Jonny McCambridge: Ecce Romani, Cornelius and the homework ordeals

Make palindromes illegal, raise income tax on people who wear yellow cardigans, introduce national service for geese - I’ll agree with pretty much anything rather than appear contrary.

One conspicuous ripple in this calm sea of harmony is my relationship with my son. It is probably a natural father/son dynamic that ensures our jagged edges regularly bump against each other. Sometimes the reasons for the discord are inane - he has spilt Rice Krispies on my side of the bed or knocked my toothbrush into the narrow, dark crevice between the sink and the bath where I can’t reach it or announced that he needs to do a poo at the exact moment that I’m hurriedly reversing the car out of the driveway to take him to school.

But the majority of our arguments centre around homework. There is an ongoing process of me trying to encourage and cajole my boy towards greater effort and application and him wailing and complaining about the labour.

The evasion can be counterintuitive. Recently I asked him to spell the word ‘put’. He refused, reasoning that he had done that word the day before, knew it already, and could see no merit in repeating it. I argued that if he knew it then he should have no problem reciting it again. He dug into the trenches. The argument seemed to bounce back and forward for days, certainly long enough for him to have translated every one of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales into modern English and still have time left to memorise Jacques’ Seven Ages of Man soliloquy. He exerted a huge amount of energy and creativity in his flow of insults towards me, but throughout it all he stubbornly refused to just spell put.

I’m trying to avoid a similar stalemate on this day as we undertake a colouring-in task. I’m gently suggesting that the inking should go inside the lines rather than just vomited towards the page like some pastiche of a Jackson Pollock canvas. My son growls in reply.

And then I try something else.

‘You know buddy,’ I begin. ‘Some day you’ll be going to big school where you have to do your homework properly, so it’s a good habit to get into.’

He looks at me quizzically, perhaps sensing the opportunity for a diversion.

‘Did you go to big school daddy?’

‘Yes I did son.’

‘And what do you remember about your first day?’

‘Well it was a long time ago, I remember my first class was double Latin.’

He looks blankly at me, as of course he would. Latin to him is as alien as YouTube and Facebook would have been to that nervous grammar school boy back in 1986.

I try to explain it to my son. I’m surprised by how much I remember. The Latin textbook I studied was called Ecce Romani and it was about the life of the noble Cornelius family. (Ecce Romani translates loosely, I think, as ‘Look, the Romans!’ which is, I suppose, what I would say if I ever were to meet a family dressed in tunics and togas on Ballymoney main street).

Soon I find myself attempting to explain Latin declensions and tenses to my six-year-old. I dig the word pluperfect from some long-neglected cavity deep within my brain. He nods.

As I speak I’m aware of a little incision of regret. Viewed with hindsight Latin seems like the most worthy of subjects to master. How grand it would be to have competence in that ancient tongue, to be able to make a joke or even write this column in Latin.

But the reality is that I was a poor student. I had a wonderful and understanding teacher but her efforts were forever undermined by my basic lack of seriousness of mind, a stubborn refusal to sit down and learn the vocabulary and endings.

Then I was too impatient to learn it, now I am too tired of mind. I’m left wondering if there was a period in my life, perhaps even just one day, when I was intellectually suited to Latin. I imagine it would have been fleeting and as elusive as the point on the control dial of my shower between scalding hot and freezing cold water.

My son looks at me again.

‘Daddy, we’ve been doing homework for a long time. Can we maybe watch a movie now?’

I concur. He selects an animated feature that we’ve watched several times before.

His eyes are fixed now on the TV screen, and mine are fixed on him. Soon I realise that he seems to know every line of dialogue in the film and acts out every scene. It is a feat of memory and dramatic intuition worthy of a Shakespearian actor.

After a while he begins to change the plot lines, extemporising new passages of dialogue and alternative endings.

Them he sits close to me and tells me that his favourite scene in the film is coming up.

‘Why do you like that part the best buddy?’ I inquire.

He answers without taking his eyes off the screen.

‘Because it always reminds me of the first time that we watched it together.’

I attempt to hold him close but he soon wriggles free, his vigour and creativity refuse to allow him to sit still for long. I can’t restrain him, and nor should I try.

As I watch him leap around the living room floor I consider that the challenge is how to take all this energy and invention and to channel it into something productive. And also being able to trust that he will find his own way in his own time. As I discovered with Latin, you can’t really force somebody to do what they don’t want to.

And then I tidy his books away into his schoolbag. There will be more homework to do tomorrow, and undoubtedly more quarrels. I’ll keep trying to nudge him in a certain direction, but hopefully next time, I’ll do it with a bit more empathy.