Slowly his grades have deteriorated. Individual teachers have been emailing me, making sure I’m aware of what’s happening.After his July exam results we had a long chat and he agreed to try to catch up at weekends. Now he’s out all day Saturday with his mates and comes home late. Or on other weekends, he goes to a friend’s house after school on Friday and stays the night. After his July exam results we had a long chat and he agreed to try to catch up at weekends. Now he's out all day Saturday with his mates and comes home lateSometimes he even stays on Saturday night too, coming home mid-afternoon on Sunday. I’m losing my son, and have no control. If I ban him from going out, he just climbs out of the window. For many years he’s had piano lessons. He earns pocket money playing in residential homes (where previously he played as a volunteer), but recently he’s resented the time it takes to earn his own spending money and prefers to be broke. I sat in on last week’s piano lesson, and the tutor said that we might as well call it a day because he’s not practising. He’s at grade 7 and loves music, but has no time to practise as he’s never in. I have tried everything to encourage him to catch up with his work in time for his GCSEs in May — but while he agrees with everything I say, he does nothing about it. I do everything to help his revision: writing out flash cards, bite-size revision books, other revision aids — all ignored. His girlfriend is doing very well with excellent grades, but tells him she must see him more, so any agreement we make is brushed aside for her. He attends a very good grammar school and all his teachers say he’s wasting his potential. At this rate he won’t be accepted into sixth form. Believe me when I say I’ve tried everything to make him realise how important this school time is. I’ve bribed, pleaded and finally tried to take away all his gadgets, phones and computers in order that he’s not distracted at home. My husband tries to be supportive, but his attitude is that we cannot MAKE him work, and he’ll be the maker of his own destiny. All very well, but can I really stand by and watch a promising future slip through his fingers? This romance won’t last and she’ll be off to university, whereas my son will not even have GCSEs. What can I do?ELIZABETH More from Bel Mooney... BEL MOONEY: Even when I beg, my husband refuses to have sex with me 01/06/13 BEL MOONEY: Should I let my drunken, vicious ex-lover be a father to our baby? 24/05/13 BEL MOONEY: Should I boycott my mother's wedding to this ghastly gold-digger? 17/05/13 BEL MOONEY: Can I cure loneliness by selling up to be near my new love? 11/05/13 BEL MOONEY: I'm crying out for love but can't escape this black hole of despair 03/05/13 BEL MOONEY: We haven't had sex for 19 years but I can't escape my cheating husband... 26/04/13 BEL MOONEY: I've nursed my husband through cancer but now I want to leave 19/04/13 BEL MOONEY: I'm in love for the first time but not with my husband... 12/04/13 BEL MOONEY: I feel guilty my son is in nursery all week so I can work 05/04/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE Ah, it’s as if my life were passing before my eyes . . . All those revision timetables, the painstaking covering of ring files, the encouraging notes in strategic places, the English texts marked up in pencil, the testing at the kitchen table . . .
Oh yes, and the disappointment, the sleepless nights, the tears, the nagging, the bribes, the disbelief.
And the bloody frustration and exhaustion which forms a large part of being the mother of any creature over 12 and under 20. Not the whole part — just too much of it.
You’ll gather I feel great sympathy but you may not like what I have to say. STOP! I’d love to give you a round-the-world ticket for two, so that you could leave this boy for at least two years (maybe three) to let him get on with it.
Even though as a mother I can feel your worries as my own, all my accumulated common sense says your husband is quite right.
You’ve spent far too much energy whipping your recalcitrant little pony to the water’s edge, and if he just stands there, digging in his hooves, shaking his shaggy mane and refusing to drink, what can you do? Apples? Sticks? Sugar lumps? Kicks? I’m imagining what would happen if you just walked away. I bet he’d end up bending his head to the water.
But one or two things in your letter need picking up. You express moral outrage, as well as shock, at discovering that your little boy is subject to raging hormones.
I agree with you that 14 is young to be in a sexual relationship, but we have to face reality — and at least he and his girlfriend are serious about each other.
It sounds as if he knows quite well how to wind you up — hence his likening of himself and his beloved to rampant bunnies.
I wonder if you are over-doing the pursed-lip outrage, one year on, at his normal teenage behaviour — both with her and with his friends. This makes you vulnerable, you know. Teens need you to be tough.
Perhaps you should relax on all fronts. It wouldn’t be amiss for you to have a chat to the girlfriend’s parents, but surely it would be better to encounter her (somehow or other) and try to get her worried about the boy she loves.
She should care about his work; if she doesn’t she’s being selfish — but you wouldn’t say that. Surely you could appeal, woman to woman, to her influence over him?
Beyond that — no more sitting in on piano lessons, no more flash cards, no more bribes. Make a timetable for computer access, suggest he gives up piano (he may then decide not to), and try a little generalised shrugging.
Some kids mess up but return to education later in life, some become happy gaining practical skills, some waste their God-given chances forever — and it’s almost unbearable for parents to stand by and watch.
But if you stop watching, maybe he’ll decide for himself that ultimately his girl won’t love a loser.
