My 5 year old son asked me to teach him how to play soccer. It’s a sport I hate but I decided to please him and even watched a game with him. But I’m afraid he won’t learn much from me: maybe it is better if I entrust him to the fan uncle? – Luke
Last summer I was walking fast through the center of Rome with a colleague, we were late for a business appointment. While I was looking at the phone to check the route, she looked at me and said: “Claudio, are you wearing makeup?”. Sometimes being a parent means finding yourself in situations that are difficult to justify.
That moment reminded me of the incipit of But how does he do it all, the hilarious novel about mothers multitasking by Allison Pearson: “How did I get to this point? Can anyone explain it to me please? No, I don’t mean in this kitchen, but in this life. It’s the morning of the Christmas play and I’m mashing Christmas treats. Actually, no: I’m making them ugly, which is a much more complex procedure ”. Kate, the protagonist, had bought some packaged treats and was making them imperfect to pretend she had homemade them, as she had undertaken to do.
I found myself in a similar situation: my twelve-year-old daughter had asked me how to put a pencil on her eyes and I had decided to learn with her. Then forgetting to remove my make-up. Kate is not a mom who cooks, I am not a dad who wears makeup and you are not a dad who plays football. But each of us does what we can and, despite the uncertain results, what matters is the desperate love with which we try.
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