Not long ago (sometime in the last two months) Helen and I
sat down to watch a movie on our couch, which, despite a few pauses for the odd
unhappy noise from the nursery (if I recall, mercifully placated by the return
of a dummy to a mouth), we rather enjoyed. In one scene in the movie, a man is
telling his friend, “when you [as a couple] get pregnant, everyone says, ‘oh
this is great, it’s the best thing you’ll ever do’, but then when the baby is
born and those people come to see you, they all say, ‘don’t worry, it gets
better, you’ll be ok again…’” Helen and I looked at each other and laughed.
Having a child is certainly filled with joys and laughter - Calvin is a very
happy, sociable, and generally sweet-natured fellow. But I can’t think of
anything else that changes your life, your sense of freedom, or your available
free time and what it means to you, as much as having a child. Once upon a time
we could, if we so wished, suddenly decide to go to the movies, or stay out
later than we’d expected for one more drink with a friend, or just spend the
entire day on a Sunday on the sofa-bed watching a good tv series or movies -
never bothering to get out of our pj’s. A friend of mine advised me to simply
put a big red line through an entire year of my calendar after Calvin was born,
and it certainly hasn’t been that bad, but it’s been totally and utterly
different.
We luckily have not been too sleep-deprived by the standards
of these things, but a baby is still a stern test of your relationship with
each other as a couple. What might once have been a minor misunderstanding can
cause considerably more frustration and even annoyance with each other when a
third person howls at the top of their lungs in a demonstration of their lack
of faith in the decision you have made and has already been awake for far
longer that evening than they should, especially when this little person is not
the only one feeling tired and irritable. And certainly there has been at least
one occasion in the evening when I was so keen for Calvin to fall asleep and so
focused on trying to get him to that state, that I literally did not hear Helen
speaking to me even though she swears blind that she was under the impression
that I understood I was part of a dialogue. Being a modern dad seems a curious
predicament, where we spend more time with our kids and are much more directly
involved in feeding, nappies, and even general child-minding than was typically
the case in previous generations (as far as I can gather) but we still seem to
be by default, the person who does things the stupid way, or who lacks the
patience to be a truly capable child-carer (I know I certainly lack the
patience at times and have been told in no uncertain terms that one may not
become aggravated and call people who can’t speak yet, mean names, however
accurate it may be to describe someone as Mr Grumpy Shitty Pants, or worse!) In
fact, this feeling that you are a champion for managing to do stuff you don’t
think dads used to do, and then discovering that you are still a chump because
you don’t do them right, seems to be a common theme of the age, as I discovered
in Michael Lewis’ highly entertaining but also at times excruciatingly accurate
depiction of modern fatherhood in “Home Game” which I recently read. Luckily,
Helen and I still manage at times to leave Calvin with a baby-sitter, or even a
kind set of grandparents, and to get out and make the time to invest in our own
relationship too, and even to feel like normal, sociable adults once in a
while. We have also tried to invite friends round to our place for a few drinks
and food on Friday nights, in order to make sure that we get to see people and
have a periscope into the outside world.
Lest I sound ungrateful, I am very much aware that our lives
continue to be more adventure-filled than many. In August we flew to the UK. I
departed with 10 month old Calvin solo a few days before Helen was able to join
us - which was a ‘delightful’ 10.5 hours in which for the first 3 hours Calvin
tried to climb over me bodily, then fell into fitful slumber interrupted by the
insistence of the flight crew that every time there was even slight turbulence,
I remove him from his sleeping seat on the bulk-head in front of me (thereby
waking him up) and seatbelt him onto my lap (whereupon he resumed wriggling
unhappily and yowling until returned to the chair, in which he seemed much more
securely fastened in the first place). International air travel is designed, as
so many things today are, with lawsuits rather than customer convenience in
mind, it seems. The idea was that Calvin would get used to my mother again and
thereby be happy to be looked after her at times, so that Helen and I could
have a bit of time to ourselves during the holiday. Unfortunately my mother was
quite unwell, so by the time Helen arrived, my mother was quite worn out from
helping me to look after Calvin! After a few more days in London, during which
time I managed to get a traffic violation fine for the third year in a row (for
using a bus lane that was not in any way clearly marked as in force on a
Sunday! Grrr!) we made our way to Ile-de-Re in France, where my brother and
Romain got married. Although at times it was a slightly chaotic experience
(made worse by my utter lack of ability in French), the whole series of
celebrations including the wedding itself was a fantastic event and a great
opportunity to meet and get to know some more of Romain’s family and also to
see family and friends who had travelled from many different corners of the
world to be there.
