One boy, one brain, two boys, half a brain

Days after I gave birth to my third son, I was given a copy of Steve Biddulph’s, Raising Boys.  With three boys I needed to find out how to deal with them because I had never understood the first two.

     Pages into chapter one, Biddulph lists the dangers that boys face between the ages of 15 and 25; they are more likely to die in car accidents, from drug over-doses or from an activity involving risk, especially one involving alcohol (read this) or become quadriplegic from a diving accident.   

     I was breastfeeding while reading and I am sure it was at this point my milk started to dry up.  I put the book down, unable to keep reading.

     What bizarre and unpredictable creatures (horrid came to mind), I thought and I’m raising three … without the benefit of parenting advice from experts because it’s too frightening to read. 

     Sometime after the chilling realisation that boys are different (the long title of Biddulph’s book is, Raising Boys: Why boys are different and how to help them become happy and well-balanced men) the truth came to me: The worse a woman has been in a past life, the more sons she will have.  It’s all about working off bad karma.  Well, I'm a good Christian and I'll bear my cross.  And with my guru, Pepper Zen the duck, I am in luck!

     I’ve considered the girlish tantrums, rolled eyes, head tosses and the ‘whatever’ my friends with daughters face.  Not to mention the silences one minute and sharp-tongued rebukes the next. 

     It’s nothing compared to the terror of watching a son speed down a hill on a bike with no brakes (yes, after he’s been told a thousand times not to ride it) and skid to a bloodied and horizontal stop.

     Or another son bounce off a trampoline and land face down, unmoving (I’d seen enough episodes of All Saints to know to tickle his feet and watch his toes curl to be satisfied wasn’t paralysed).

     Or the last one dive a metre head first from a dressing table.  It helped that a doctor friend was there (yes, he needed stitches).

     Or seeing blue froth bubble from my precious one year-old daughter’s mouth, smelling of surface cleaner and basil??? 

     “Boys,” I screamed.  “Come here, now.”  They must have sensed the terror in my voice because they actually responded.  “What happened to Seffy?”

     They turned to each other, shrugged and the oldest whispered, “we made a potion.”

     “What was in the potion?” I asked, trying to stay calm.  On All Saints, only calm people do well in  emergencies.

     I jotted down the ingredients: Morning Fresh, Spray and Wipe, blue food colouring and basil.

     I dialled 13 11 26, the poisons information line, a number I knew by heart because, with two sons, I was a regular caller. 

     “Mrs Catherine Titasey?” the man on the end asked me before he’d even asked why I was calling.

     “How do you know my name?”

     “You’ve called before on this number.  How can I help you?”

     I was hysterical, but I “needn’t worry.”  Of course, the basil and the food colouring were fine.  The Spray and Wipe was nothing to worry about (at this point I burst into tears) and Seffy might have a bit of diarrhoea from the Morning Fresh.

     Not only do boys put themselves at risk, and long before they are 15-25.  They put others at risk. 

     Recently, I learned about the ‘latest research.’  Parents must let their children, especially boys, take risks when they are young.  They must be allowed to test out their physical capabilities and learn their limits when they climb trees, race bikes and go-carts (without brakes?), do stupid somersaults before bomb diving in the pools, swing on ropes, play-fight with cricket bats and tennis rackets (why not play cricket and tennis?) and climb furniture (even if the bookshelf falls forward) and so on. Yes, even if it means visits to A&E for fractured and broken bones, not just one, either.   And waiting for the surgery to end.  

     If children, especially boys are not allowed to take these ‘safe’ risks when they are young, they don’t learn how to assess risk and so are more likely to take risks as adolescents which inevitably involve speeding, drugs, alcohol and all the things I’d read about in Raising Boys six years earlier.

     Psychologist Celia Lashlie wrote a book about boys with a more reassuring title, He’ll be okay.  I bought that one a year ago and am still working up the guts to read it.  I bought it because I googled Ms Lashlie and immediately liked her for her wisdom.  She said in an interview, “One boy, one brain. Two boys, half a brain.”

     However, it’s mango season and the tree in the backyard is weighted with plump fruit.  Kibbim, son #3 spends a good part of his day climbing the tree picking green mangoes (which become weapons against his friends).  The neighbours spend a good part of the day listening to me screaming, “Not so high.  Come down a few branches.”

     I know Kibbim has to climb trees now when he’s eight so he doesn’t drink alcohol and speed when he is 18.

     “Don’t climb the arterial branches.  Stay on the central, thick ones.”

     On the weekend, I was eating lunch on the veranda with Nicola and Frances and there were four boys in the tree. Query: a quarter brain? I kept trying to divert my eyes until I saw Kibby at the top speaking into a walkie-talkie. 

     “Get out right now,” I screamed. 

     He appeared to skip onto another branch and whoosh, disappear as the branch dropped under his sudden weight.  I was certain he’d fallen ten metres to the ground only I couldn’t see behind the massive trunk.

     “Where’s Kibby?”  I jumped up.  “Kibbim, come here right now.  I’ve had it with you climbing.”

     At that point, a piece of chick pea lodged in my bronchi and I coughed and coughed and tried to scream at Kibby to “ca.. here righ… …ow.”  I motioned for water.

     Only when he was making his way from the great height and I had hoiked up the offending piece of chick pea could I speak.  “Well, I can’t choke and scream at the same time.”

     Kibbim made it to the veranda and spoke to the walkie-talkie.  “On the veranda.  Roger.”

     I crushed him to my chest and said, “don’t climb trees while holding anything and I love you dearly and I know you have to climb trees so he you don’t drink and drive and take drugs when you’re 18 , but no walkie-talkie in the mango tree.”

     He looked at me, half-confused, half-smiling. 

     “You need two hands free so you can hold on,” I said.

     He laughed and said, “But Mum, how can I hold the mangoes I pick.”

     “Don't pick mangoes,” I said.  “We’ll buy them.” 
     That's not the end.  Minutes after, I looked up and the wongai tree was swarming with the four boys and two girls.
     "They're in the wongai tree now, look," I said, panicked to Frances and Nicola.
     "Don't worry," said Frances, "wongai trees have so many branches if you fall, you land on a branch."
     "Oh, lovely," I said, "and just cleave a liver in two or crush a kidney to pulp."