I had a good week at work but I ruined it by going down a rabbit hole with Copilot. I had a couple glasses too much and Copilot reckons I need to call the Samaritan. That was a good sign to stop my senseless self-indulging whine.
That night I woke up from a dream that I really miss social media. Unhealthy it may be, it was life for many many years – as an exile. A traveler sees every place with the lens of his homeland – I see everywhere and wonder how it related to me and people I knew in Hong Kong. Social Media was good for a few years (at least in my rose-tinted glasses), first it was ruined by ads and TikTok style reels, I hated it, but stayed on. Now it is further ruined by AI, which I am too old to tolerate, I can’t go back. If AI has brought any good to humanity, forcing me to quit FB could be one of them.
Now I am in exile again, from social media. I still see the world as I would have in the lens of social media – I used to share plenty of photos of my children for a few likes and comments from people still vaguely care about me. Now a new jacket is just a new jacket, a day out is just a day out. Just me and the kids. Why can’t we have good things? Isn’t social media the promise of having good things all the time? I have logged off completely since beginning of this year -Facebook, Instagram, then LinkedIn. I decide I need to stay in my lane (work and study) and it is pointless keep seeing things popping up – more jobs to apply, more skills and certifications to acquire, more opportunities to network, more doomsday prophecy that AI going to take my job. Everyone says you need to stay on them for networking but I can’t be a very interesting person, no one wants to talk to me and I don’t feel I am closer to anyone or actually getting anything interesting from it. All I feel is more distant, from everyone and everywhere I could be.
I often think about Substack, but I can’t find the momentum for a Substack. It is tempting because that was the only way I know how to live, however unsuccessfully. But I don’t have time for in-depth analysis to share – and I saw someone writing how difficult and determined she is working and studying as a single mum – I don’t want to be a martyr. I don’t have a defined self and I jiggle lots of things I treasure equally – be the responsible and the fun double-act parent, catching up with shopping cooking laundry and accounts, hanging on my job, not failing in my MPA – I am muddling through clumsily, battling with my demons, admiring the good weather and navigating the rough wave by myself, thanklessly, desperately, stoically, hopefully.
Like this Monday morning – I got up at 5:30am. My son is already up. He told me there was no maths homework in the weekend. I asked him to open the math homework page (online) for me to check. We found out there is a new assignment – 15 questions. They are not most straight-forward. He refused to move to locate some pen and paper to do the sums. After 5 minutes I gathered some for him. Even though I kept rolling my eyes, letting out big sighs and bit my tongue to keep my opinions to myself, I can see there has been some improvement. He still struggles a great deal. But he got through all the sums without crying so that’s an improvement. I said we will go through this again tonight to consolidate his understanding.
Teaching him maths reminds me too much when I was doing maths as a child with my mum, which not a night without ending with tears, beating and humiliation. I knew not what to do but I didn’t know how to teach either. I did not know what to do with him during the pandemics and I only learnt how difficult maths was for him when I had no choice but to homeschool him (and jiggling his newborn little sister on my lap crying). He couldn’t grasp the most basic number bonds and addition subtraction. There was no point getting mad because it would only make him cry. I stop whenever he starts crying. But I was clueless what I could do. We fight to get an EHCP for him after we settled in Darlington in 2023. Even so, I did not see any remarkable improvement. It’s something about abstract concepts he struggles with. We paid £30 an hour for math tuition. He was happy to go but I question is it worth paying such money for simple multiplication. We did that for a year anyway. It felt I could outsource someone else to solve one of my many problems.
After quitting the office role, I felt I should take more responsibility and ownership to my son’s development. First, we had a problem that I had to top-up his school dinner account every few days and learnt that he bought lots of junk food and still complained he wasn’t full enough. I knew from social media that food is not great in school anyway so I started preparing lunch for him everyday. He really appreciates that and we don’t overspend on school junk food anymore. I also stopped paying for his math lessons and started sitting next to him to help him with school maths. I am still feeling my way how I can be more encouraging without giving him the answer. Over the summer holiday I want to start reading with him everyday – I fail half of the days, which means we still manage to read every other day on average. We read extracts from a wide range of books, Anthony Bevor to George Orwell’s 1984 and Review of Hitler’s Mein Kempf. I encourage him to summarise what we read in one sentence to practise writing. We have more in common to discuss. We listen to the News Quiz in the car and he loves it. His phone is broken (only 2-3 months since the last one) and I told him I won’t buy a phone until next pay day and he is cool with that. I am learning to pay more attention to his preference. He seems to enjoy having day-outs with me and my daughter more than this time last year.
Doing school work and connecting with him at this age (or any other age) do not come naturally for me as a parent, like driving. It takes me a while to figure out how to start and requires continuous reflection for improvement and adaptation but I am doing much more with him than my parents did when I was at any stage of my childhood.
He left home happily when it was time to go, not without me straightening his collar, tucking his shirt in properly, reminding one of his trousers is tucked in his sock and he forgot to refill his water bottle. I am grateful that all is fixed gracefully without me raising my voice or him getting frustrated or humiliated.
I still work and study, and I can write about work or study, maybe in another post. But what I want to say is, I have learnt to value my role at home for them, however lonely it is. Like clouds and rain and sunshine, they may not be paying any attention, and surely means nothing to outsiders, is vital to their growth. I guess that’s what all solo mothers (sometimes fathers) do, but not my mum, I did not have a guide in life. For now, thankfully, both of my kids are not on social media, not bothered about the phone, and they may never even get on it. Maybe they will have a completely different understanding of life. I believe at least they will have me to share every trivial success or failure, or even bump on the road. Like my old neighbour’s daughter would call her first minute when a tyre of her Landrover had a puncture and broken down and gave her such a scare, or the son of a volunteer in Bowes would call his mother repeatedly to tell her the box on top of the car fell off on the road but all is good. I wish I could tell my parents about I presented my self-initiated dashboard to the Head of Service and it happened to be something she needed the next day for a specific problem; then I had a very positive 1:1 with my manager, I am learning to stay in this job, enjoying the ride and wait for my turn to start the promised apprenticeship. I gather my children may have a happier life, thanks to my quiet effort and my learned patience. They will not need to perform for strangers’ likes and encouragement like a Skinner box to keep marching on.
When my daughter was born, I learnt that it takes generations for a cycle of butterfly migration. I thought maybe it was already too late for me to achieve anything. Now I know even though building security, confidence and happiness as a family is something that takes a generation to break away from my trauma and overcome my abusive childhood, my slow ambition to get somewhere and make a mark won’t have to wait a generation. I am doing it, and I am doing it for myself.
Okay, back to uni reading.
(The picture is Barcleys Bank in Beamish Living Museum)