At times I muse over the philosophy of Lee Child’s
Jack Reacher, who buys a new set of clothes every 3 days - arguing that while
$30 or $10 per day might seem expensive, it really isn’t if you stay in a $30
per night motel, rather than buying a $400 washing machine, a $400 dryer, and
probably at least $100 000 house with the basement to keep those machines
in, never mind insurance, repairs, maintenance, etc. And my experience in this
last year has certainly been that keeping a house maintained takes both time
and money. But we have very much enjoyed living in our home and gradually
picking up bits of furnishings, carpets, art, etc. to make the place our own.
That being said, one of my stresses this year was the decision of our
neighbours directly in front of us to simply build a second storey directly in
front of our house, and to be extremely evasive about the nature of their
building plans. After much aggravation and even the involvement of a lawyer and
some rather threatening letters, we finally got to see the building plans and
managed to negotiate their reducing somewhat the number and size of windows
planned to directly overlook our main garden and veranda area, although we are
still planning to add a few trees along our boundary wall to screen us off from
these neighbours, only we hope these won’t too badly affect the lovely sunlight
we get in our bedroom windows and garden. “First World Problems” to be sure,
but for a while a source of a great deal of stress and anxiety. Our neighbours,
a rather difficult Pakistani-British woman who seems to be abroad whenever the
building work she is apparently directly supervising becomes particularly
intrusive or noisy, and her husband, an obstinate Belgian who travels a lot for
work and at other times works until 3am, have however insisted on retaining a
large study window directly overlooking our main garden and veranda as well as
bedrooms, so if I catch him looking out of his window on a Sunday afternoon
before our trees have grown up enough, I shall most likely moon him as a show
of my sense of endearment toward them both.
One of my struggles at work this year has been the battle
over the standard to which we should mark our boys’ writing. New teachers tend
by reputation to be somewhat strict, but my head of department has consistently
felt that I am too harsh, and has subjected me to particularly close scrutiny
when it has been my task to mark an essay or assignment of any substance across
all the boys in the various classes of one of the senior grades. To help my
understanding of what expectations should be in marking, I spent my first week
of December marking the Independent Schools final leavers History exams. What I
saw was frequently essays of a fairly poor quality, in which once or twice the
question set was referred to in the essay, or in which a limited portion of
relevant facts was brought to bear on the question, which were given a minimum
of 50%, and many quite weak efforts received much more than this. The marking
process itself was very rigorous, with each essay marked twice by two different
markers who then discuss their marks, particularly where any discrepancies
arise, and then reviewed by a senior marker who acts as arbiter of any major
differences that could not be agreed on. But the underlying baseline of marks,
which was set by the senior markers, encouraged a very forgiving stance in many
cases. This is on one level understandable, as the government pressures
universities here not distinguish in their admissions between private and
government school marks obtained in final examinations, so that the independent
schools, while setting their own more rigorous aspects of the curriculum and
exams, and having their own marking processes, have to keep themselves at a
level comparable or at least in some way correlated with government school standards
otherwise they actually disadvantage their students in university applications.
My hope is that over time this will become untenable and either independent
schools will have to break away completely or they will need to adopt an
international syllabus such as the International Baccalaureate - with a
corresponding need then for increased awareness of universities of the much
higher requirements that a program like this has - which should result in some
kind of credits for students when they arrive at university.
