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Tuesday 6th Dec 2011 22:26:01
Empathy
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. . . bit of background here, although one of my recurring themes is 'where do I begin?' We have to draw the line somewhere. So . . . my starting point is A******, when he attended nursery. During the days when A****** attended nursery, I took him there, dropped him off, picked him up for lunch, dropped him off again, picked him up later. Blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. I would drop him off, we would say our goodbyes, and that was that until the end of the day. Now fast forward to A****** starting at school. Similar thing: I drop A****** off at school, say goodbye and then M**** picks him up at the end of the day. After dropping A****** off at school, I then drop off R****** at nursery. We fast forward to the present day. Little ritual R****** and I have developed (only recently) - I will wave goodbye to R****** once outside of nursery, heading back to work. R****** also attaches great importance to saying goodbye to A******, giving him a kiss and cuddle on those school days when R****** stays at home with M****. You get the idea. However, today something went wrong. After lunch, I dropped R****** off at nursery, said goodbye, gave him a kiss, gave him a cuddle and then left. Of course, usually, I would then wave goodbye once out of nursery. However today, perhaps on account of the weather (wet), the nursery windows were all full of condensation, so I couldn't even see R******. He probably couldn't see me. So I didn't wave. I didn't even know he was there waving. Was he? So yeah . . . that was my first mistake. Emma (one of the nursery staff) told M**** that R****** had been most upset this afternoon, on account of naughty daddy not waving to R******. So anyway . . . M**** recounted this story during dinner time, perhaps not the whole story but just the bit about me not waving to R******. And then A****** was like, "That makes me really sad," and he looked really upset and M**** was like, "Arrr, come here." And, yes, it kinda hit me - empathy is not something easily learnt and/or understood, but, clearly, A****** seems to be getting his head around the concept. My worry (expectation?!) is that he has far more empathy then, erm, one of his parents could ever have.
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