On Videotaping and Learning to Drive

I rarely find parent-teacher conferences worth my time. In 20 minutes we cast a cursory glance over my son's grades, ask him a pro forma question of what he would like to change and how, and then leave. Nothing learned, an hour wasted. I do attend them dutifully, though.

Yesterday, we had a conference scheduled. My husband happened to have a day off, so he attended it as well. On the way to school, our son was marvelling at the fact that Dad was coming along and teasing him whether he knew the names of any of his teachers. My husband responded with dignity that he had attended parent-teacher conferences in the past. To be fair, I confirmed that during our son's Middle School years he did attend ONE teacher conference, to which my husband defiantly retorted: "And that is all there was!"

Anyway, we teased Dad some more about it when our son's adviser lauded the fact that the whole family showed up. To which the adviser said: "Well, you are doing better than me!" And he proceeded to share his own story. Years ago, he was in magazine publishing business which kept him travelling away from home for two weeks out of a month. Naturally, that made him miss many of his children's events. Then one day there was a kindergarten graduation ceremony for his son to which he barely made it rushing madly from one of his trips. He got there after it had already started, got a seat in the back row and was very proud of himself for not forgetting to bring a camcorder. He videotaped his son, and his wife was very happy to see after the ceremony that her husband did manage to attend. Feeling like a super Dad, he told his son that they will now go home and watch him on TV. When they started watching the tape, his wife asked with amazement: "Why on earth did you tape ... Manny?" It turned out, he videotaped the wrong kid. His explanation was that from such a distance all blond 6-year-olds look the same. "Were you in a dog house after that?" I asked. "No," he said. "I had to change careers."

And there was another great story which is a good analogy for situations when we feel overwhelmed when starting something new. Our son just started high school this year, and it was not a very happy start. He felt lonely and rushed, overworked and confused. Since he was getting an 'A' average in all of his classes, many of them advanced, the school did not seem to be aware of the problem, and I had to bring it up to their attention about a month ago. Well, this time his adviser shared another personal story on when he first started driving a car. He got his learner's permit, and his Dad told him that he can drive himself to school one day with his Father in the car, of course. The boy was very happy. He felt that he already knew how to drive, and the school was just 2 miles away. Well, in those 2 miles he was completely exhausted. He said he left the car all sweaty feeling like he had worked a long day. He realized that on the road he had to keep track of so many things at once (traffic signs, lights, pedestrians, other drivers, keeping the speed limit, giving a turn signal, etc.) that it was overwhelming. He could not see how he would ever find driving natural and relaxing. Yet it did happen to him in due time, just as it happens to all of us. And especially as women, we can drive, talk on the phone, put make-up on, feed the kids and interrupt their fights all at the same time.

So this was the first time when we left enriched with two thought provoking parables. By the way, my husband then remarked that even though the adviser goofed up with the videotaping, he got a great story which would not have been if not for his silly mistake. I am sure next time when my husband forgets to take the time off to attend our son's teacher-parent conference, he will have some great story to tell.