More worrying for me was the general quality of the
spelling, grammar, and use of language that I saw. Yes, South Africa has a
heritage of a number of different languages being spoken across the country,
but in our quest not to penalise candidates for their possibly being second
language learners (and this is impossible to discern from numbered examination
scripts) it seems that we have ended up allowing students to at times almost
wholly ignore the basic principles of good writing and expression. This
resonates a great deal with my own experience at my school, where increasing
use of electronic devices means that many boys no longer seem to read at all,
and it appears that even those who have been privileged to come from our own
private primary school, rather than a potentially under-resourced government
school, are no longer being required to master the basics of language and
writing. It is hard at times to tell whether this is a case of lack of knowledge,
or simple laziness, as when questioned in class boys often know the underlying
principle or the correct spelling, they just haven’t bothered to apply it. I
question whether perhaps some of their teachers are themselves not necessarily
capable enough to set the standard, and also if maybe creativity and ‘fun’ has
trumped the need for sound fundamentals in elementary learning. I know for
example of friends who work in professional organisations (consulting firms and
international law partnerships) who lament the seeming lack of fundamental
skills shown by graduates from universities - in some cases even the covering
letter accompanying the CV of a person with a postgraduate qualification,
simply contains too many basic errors to be taken seriously. And certainly my
experience at university here in South Africa was that it was not (and should
not really be) the remit of university lecturers to correct basic spelling,
grammar and punctuation. There is now an itch in the back of my mind around how
to address this issue, and what to do to help challenge the increasing
complacency of youth towards the basic ‘hygiene’ of language.
I have been promised
a great deal more control over the Grade 9 syllabus for History in this coming
year, and will be teaching 4 classes of Grade 9s as well as one class of Grade
12s. Certainly my marking experience has helped me a great deal to understand
more about what I need to do to help my Grade 12 students in preparation for
their final exams. But it is also clear to me that my head of department is
doing his best to separate me from him in teaching matters (the other 2 grade 9
classes will be taught be another colleague in our department), which is
perhaps a sad indication of the weakness of my relationship with the head of
department, despite my best efforts to be courteous, but not to back down when
he has attempted to simply ignore my requests for more input and control over
our syllabus and teaching methods. I am looking forward to seeing what happens
with my attempts to somewhat rejuvenate and enliven the Grade 9 materials,
while also now thinking that I’d like to add a sharper edge in terms of
language use and application. In addition, as a different challenge, I will
also be teaching a Grade 10 Business Studies class - and my review of the
textbook indicates that the backbone of the syllabus is quite dry and
rote-learning based, so it will be up to us as teachers to enliven this by
relating it to current affairs and contemporary examples of best or worst
practice. It will also be interesting to be a part of a different department
and to see how they do things too.
I am not always convinced that teaching is the right choice
for me. Though the holidays are a great perk, unofficially many of the
half-term breaks are spent accompanying sports teams to tournaments, and during
term-time I am frequently working 7:30am to 5:30pm and also from 7am until 2pm
on a Saturday when it is basketball season and I am responsible for the entire
program of matches. If there is marking to be done this is often only possible
to fit in outside of these hours. I joke with Helen that I have done things the
wrong way round: I should have been a teacher when I was young and single and
would have travelled the world during the free time we get. Now that I have a
young family and most of the trips I would want to take are impractical, I
would be better off making a good deal more money working in a corporate role
where I wouldn’t have any more leave than my wife does! But who knows, if I
stick around, as Calvin gets older it could be a great opportunity to share in
things with him when he has holidays (even play schools, it seems, often only
operate during school terms). Education as an area of enterprise or policy still
interests me greatly, but once in a while the saying rings in my head “if
you’re the smartest person in the room, you are probably in the wrong room”.
