What We’re Teaching Our Sons

Out on the frozen marsh we explain the importance of being self-sufficient, and capable, and knowing the names of different cloud formations and geological features, and how to identify birds by their song.

‘Cumulonimbus,’ we say. ‘Cirrus. Altostratus. Terminal moraine. Blackbird. Thrush. Wagtail.’

We hand out fact sheets and pencils, collect the rabbits. We promise prizes to whoever can identify the most types of trees.

‘Can we set things on fire again?’ our sons ask.

The stiff grass creaks under our feet as we make our way back to the car park. The sky is the colour of rusted copper.

‘Can we set fire to a car?’

‘No, you can’t set fire to a car,’ we say. ‘Why would you want to set fire to a car?’

‘To see what would happen,’ our sons mutter, sticking their bottom lips out.

We look at our sons, half in fear, wondering what we have made.

Drowning (#ue54592e8-63b5-5fb6-ac8c-cfdb8202e3e2)

We’re teaching our sons about drowning.

We tell them how we almost drowned when we were four years old. How we can still remember the feeling of being dragged along the bottom of the swollen river, the gravel in our faces, the smell of the hospital that lingered for weeks afterwards.

We don’t want this to happen to our sons. Or worse.

We take our sons swimming every Sunday morning, try to teach them how to stay afloat. Each week we have to find a new swimming pool, slightly further from where we live, slightly more overcrowded. The council is methodically demolishing all the sports centres in the borough as part of the Olympic dividend.

We are being concentrated into smaller and smaller spaces.

In the water our sons cling to us. Our hundreds of sons. They splash and kick their legs gamely, but they don’t seem to be getting any closer to being able to swim. We have to bribe them to put their faces under the water, and the price goes up every week.

We’re sure it wasn’t like this when we were children.

The water is a weird colour and tiles keep falling off the ceiling onto the swimmers’ heads. A scum of discarded polystyrene cups floats in the corner of the pool. It’s hotter than a sauna in here.

Also, we keep being distracted by the sight of the swimsuited mothers. The mothers who come in all sorts of fantastic shapes and sizes. They look as sleek as sea otters in their black swimsuits. They make us ashamed of our hairy backs, our formerly impressive chests, our pathetic tattoos.

We hope they can look at us with kinder eyes.

We crouch low in the water like middle-aged crocodiles, stealing glances at the sleek sea-otter mothers, and our sons put their arms around our necks and refuse to let go.

In the changing rooms we hold on to our sons’ tiny, fragile bodies; feel the terrible responsibility of lost socks, and impending colds, and the effects of chlorine on skin and lungs. We wrap our sons in towels, blow dry their hair, try not to consider the future and all the upcoming catastrophes that we can’t protect them from.

We promise ourselves that next week we’ll get it right.

Heartbreak (#ue54592e8-63b5-5fb6-ac8c-cfdb8202e3e2)

We’re teaching our sons about heartbreak.

Its inevitability. Its survivability. Its necessity. That sort of thing.

We take our sons to meet the heartbroken men. We have to show our credentials at the gate. We have a letter of introduction.

Our jeeps bounce across the rolling scrubland under huge blackening skies. As we approach the compound a group of men in camouflage gear watch us carefully. They all have beer bellies and assault rifles.

The heartbroken men are heartbroken on account of the breakdown of their marriages, and the fact that they never see their children, and the fact that they’re earning less than they expected to be at this point in their lives, and the fact that no one takes them seriously any more. In their darkest moments the heartbroken men suspect that no one took them seriously before, either. The fathers of the heartbroken men loom large. Their hard-drinking, angry fathers. And their fathers and their fathers and their fathers before them.

The heartbroken men like to dress up as soldiers and superheroes. It’s embarrassing. How are we supposed to respond?

We don’t like the look of those skies.

‘We have a manifesto,’ the heartbroken men tell our sons. They want our sons to take their message back to the people. Their spokesmen step forward. There’s a banner too. They’re planning to hang it off a bridge or some other famous landmark.

‘Are those real guns?’ our sons ask.

‘We –’

‘Can we have a go on the guns?’ our sons ask.

‘No, you can’t have a go on the guns,’ we tell our sons. ‘Don’t let them have a go on the guns,’ we tell the heartbroken men, ‘what were you even thinking?’

The heartbroken men go quiet. They look at their feet.

‘Well?’

‘Fathers are superheroes,’ the heartbroken men say, quietly.

‘What?’

‘Superheroes,’ say the heartbroken men, starting to cry. Tears roll down their cheeks and fall upon the barren, scrubby ground.

This is turning into a disaster.

We should never have come.

Philosophy (#ue54592e8-63b5-5fb6-ac8c-cfdb8202e3e2)

We’re teaching our sons about philosophy.

We’re discussing logic, metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics. We’re covering philosophical methods of inquiry, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind. We’re asking our sons to consider ‘if there is something that it is like to be a particular thing’.

We’re on a boat trip up a Norwegian fjord and our sons are gathered on deck to listen to our lecture series. The spectacular mountains slide by as we talk about the sublime. The steel deck is wet from the recent rain.

Our sons are doing their best to feign interest, we have to give them that. They’re disappointed that there are no whales or polar bears to look at.

We’re trying to remember which famous philosopher lived in a hut up a Norwegian fjord.

Not all the children on deck are our sons. The boat is full of beautiful, strapping Norwegian teens on a school trip. They’re all six foot tall with no sense of personal space. They make our sons look stunted and reserved. They keep asking our sons if they have any crisps. This has been going on for five days and everyone is getting sick of it.