My world’s fallen apart since we emigratedDEAR BEL I moved to Mexico with my partner four months ago and our relationship has suffered. I sacrificed opportunities at home to support him in a great new job, and now find myself with no job, no savings, no friends — and my father is extremely ill with cancer at home.My relationship is falling apart and I’m bored, but my partner feels that I should be happy because everything’s paid for. I’ve tried desperately to make friends but the language barrier and culture makes it difficult.I spend all day cleaning, tidying, washing, cooking — waiting for him to finish work. Then I wait on him hand and foot and try to relieve him of the stress at work. I’m so unhappy here and his selfishness is creating huge problems. I have packed my bags to leave at least twice and I don’t know what to do. He doesn’t ask about my father and just brushes off my feelings. We were together for two years before Mexico, and he never behaved like this. He’s told me that if I’m still unhappy in 18 months he will ask for a transfer, but not before. I sway back and forth between leaving and staying, because I can’t afford to go at the moment, because it’s hard to accept that the last four months have been a total waste of time and because of all the money I have spent coming out. Last week a woman who knows us was really flirting with him, suggesting they have a threesome with her prostitute friend. He declined and told me straight away, but also told me I was thinking too much about the situation — basically putting me down. This man is undermining my confidence at every turn, but I keep hoping things will revert back to how they were. I’m too embarrassed to confide in friends and family overseas, so need advice.ROSETo make such a big international move with your partner showed great courage as well as devotion, and I assume you didn’t expect it to be easy. But you did have a right to understanding and support from the man whose life you have chosen to share. Given that you have a company apartment (as your longer letter explains) and that he pays for everything, it puts you in an invidious position: totally dependent, without the status of being his wife which, in a society like that, counts for a lot. You tell me you hope to get a job, and it’s obvious that this would improve things for you. Obviously I have no idea of your employment prospects, but surely it would be better to teach English part-time than to skulk around the flat, bored out of your skull with domesticity? And are you learning the language? Four months isn’t a long time, and I can understand why he believes that the best part of two years is a better gauge of whether or not a new life is working. But let’s face up to the actual trigger for this letter: your jealousy because of this woman’s sexual suggestions. You actually tell me at length how you ‘de-friended’ her on Facebook and felt he should do the same, even though he works with her. It sounds to me as if your anger, jealousy and insecurity (after all, he works with her) are helping to cast your whole Mexican experience in this negative light. I agree with you that it’s too soon to give up. You say your partner brushes your feelings aside, so perhaps it’s time to cut out this ‘waiting on him hand and foot’ malarkey. Maybe he liked you better when you had your own life; perhaps, deep down, he doesn’t want a doormat at home — and that’s why he’s changed. It’s time for you both to re-examine your life together on every level. Can you travel to a wonderful destination for a long weekend, to talk this through? If life in Mexico to date has been all about stress and settling in, you need a break to contemplate some of the wonders of the culture and to consider your place in it, as well as your life together. You could find a job and end up being very happy there. Or not. But it’s surely worth more of a try. I also think that your father needs you and so, if he cares for you, your partner should help you book the cheapest possible flight home in a couple of months time, to visit Dad. If you arrive home and realise that you never want to see another enchilada in your life . . . well, your future may fall into place. And you may decide never to sacrifice your own opportunities for a man ever again. And finally... A play that gave me the shiversHave you ever had an experience in the theatre which makes you shiver? I don’t mean the thrill of seeing a favourite star, or of bopping in your seat to a fun musical like The Blues Brothers; no, I’m talking about real theatre, which is available to so many people the length and breadth of the land, usually for a fraction of the cost of a big match or rock concert ticket.
And where does the shiver come from? Art — that’s where. In other words, witnessing and giving your mind and heart to a living play which suddenly offers you an insight into the human condition, leaving you transformed.
TROUBLED? WRITE TO BELBel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week.
Write to: Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, or e-mail bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk.
A pseudonym will be used if you wish.
Bel reads all letters, but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.
This isn’t a theatre column (I leave that to my inestimable colleague Quentin Letts) but it is concerned with human relationships — and that’s what a brilliant play now on tour tells us about.
At the Theatre Royal Bath, we were blown away by the utterly brilliant Lenny Henry in August Wilson’s Fences.
If you can catch it on tour (Richmond, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Mold, Malvern, Cambridge) do not miss it. August Wilson’s plays are about the African-American experience in Philadelphia post-war, and this all-black cast does him proud. Lenny has become a brilliant actor and Tanya Moodie is superb as his wife Rose.
Tomorrow is Mothering Sunday and the character of Rose reminds us yet again that mothers are the glue of the universe — women from so many cultures holding the family together in the face of multiple difficulties.
Her husband, Troy, is lovable but damaged, and bullies his sons as horribly as he was bullied by his own father.
Racism in sport has broken his spirit and left him bitter — but that’s no excuse for how he behaves to his family.
There are always consequences for actions, a price to be paid for weakness — which is the lesson learnt by many people who write to this column.
Troy’s long-suffering wife is strong and patient in a love far more powerful than the worst of his behaviour. Her head held high, she forgives. Which is a message that sits well on these pages.