Unfortunately, while there are certainly notable exceptions (including an
introverted genius in my Grade 12 class), in a room full of Grade 9 boys who
will turn 15 and for most of the year will be much too busy wrestling with the
desire for independence, despite being almost entirely unwilling to take
responsibility for their actions, to really spend much time learning things of
an academic nature, I do unfortunately tend to be the smartest person in the
room more by virtue of being rational than through any real intelligence. I
guess I still need to find a compromise between the isolation of being behind a
desk in front of spreadsheets or powerpoints which I found so alienating in
much of my corporate career, despite finding it stimulating being with
motivated and intelligent people, as opposed to being in constant communication
and to some extent even dialogue with young people who are however often very
mixed in their motives and willingness to be there. I do enjoy having to teach
myself in order to better teach others, and hope that whatever I do, I’ll keep
learning new things (maybe that’s why I change jobs so often (too often some
would say), so that I keep learning new stuff - although it has an annoying
tendency to see me back at the bottom of the ladder! :o)
The end of this year was particularly stressful here in
South Africa as some of you may be aware, as our esteemed (cough) President
unilaterally decided to fire the fairly well respected finance minister. Allegedly
this was as a result of the minister’s unwillingness to simply agree to bail
out badly run parastatal corporations or ill-advised and very likely highly
corrupt nuclear power procurement deals. What followed was an outcry among many
middle class citizens of various races, but unfortunately the longer-term
impact of the significant devaluation of our currency - which is likely to lead
to steep increases in basic goods costs - seems to be beyond the awareness of
the mass of South Africa’s population. I love my country, and there are many
aspects of living here that I enjoy, but I suppose what really defines us as a
developing country now is that we share many others countries’ uncertainty - we
are uncertain about the capability or motives of those leading and representing
the people, uncertain about the commitment of our own government and
institutions to democracy or honesty (as opposed to seemingly increasingly
rampant corruption), and uncertain about whether those of us with means and
some choice, should continue to commit our future to a country that does not
necessarily want or reward its valuable and productive citizens, but instead
seems to punish them for being successful. Apartheid’s legacy is a long and
dark shadow, and much more still needs to be done to right the ills of the
past, but at the same time we have to ensure that in doing so we don’t drive
away ordinary people living today who are simply doing their best to make a success
of themselves -and I include in this people of all races. The whole debacle
with the finance minister did however give me quite a jolt, and while I’m still
happy where I am, and fully aware that no other place is without its own
challenges, I certainly am of the belief that the next year or two will be
critical to South Africa’s future path and not yet entirely hopeful that the
right choices will be made.
Indeed, it has been a somewhat gloomy year when it comes to
trends and my general sense of well-being. The referees society continues to be
poorly run and yet despite my efforts, this seems to trouble very few of its
members. I have kicked up a fuss a few times now about many areas of poor
organisation or weak communication, but seemingly to no avail. It bothers me
though that if an organisation largely made up of relatively educated and
capable people (and I use the word relatively here, knowing how poor the
general level in our country is) sees no issue in poor conduct, then perhaps
this is a portent of how things are generally shaping up generally. Another
moment of gloom was of course a Springbok performance at the World Cup that was
both heroic and comically disastrous, and in many ways the final outcome was no
more than would have dispassionately been predicted. South Africa are at times
deservingly second in the world rugby rankings, and yet despite losing in the
semi-final to New Zealand by the least amount of points of any team in the
World Cup (while kicking for territory incredibly poorly, nay, atrociously at
times in that game), the gulf between the two teams was still a very wide one.
Our schools produce a tremendous volume of talent, but much of it is poorly
managed and coached, and this is because the national structure of our rugby is
based on patronage and historical accident (14 provincial unions with equal
voting rights despite there only being 4 truly powerful teams in the country).
And it shows no signs of changing, despite the clear advantage that New Zealand
have reaped from their unified structure and emphasis on developing skills at
all levels of rugby, rather than relying on power and physical domination which
dissipates at professional levels where all teams have the cream of their
athletic crop. Our next national coach faces a difficult set of targets to
ensure that the Springbok team is more racially representative of the South
African population, despite the fact that participation in rugby is not
racially representative, nor is the allocation of coaching, or even basic
nutrition: most of our black players come from the poorest province of the
Eastern Cape which has the highest proportion of children at schools who
receive a free meal from the government, often as their only meal of the day.
To make matters worse, those players of colour who do rise, are often snubbed
by provincial coaches who are not under any control of the national coach, who
is therefore attempting to select a team from players whose experience is
determined by others with quite different mandates. Quite simply, the entire
governing structure in rugby needs to change, but is unlikely to, due to the
weight of inertia. And rugby in many ways is a metaphor for the rest of South
African life, where many individuals do their best, but are beset by structural
problems and historical legacies which make ordinary progress often a quite
heroic accomplishment.
