This summer, for the first time ever, there were several weeks when both of my children were home with me full time; whereas in previous summers I could always count on at least one of them being in some kind of daycare/ daycamp situation, there were now great swathes of time when all three of us would be alone in the house together–a prospect that filled me with more than a little bit of dread. Not because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find enough stuff for them to do ( I can always find things for them to do–usually involving a broom). And not because I was afraid that hours of summertime TV would turn their brains to mush. (Heck: I grew up watching bad TV all summer long, and–if I do say so myself–I turned out to be pretty…uh, what’s that word, the opposite of not good? Oh yeah: good). What I was worried about, however, was being caught in the crossfire of the Great Sibling War of 2007.
Taken one at a time, my kids are great: they’re fun, interesting and thoughtful individuals that I am proud to know. Put them together, though, and you’d think you’d stumbled into the negotiation sessions for the recent Police reunion tour.
To put it another way, consider the case of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: I’m sure that the Austrians were lovely people, as were the Serbs. However, put them together in a carriage and the next thing you know you’re not only running low on Archdukes, but someone is coming up with the idea of mustard gas..
Not that I’m comparing my kids to World War I. That would be silly: after all, World War I was only fought on two continents, and so far my children have already fought on three. However, just like WW I, where the worst battles were the ones that took place right in the middle of somebody’s backyard, in our case, the worst battles take place right in the middle of somebody’s living room–mine.
Here’s a typical scenario: one will get up early and claim their spot in front of the TV. A little while later, the other one will get up, see that the TV has already been claimed for the morning, and determinedly begin to undermine any possible enjoyment the first one is getting out of it. Nothing overt: perhaps they will bend over in front of the TV to tie their shoes–for twenty minutes. Perhaps they will sing this “great” song they just wrote (at a volume just slightly above the volume of the TV–and increasing incrementally as the TV volume creeps up to adapt). Perhaps they will, like the voice of self-doubt made visible, mutter deprecating comments about the show and the viewer just under their breath, responding to each “What did you say?” with a sly smile and a “Hmm? Oh, nothing–nothing.”
Whatever they do it is guaranteed that the whole thing will end in some sort of physical altercation, with the entire screaming/crying scrum rolling into the kitchen in a blur of tears and fists reminiscent of the fights in the old Andy Capp comics.
Of course, five minutes later they will have forgotten all about it–or it will start all over again, depending on the alignment of the planets and whether or not they think they have a chance of talking me into a trip to the ice cream store later on (as if: Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat had a better chance of Jimmy Carter taking them out for ice cream after Camp David).
In warfare, the term for non-combatants who get killed is collateral damage. I’m not sure what the term is for one who gets so frustrated she wants to join the war as a third combatant, but I’m beginning to suspect that it is Mother.