before. May I ask, Shatzner said, if there are any problems I should know about at home? In the marriage, perhaps? It was all I could take. I grabbed the wooden Pinocchio marionette down off the shelf and shouted for you. You came inside, lumbering up the steps with dirt on your knees, and stood watching while I made the Pinocchio dance and sing then trip and fall on his face. Every time I made him collapse, you howled with laughter. Enough, your mother said, putting her hand on my arm, Iâm sure Mr. Shatzner realizes our little Dovi isnât always so serious. But I kept going, making you laugh so hard that you wet your pants, and then I crushed the balding psychologistâs hand in mine, told him he was welcome to snoop around for as long as he liked, but that I had more important things to do. I left the house, slamming the door behind me.
Your mother couldnât drop the matter so easily. Even a whiff of the suggestion that she was somehow doing something wrong as a mother wracked her with guilt. She beat herself up over it and tried to figure out where she had gone wrong. She put herself under the psychologistâs tutelage, and listened once a week while he explained to her what heâd gleaned from his sessions with you that continued at the school, and instructed her on how to assuage some of yourâdifficulties.â He developed a strategy, and laid down a set of rules that your mother clung to about how we should and shouldnât behave with you. He even gave her his number at home, and when she was unsure of how to apply one of his rules, or what the proper reaction was to some fit of yours, she would dial him up, no matter the hour of the morning or night, and explain the problem in a low, serious tone, then listen to his response in silence, nodding grievously. Mr. Shatzner said we shouldnât do that, she would say to me as soon as you left the room, Mr. Shatzner said we should let him do this, Mr. Shatzner said we should stand on our heads, bite our tongues, turn in circles, Mr. Shatzner, Mr. Shatzner, Mr. Shatzner, until finally I blew up at her and said I never wanted to hear that name in our house again, that I knew how to raise my own child, what did he think it was, a game of Scrabble or Monopoly, there are no rules, was she so blind that she couldnât see that all that mental midget had done was turn her into a nervous wreck, full of doubt about something that had come naturally to her from the beginning, something any idiot could see, which was that she was a wonderful mother, full of love and patience? Heâs five years old, for Godâs sake, I shouted, if you treat him like a special case then thatâs what heâll always be. Have you seen any improvement at all since you started with this clown? No. Who is he to suddenly be offering himself as a source of wisdom on human behavior? You think that little prick knows better than us, than you and me? A silence passed between us. But he is a special case, she said quietly. He has always been.
Eventually she caved in. The sessions were stopped, and you wriggled out from under Shatznerâs watch like a little animal set free who goes immediately to hide in the underbrush. But the whole experience set a certain tone. Your mother continued to hover and worry, to rigorously put every one of your moods, episodes, and tantrums through a little gauntlet of analysis, searching for a clue to your hurt and our role in it. This self-lacerating attitude drove me crazy, almost as much as your crying and carrying on. One night,in the middle of you throwing a fit about the bathwater not reaching exactly the level you liked, I grabbed you from under your arms and held you naked and dripping above the floor. When I was your age, I shouted, shaking you so hard your head wobbled sickeningly on your neck, there was nothing to eat, and no money for toys, the house was always cold, but we went outside and played and made games out of
Your mother couldnât drop the matter so easily. Even a whiff of the suggestion that she was somehow doing something wrong as a mother wracked her with guilt. She beat herself up over it and tried to figure out where she had gone wrong. She put herself under the psychologistâs tutelage, and listened once a week while he explained to her what heâd gleaned from his sessions with you that continued at the school, and instructed her on how to assuage some of yourâdifficulties.â He developed a strategy, and laid down a set of rules that your mother clung to about how we should and shouldnât behave with you. He even gave her his number at home, and when she was unsure of how to apply one of his rules, or what the proper reaction was to some fit of yours, she would dial him up, no matter the hour of the morning or night, and explain the problem in a low, serious tone, then listen to his response in silence, nodding grievously. Mr. Shatzner said we shouldnât do that, she would say to me as soon as you left the room, Mr. Shatzner said we should let him do this, Mr. Shatzner said we should stand on our heads, bite our tongues, turn in circles, Mr. Shatzner, Mr. Shatzner, Mr. Shatzner, until finally I blew up at her and said I never wanted to hear that name in our house again, that I knew how to raise my own child, what did he think it was, a game of Scrabble or Monopoly, there are no rules, was she so blind that she couldnât see that all that mental midget had done was turn her into a nervous wreck, full of doubt about something that had come naturally to her from the beginning, something any idiot could see, which was that she was a wonderful mother, full of love and patience? Heâs five years old, for Godâs sake, I shouted, if you treat him like a special case then thatâs what heâll always be. Have you seen any improvement at all since you started with this clown? No. Who is he to suddenly be offering himself as a source of wisdom on human behavior? You think that little prick knows better than us, than you and me? A silence passed between us. But he is a special case, she said quietly. He has always been.
Eventually she caved in. The sessions were stopped, and you wriggled out from under Shatznerâs watch like a little animal set free who goes immediately to hide in the underbrush. But the whole experience set a certain tone. Your mother continued to hover and worry, to rigorously put every one of your moods, episodes, and tantrums through a little gauntlet of analysis, searching for a clue to your hurt and our role in it. This self-lacerating attitude drove me crazy, almost as much as your crying and carrying on. One night,in the middle of you throwing a fit about the bathwater not reaching exactly the level you liked, I grabbed you from under your arms and held you naked and dripping above the floor. When I was your age, I shouted, shaking you so hard your head wobbled sickeningly on your neck, there was nothing to eat, and no money for toys, the house was always cold, but we went outside and played and made games out of
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