My father has always said that the tone of an organisation
is set from the top, and I am hopeful that South Africa’s leadership may soon change,
and with it, our country may be revitalised. But I am hardly naïve enough to
think the current malaise is a purely South African problem. Globally we are
beset by mismatches between what makes companies profitable (reducing costs,
increasing revenues, taking up market share) and what makes societies prosper
(meaningful work and a sense of purpose, social care and a culture of trust
among citizens, some degree of equality in both opportunities and outcomes),
and also where in society we are seeing the greatest increases in wealth (among
the few, the powerful) alongside the continued hollowing out of the middle
classes (stagnant wages, increasing costs of living, rapidly rising costs of
education, and increasing youth unemployment even among those who do gain a
decent education) and much higher growth rates in population among those of the
lowest socio-economic classes who are least able to provide for themselves or
find meaningful work given their likelihood of being very poorly educated. My
friends in law, accounting, computer programming, and several other fields have
all hotly contested the idea of mechanisation of white collar labour, but I
fear it is already almost upon us (having once joked that most of what I did in
my first year or two of financial audit could have been performed by a monkey,
much less a computer able to automate the reading and matching together of
different financial source documents to verify transactions). It will be
interesting to see what social consequences this brings when a small number of
architects of computer programming can run computer programs which design and
manage other programmes to do a significant percentage of the work once done by
people. What will be left as rewarding and productive activity for humans in a
global population of 7 billion could be sobering indeed with so many people
already consigned to long-term unemployment or at least under-employment in
dead-end, limited prospect work.
I have a tendency to err to pessimism, and thankfully tend
to at least be aware of this. But I fear that at times this year that pessimism
has increasingly permeated who I have been, and negativity has been a part of
my personality, to the point where I have not been a pleasant person to be
around. I have tried to figure out some of the reasons for this. Clearly, no
small portion of it is due to my own failings: I am selfish. I am often
unsympathetic. I am irrationally possessive of things. I am short-tempered. I
am quick to criticise others yet often very poor in handling criticism of me
when it is from those whose opinion matters to me. I am demanding and often
seek what may not be reasonable to expect from people given their youth or
inexperience, sometimes responding with negative feedback where encouragement
or positive feedback may be much more helpful. I often speak rashly, without
sufficient thought. And yet when I have attempted to say less and be less
intrusive it has not felt so much like a wise tactic, as a withdrawal from the
world and a muzzling of myself. Not saying anything doesn’t stop me from
noticing, or wincing or feeling angry when people do things they shouldn’t or
could avoid, it just seems to bottle it up into a low-burning sense of
irritability and sometimes misanthropic withdrawal. So I don’t like who I have
become, but I also find it very difficult trying not to be myself.
I do think that my surroundings have to some extent
exacerbated the problem. South Africa is a country in which many people feel a
great deal of anger and frustration. Anger, for those sidelined or even
oppressed by apartheid, at how slowly the inequality and widespread deprivation
of our country is changing, but also anger on the part of those who might once
have benefited from apartheid and typically still do benefit from its legacy,
as they feel that they are overly punished for a past that cannot be changed,
only improved upon henceforth. Frustration builds also as many basic elements
of a functioning country (properly functioning businesses in which staff carry
out the work intended for them with some basic level of competency, minimally
effective public services, general respect for and enforcement of law and
order) and even a functioning society (basic consideration for others, building
trust and shared purpose rather than fostering blame and recrimination) are too
often sorely lacking. Especially in a big and fast-paced city like
Johannesburg, this tends to create significant tension as the default becomes
to assume that most other people are selfish, and likely to put their own
interests above everyone else’s. And unfortunately often this turns out to be
true: from the lawless and often thoroughly inconsiderate way in which people
drive, to the litter that is simply strewn about in many areas, to the
aggression in basic interactions (try being a rugby referee at some schools and
even clubs here!), and even the way parents today often demand justification
from teachers when their child does not achieve as they believe they should -
rather than focusing on possible causes in the child’s behaviour.
On a personal level I have found that these irritations and
inefficiencies often lead one to focus, as the media do, too much on errors and
faults, and to tend to expect the worst from people but still be annoyed when
it materialises.
