MER-neu-VIN-ing

Says the rude child: "No, I won't do it." Says the courteous grown-up: "Yes, I won't do it." ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

I looked everywhere for Mervin among the herds of students rushing out of the school gate. He was nowhere in sight. I felt my heart sinking when almost all the kids had gone and he still hadn’t appeared. Did I miss him?

I walked to the other gate to check it out. He wasn’t there. When I made my way back to the previous gate again, I spotted his hunched figure walking out of the gate.

My heart soared. I approached him with a glad grin across my face.

My heart sank deeper, however, when I caught sight of his Chinese teacher tagging behind him. The grin on my face froze while I greeted the teacher.

“I’m sorry, Mrs Yap, but I had to talk to you about Mervin’s recent behaviour.”

Oh no. The day I had dreaded had finally dawned upon me.

“As usual, Mervin had been disturbing the class during my lesson with his chatters. But today, when I asked him to sit at the front row, he refused brusquely. When I approached him to pull him to the front, he threw his pen on the ground in protest!”

Oh my God. Oh my God.

“He’s been retorting fiercely lately too. Whenever I asked him to keep quiet or stop playing, he’d answer back rudely. When I asked him if there’s anything wrong that he wanted to discuss with me, he replied with a crude “no”.”

Oh God.

“Today’s the last straw when he threw his tantrum in class. When I told him that I’ll talk to you, he threw me a curt “whatever”. I had wanted to give him a chance and had asked him again while on our way out here, if he had anything else to tell me. And his reply was a nonchalant “nothing”. I was rather taken aback considering the fact that his behaviour had only taken a drastic turn after the school holiday.”

God…

“I can tell that Mervin was still a good boy at heart. But his attitude seriously needs a change.”

I cast a look at the figure silently sobbing with his head down. I turned to the teacher with an apologetic look on my face, and apologize profusely,

“I’m really sorry, teacher. I am well aware of his ill-temper all along but had not expected him to have such an uncouth outburst. I sincerely seek your forgiveness for all his inappropriate behaviour. I’ll seriously talk to him when we get home.”

We left the school compound with lead weighing on our hearts.

The sleepiness I had felt while waiting for the kids to be dismissed from school was then replaced with extreme fatigue. Angry tears threatening to spill out of the rims of my eyes but I fought them.

I decided to bring them to the McDonald’s as planned. No way were the other two kids going to suffer for the mistake of one.

No words were exchanged during the journey.

Rachel tried livening things up a bit by telling the few “interesting” things she could come up with but was cut back into silence when I couldn’t choke out a laugh.

It was the quietest dinner I had ever.

Nearing the end of the dinner, Mervin broke the silence.

“Mummy, I am sorry.”

With these mere four words, fresh tears filled my eyes again. I had to lower my head and discreetly dabbed at the corner of my eye.

The kids finished their dinner without another word and headed home.

Along the way, I prayed for strength to endure the torment, wisdom to say the right thing and love to overcome all. I had to debate within myself which approach to use when we reach home. Talk to him nicely or punish him severely.

I was thankful for the long walk home. As we reached home, me head had cleared enough to be able to hold a calm heart-to-heart talk with Mervin. I respected his privacy by doing it behind closed doors.

My worst doubts were cleared after the long talk and painstaking advices I rendered. Apparently, the whole catastrophe began soon after he changed his seat to the one beside two girls. These two girls had been delivering vulgar insults to him unfailingly for the past two months. They taunted him with name-callings and even ransacked his bag when he was away from his desk.

I was so glad that he had good reasons to flare. But no matter what, it was still wrong of him to be rude and disrespectful to his teacher. Punishment still had to be meted out for his offensiveness and he had to learn to manage his anger more effectively.

I encouraged him to talk to his teacher if the girls tried to give him any problems again. And I told him that the best way to deal with this type of people is to ignore them, instead of stooping to their level. Nonetheless, I’ll find a time to sit down with his teacher to clarify the matter.

I’m feeling so hollow within me now. It’s so distressing to know that kids nowadays are forced to grow up much sooner as they intended. As if the mind-boggling education is insufficient for their little minds, they had to deal with outrageous behaviours with incredible etiquettes.

Heartbreaking.