I know, I know, I’m becoming one of those “mommy bloggers” that blogs about their damned spawn all of the time.

Deal with it.

The J-Man is sadly and inexplicably bombing math. Badly. The semester just started, but so far his grade is a big, fat F.

This does not fly in the Trance household. The thought of summer school sends shivers down my overachieving spine, and even Ds are strictly verboten.

My mother is in a tizz. Having raised a child who had a large stick up her ass and the perfect grades to show for it from kindergarten to college, she doesn’t understand her grandson’s freewheeling, lackadaisical ways.

I have to confess that I don’t either, but I do understand that he is not me, which is something my mother tends to miss. I cannot tell you how many conversations I’ve had with her that begin with, “You need to DO something about him.” Do what, exactly? Re-mold his little brain?

The J-Man would rather not study, he would rather not exert any effort other than the bare minimum required to get by, and when it comes to math, he is not even exerting that much. I have tutored, threatened, cajoled, begged, grounded, screamed, and taken away every electronic device to no avail – he just isn’t motivated.

The kid is smart. He has no learning disabilities. He doesn’t have ADD. He’s just inordinately lazy.

I e-mailed his math teacher to schedule a meeting, and apparently in order to do that I must meet with his entire “core” group of teachers. This frightens the hell out of me.

I hate going to school. There, I said it. It intimidates me. The teachers intimidate me, the other moms with their fake tans and Coach bags and designer fucking tracksuits and expensive highlights intimidate me, and even some of the kids, the overachieving jock-ish ones, intimidate me. I am the weird mom – the unmarried one with the nose ring and the Frye boots. My kid refuses to get involved in any after-school activity and is also, let’s face it, a bit on the weird side.

I’m OK with both of us being weird, by the way. It just becomes rather glaring in a room full of suburbanite Trixies.

I hate school events, too. I hate meetings and presentations and science fairs and such. They make me intensely uncomfortable. I have no idea why this is. When I was in school myself, I felt the same way, even though I was relatively popular. Large groups of people make me want a Xanax really badly.

This particular meeting has me almost breaking out in hives, because I can almost hear the comments from his teachers:

“The J-Man doesn’t pay attention.”
“He stares out the window during class.”
“Yeah, and he sharpens his pencil every two minutes.”
“Yeah, and he forgets to write his name on his paper!”
“Yeah, yeah, and his handwriting is for shit!!”
“Yeah! And his math is abysmal!!”
“Let’s kick his ass!!”

Jesus.

My son is a lot of things. He’s sensitive and loving and kind. He’s creative and bright and has an outstanding vocabulary. His reading level is off the charts and he can quote an entire movie, verbatim. He shovels the snow without complaint and never fails to kiss me goodnight.

However, a studious student he is not.

It just doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

I arranged a math tutor for him at school during his free period, and he likes her (of course, it’s a cute girl), and it seems to be helping a bit. My father is a mathematical freaking genius, so we have some help there.

I went all the way up to Trig in college, yet I seem to have forgotten how to do everything other than very basic algebra, so I am sadly of little help. I need to bone up on my own skills before I can tutor my seventh-grader, which is just sad.

Hopefully we can get this situation under control very soon without my having to put a foot in his ass.

In other news, my month of free internet on my phone has come to an end. Oh noes! No more Facebooking from the phone. No more phone-Twittering. No more internetting from the bar.

I am bereft.

Happy Friday.

7 Responses to “Parent Teacher AGH.”