Today I came into work after the weekend from hell. I spent it with my partner's children
I am a 25 year old graduate on a modest salary and have recently moved in with my partner of two (and a bit) years. This was not my first encounter with the children, whom I have known for well over a year, now, but it was probably the worst. To date.
Let me tell you about them. Angelica is 17 and has just completed her GCSEs. She is currently embarking on a course of A-levels she barely has the inclination to complete. My partner has come home innumerable times since September and fearfully told me he's worried she's going to quit. Mark is 13 and just beginning to feel the first flush of testosterone. Generally upbeat and hyper with above-average intelligence, he is just starting to hint at the tantrums for which teenage boys are famed. On the whole, they have been quite pleasant children, and anyone who knows them usually quite likes them.
So what was it about this weekend that was so bad? Well, I suspect the reason things became unpleasant is that this was pretty much the first time that I have attempted to discipline them. Over dinner Angelica was becoming increasingly difficult. She had already jumped down her brother's throat for 'almost spilling some drink' and was now berating him loudly and at the sort of pitch that only cats can hear for 'being annoying'. Funny that her own faults should pass her by. Perhaps she genuinely believes she farts roses and defecates flowers. I wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, having failed to get much of a rise from the sibling, and growing increasingly irate at my own suggestions that perhaps Mark's sins were not so colossal, she turned on the father.
It was like watching someone slowly stab another with a sharp knife and then explode at them for bleeding on the carpet. She fed him questions which he failed to answer to her satisfaction - no requests, simply facts he did not have - and did indeed explode in such a frenzy of apoplexy, I thought perhaps she'd sat on a stick of dynamite. It wasn't until she said the dreaded words, however, that I felt I had to interrupt.
'Angelica!'
That was all it took. She didn't say another word but refused to stay for the film she'd been clamoring to watch all day, but sloped off to her room without a the barest sheen of politeness. After that I was snubbed for the remainder of the weekend and she played all the cards a coquettish little girl has to ensure I was kept out of all activities and made decidedly unwelcome. On top of which, she added her own unique sprinkling of snide remarks and derisory comments whenever it became necessary to actually communicate with me. This is the child I have just spent £200 on for Christmas, and who I spent countless weekends with to ensure she scraped the mandatory GCSEs required to continue to Sixth Form.
And what were the dreaded words? Are there ever any others that could slight a man so? Jason had mentioned once, after I had made the mistake of saying the words in jest that his ex had repeated them at him daily with vicious spite. No matter how hard he worked, keeping two jobs so that she could stay at home where she wanted to be, no matter what he did, she always dismissed him with those same words: 'You're useless,' with a contempt that requires no further punctuation, or indeed equivocation.
I'll leave you to ponder whether there is any more effective method of emasculation for the working man.
