we will have to be each other's moral support for the next few years. :-)

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  2. Well... in the business world he probably won't need to shop for supplies. Let that comfort you. ;-)

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    1. lol-- I'm not sure if it's working. :-)

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  3. I grew up with 4 brothers, I have two sons. They mostly seem to be the same, although some seem to grow out of it better than others... My 14-year-old is a copy of your MadMax. Do you need any supplies? No mum, I'm fine.

    The evening before the first day of school, bedtime has come and gone, I am sitting on my hands making him pack his bag, it is taking him ages because he can't find half his stuff and still has to label things...

    I know that because I have lots of spare school supplies (I am a student too) I won't have to go to a shop, but I am making him ask for everything he needs. My philosophy is that if this year I supervise his getting all his stuff ready by himself, even if it takes 5 times as long as it would take me, there is a chance of him doing it on his own next year. Or a bit faster, at least. If I help him, he will never learn. And I will have to accept how he does it. He has to find his own way. That is the hard part for me :)

    I told him that next year I want him to do his own school preparations himself. I want a year off before the other one goes to secondary school! We'll see if it happens next year. Boys are not born organised, it seems, or maybe they just have a different sense of timing to us females... Who knows.

    I read recently that boy brains are not capable of proper planning skills until they reach their twenties! As mothers it is probably best to psychologically prepare ourselves for this to be true.

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    1. You know, I probably should have made him do more of it. In hindsight I think part of the problem is that I enjoy doing it so much, a part of me really WANTED to get in there and organize all his stuff. I don't have much trouble staying out of school projects because I'm terrible at crafts, etc and therefore have no desire to get involved. So it probably would have been better if, like you, I had just sat on my hands and made him do it. I will work on it. :-)

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    2. yes, sit on the hands, do nothing, just about the most difficult advice for mothers to follow up. But it works!

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  4. For my oldest son, I never read a syllabus or bought a school supply. However, every weekend, "mom, I have to have this NOW" was a frequent cry when he finally needed the school supply we had never purchased. Some of the reason that this happened is because I was distracted by other children both young and old that demanded more attention than he did. Now he is in college and still waits to buy both his books and school supplies until well into the semester . . . he has only failed one class . . . and we all lived.

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    1. we've had a couple of those "I NEED IT NOW" moments, too. Yes, I would say that your oldest son has not just survived but thrived, so that is encouraging. :-)

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