Patterns

I get home at 6:30pm to the sight of Aidan and Lydia sitting at the dining room table, eating noodles, and watching videos on the laptop. Elisa is at the other end of the table from where she can see the living room TV while having a bite to eat. The two things that I've repeatedly asked is that the kids don't watch TV when eating and that we eat together as a family. It is New Year's Eve and I am not exactly feeling like the king of the household. It doesn't help that Yang is out somewhere with her friends.

I take of my layers of clothes and wash off the grime of the commute. I think about whether I should call Yang and ask her to remind the ayi about the dining arrangement. I decide against it. It would be better if I could just express myself in Chinese but I cannot. I could yell at the ayi or the kids but that would just make me feel worse. I decide on a different tack.

I first ask for the laptop to be turned off and I turn off the TV myself. Everyone knows what I want, they just choose to ignore it. So I take a breath and sit down with my prepared food. I tell the kids about how my much mom wanted her family to eat together. That it was something my mom missed out on in her childhood and something she wanted to improve with in her own family. This bit Aidan and Lydia understood. I explained that the patterns of the parents are the patterns of the children and it takes a strong parent to stand aside and stop the unhealthy pattern and start a healthy one. This importance of this bit might have been lost on Aidan and Lydia. Its importance on me is not lost.