Emmigration Fears: Playgrounds

One of the problems our new 2 + epsilon body problem faces is the fact that I do not speak the language in my new academic home, while my partner does in his. This is not a problem for the actual job part of my new situation, since all academic (and most bureaucratic) business at University F is conducted in English, or at least bilingually. This will pose a problem in terms of my going out and meeting people. (This is fine, since I'm dead set against forming any social life or growing any emotional attachment to my new city.)

My lack of linguistic compatibility was one of the driving factors to have Epsilon live with his father. And over the past 4 months, since we've made that decision, the following conversation has been very common:

"How well do you speak City Language (CL)?"
"Not at all."
"How are you planning to learn CL?"
"I'm not."
"But surely, you'll pick it up from Epsilon."
"Epsilon's not going to live with me."
"Why ever not?"
"I don't particularly feel like single parenting where I don't speak the language."
Insert variation on how hard can it be.

The last two weeks, my partner and I have attended conferences at countries where we do not speak the language. While one parent attends talks, the other visits interesting parks and beaches. In general, it's been a very nice experience.

There's a but. Otherwise, why the setup?

How do you tell a 5 year old not to throw sand in your son's eyes when you don't know the word for sand, or son, or child, or eye. How do you tell a kid to share if you don't know the word for share. How do you have small talk with the other parents at the playground (because really, watching your kid go "wheee" down a slide is only interesting the first 5 times he does it) when you don't know much beyond hello, thank you, please, and excuse me. Playgrounds for these last two weeks have been an extremely isolating, disempowering and humiliating experience.

There are many linguistic difficulties with single parenting. I think I believe that for most of the really essential ones,  (the doctor, the pharmacist, the day care providers) I can get by with English. But there is so much more to parenting than that. I've been citing playground interactions as an example of why single parenting in a foreign tongue may be a challenge. At this point I can sadly declare that my fears were correct, spitefully tell my nay sayers to go fuck someone until they have a kid and do it themselves, and confindently know that I've made the right decision for everyone who matters.

Turning a corner

I think Epsilon has finally turned a corner in how he's dealing with his father's absence. For the first 3.5 weeks, he didn't quite know what to make of the fact that his father was now living in the computer screen. When my partner would play fun games with him via his camera software and skype, Epsilon would sometimes engage, but more often than not, he didn't want his father on the computer. He'd completely ignore him, sometimes even power the computer down. Epsilon even told me that skyping with his father made him sad.

We did our best to work with him, and my partner eventually said that he didn't want to force a skype session on Epsilon, because he want him to develop bad associations with our "family" time. I spoke with a friend of mine, O., who frequently travels for long periods away from his wife and kids. He was sympathetic to my partner's situation, and told me to hang in there. His oldest child went through similar behaviour at Epsilon's age, but eventually got over it. Pessimist that I am, I didn't believe him, but soldiered on.

Last weekend, something clicked in Epsilon's little brain. He started foregoing bed time stories with pictures for stories about his father. And he actually wanted to spend time on skype with him. He now sits in my lap and looks at the computer when the adults are talking, and will even wave his hands in the direction of the computer in an attempt to pat his father's face. This is a definite phase shift. I hope it is permanent. It makes my days so much less sad.

Balance

If you read my blog roll, you'll find regular posts by (usually female) bloggers talking about the problem of overcommitment, either struggling under the situations they find themselves in, or celebrating the fact that they were able to set up and enforce their boundaries properly. I read this posts with sympathy, knowing that I would have similar difficulties but for my partner's strong caution against my volunteering to do things I don't have to do.

My partner has been gone 20 days. Today is my turn to write such a post.

When my family numbers 3, or when one of us is commuting in for the weekend, Saturdays and Sundays are a whole lot of fun. The days are spent outdoors, except when the weather is absolutely miserable, or someone is sick. Even then, we make an effort to get out of the house and go some place fun. This is partially because Epsilon really enjoys it, and has come to expect it, but also because we, the adults, need the stress release.

With two parents, having one or two planned fun activities per weekend days is reasonable. We share the physical play, so that neither of us is left too tired afterwards. I'm starting to realize that this is not a sustainable plan for one parent. Playing hard with Epsilon leaves me exhausted and unable to focus on work at the start of the week.

I feel like a overachieving undergrad with bad study skills:
But I want to drink all night long AND do well in my classes.

Some things are just not possible to pair, at least until I become physically stronger. At the same time, both Epsilon and I have had to give up a lot of little pleasures these past few weeks, and I need to be careful not to give up too much.