I tutor a high-school English student. We’ve been working together for a few months now, and last night she called me, bawling that since she was still getting a C, her parents were not happy with me and probably would not let her work with me anymore. This is of very little concern to me since the next words out of her mouth were about how her parents tell her she’s a failure, she’s not good at anything, she doesn’t work hard enough, she’s not smart.

I also happen to know that these parents pay me and pay other tutors to help their daughter with her schoolwork, to encourage and motivate her, to boost her grades and congratulate her when she does well – because they don’t do it themselves.

I do not like parents like that.

I went to The Restaurant this morning to drop off all of E’s stuff while he was doing lunch prep. I took everything, from his clothes and razors to his files off my computer and the copy of his interview in the local foodie magazine. I wrote him a three page letter, angry but mostly restrained, and tossed it in as well. We sat together on the bench in the parking lot behind the kitchen and talked for about half an hour. He looked like SHIT. I don’t think he’d shaved for five days, and his eyes were bloodshot above puffy circles. He sat with his head in his hands while I vented a little, then he started in again on the “I don’t deserve you” stuff. He says I have everything going for me, he has no future, he’ll never be able to get a better job, and so on.

Did I mention that he looked like shit? Did I mention that despite the fact that I have been cut to the core and still sort of want to punch him, I don’t want him to hate himself and I can’t listen to him talk like that? Last time he started beating himself into the ground and calling himself a loser and saying that’s why we couldn’t be together, he looked so miserable that I wanted to pet him. I petted him again this time and tangled my fingers in his curls. But this time I wasn’t telling him I loved him for who he is and otherwise reassuring him. This time…

“The only reason you should call yourself a piece of shit or say you don’t deserve me is because of the way you treated me. You have NO excuse for that. So if you don’t deserve me, that part is your own fault. And if you don’t see a future for yourself, it’s because you chicken out on everything. You chicken out on defending yourself to your dad, to BossMan… but I never, NEVER thought you would chicken out on me. If you have truly been open and honest with me for the last year, then the person I think I know does have a future and is smart enough to go after his dreams. But you don’t even have the guts to make yourself into what you say you want to be.”

“I just don’t know what I want, out of life, out of anything.”

“Because you have this image of yourself that everyone sees, you’re Mr. Crazy, anything on a dare, do whatever you want, and sometimes I think you even believe that’s who you are. But you come home most nights and tell me how your life sucks, how you hate the way everything is going for you… do you WANT to be that image that you say sucks so much? The image you have left over from college?** Or do you really want things to change?”

“No, I don’t want to hate my life but I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what I want out of life.”

“Quit being a chicken and listen to someone who believes in you then. I don’t care if you don’t want to date me or even if you never want to talk to me again***, but LISTEN to me this time. Everyone else believes in your image, in what you show on the surface – your friends see it as the funny boy and your parents see it as a fuckup. And I know you love him and will defend him through anything, and I barely know your dad, but I HATE him for the way he talks down to you and never takes you seriously because you were a crazy kid for awhile.”

It feels good to finally tell him what I think of his stuck-up bigot dad who walked out on his sons when they were 3 and 5 so they could grow up with all his money and none of his presence. He loves his dad and fears him even more.

I let loose one little tear, and he starts to make sounds like he’s choking. His face is turning bright red. “I hate him for it,” I continued, “because you idolize him. I hate that his low opinion of you is the way you define yourself.”

And that brings me back around to it. Parents. It wasn’t until I almost got married and met my ex-fiance’s whackjob mother that I really understood how good I have it with my family. I won’t bore you with the Leave It to Beaver details of my childhood, but it seems that understanding and supportive parents are a rare commodity these days. I’m not a mother and that’s all I’m going to give you by way of disclaimer, but how do you tell your child he or she is basically worthless? How can you ignore everything your child does right? How can you be completely uninvolved in your child’s life and expect someone else to do the work of loving your child, building his or her self-esteem, and creating a trusting relationship?

My student’s parents always knock her down and say she’s a disappointment. E’s dad never raised him up or believed in him in the first place. And they’re stuck, both of them, identifying themselves with the fact that their parents never expect them to succeed. My student is only 17 and still living at home with her parents, but E is almost 28 and it’s not much different for him being out on his own. I don’t believe parents are necessarily to blame for their children’s shortcomings (like utter rudeness to their girlfriends!) – especially when those children are grown – but it’s as though these parents have so little faith in their offspring that they don’t think that ANYTHING they do will stick in their kids’ heads, when actually it’s EVERYTHING that sticks. And when everything is negative like this…how do they expect these kids to turn out? If kids raised like this succeed in life, it will be in SPITE of their parents, not BECAUSE of them and their crock of reverse psychology.

I’ve tried to make them both feel better. I bet other people have too… but I wonder if anything anybody else says can really stick when you’ve had 18 years of crap built up before you can even get out of the house. If you put enough pressure on a piece of coal, it will eventually become a diamond. But when it’s a person…? When it’s a child…?

*I thought this was a fun pun on E being a chef and all. Hahaha, I made a funnie!
**Yes, this is the YouTube video I talked about in this post. May as well, eh? Doesn’t he look like Jim Belushi?
***Okay, yes I do, but this was for dramatic emphasis.

Here’s the end of the E story for today.