There seem to be two basic responses to the frustrations of
a place like South Africa, one is to adopt a fatalism in which it is considered
part and parcel of Africa that things simply do not work as they should, and
this is the price for living on the continent (TIA - This is Africa). The logical
extension of this view though, is that if you accept things will not change,
then if others are like you these things will not change, and if they do not
change, they will in fact deteriorate over time. On that basis, the
post-colonial pattern of a decline and eventual collapse which has been
witnessed in so many other parts of Africa also seems heart-breakingly
inevitable. The alternative is to continue to demand high standards and be
unwilling to compromise on what should, at least in theory, be done or
expected. This can however feel like one is fighting against the tide, and can
make the complacency or inaction of others feel all the more infuriating.
But this aggravation only goes so far in explaining how I
have not felt good about myself, or my life, for significant chunks of this
year. I could question where in 2015 I felt any sense of real success or
achievement: in work my ability to change or affect things in any real way has
often felt extremely limited (the boys achieve roughly what they are able to
given their commitment and capabilities, the sports teams get results that tend
to mirror their effort and cohesion); in refereeing this year I have more often
been conscious of my own failings and shortcomings rather than feeling
satisfaction of a job well done; and in my personal life I consistently fall
short of the generosity of spirit and caring that should be expected of a
husband, a father, a family member, or a friend. But these excuses are paltry,
and I think it has run deeper than this, with me being overly critical and
often tending to expect the worst of both situations and other people around
me. In doing so I have often alienated others (my poor wife is a modern day
saint in what she sometimes puts up with), and have found myself fundamentally
doubting my ability to develop, let alone cultivate the real-time EQ required
for genuine success in any sphere of life. With hindsight I often recognise
that a more gentle approach to a problem might have worked better, but at the
time I find myself mentally wishing I could slap people sometimes or at least
state what seems blindingly obvious in no uncertain terms, and the middle
ground tends to be a bluntness or obstinacy that often is counter-productive.
This being a New Year it would seem a good time to resolve to be more patient,
to focus less on the small stuff (like spelling, or litter, or people being
idiots), to hold my tongue, to default to being kinder or more forgiving, but
alas I have made such resolutions before and have consistently failed to
improve, indeed I seem to have become less tolerant and less positive in the
course of this year.
A nagging sense of the glass being half-empty has been hard
to shake - although for many, considering all the blessings I have around me,
this must seem quite unfathomable. It seems easy enough in some ways to write
about here, but seems very difficult to find the right person or persons to
talk to about this strong sense of negative energy. Either they are too close
not to be hurt or at least burdened by it, so this would therefore be unfair to
them, or too far to not, perhaps quite rightly, wonder why someone with all my
blessings in life doesn’t just stop being negative. I veer between a sense of loneliness,
and a nagging suspicion that the anger I feel sometimes should come full circle
- I am mindful of the saying that ‘if everyone around you is an asshole, the
problem is you’. Back in high school I simply assumed that being right and
being principled was more important than being liked - that the truth or
accuracy was key, not being popular. Now I realise that the “idiots” who spent
all their time at the pub on weekends were learning to build human networks and
to read people, which are perhaps far more important than being accurate, let
alone committed to what is right (though it isn’t in my nature to back away
from my core beliefs and ethics). So I find in myself an odd combination of outrage
at so many things that seem to be done irresponsibly, sometimes recklessly, but
most often simply carelessly wrong by people in the world, mixed with contempt
for my own failure to be a better person.
Which makes 2016 set to be a tricky year. I haven’t yet
figured out how to set about making a change, or what to change, but I am
certain that I do need to change - myself, my achievements and medium-term
goals, and my service and compassion to those who matter to me. I am toying
with the idea (picked up from friends who do it in a religious setting,
although I do not subscribe to organised faith) of possibly setting up
something where a small group of guys can get together regularly and really
talk about things that are impactful and important in their lives - it seems to
me that this is often quite difficult to do as a man; and the resulting
tendency to be left completely alone with one’s thoughts and feelings can be quite
counter-productive. But given how busy everyone’s lives are, I’m not sure how
likely it is to get off the ground. Maybe I should promise free drinks! :o)
Those of you who read this from afar will know that I
treasure my friends all over the world, and lament that I do not get to see
many of you very often at all. Those of you nearer, I hope know that while
having a family does make it harder, I try to see you when I can and I value
the time we spend together. I hope, wherever you are and whatever your plans
for this coming year, that you will find happiness, success and enjoyment of the
company of good people.
