Twice a week I sit in the back of a fifth-grade classroom and read with one child at a time until we finish a story, which seldom happens, or until the child is tired. Then I work with another.
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The reading material available to us is limited. There’s a cute story about a cute raccoon who visits an exemplary, two-dimensional family with a father and mother and brother and sister who live in a house that has a separate bedroom for each child. There’s also a story about a storm at sea. The first sentence of that story refers to a Coast Guard cutter, a distress flare, and a sinking freighter. The students do not know what the Coast Guard is, and I do not want to use the obvious comparison to the police, who do not serve and protect them but arrest their fathers and brothers. They do not know what the word “distress” means, although they experience it every day, and they do not know what a freighter is, or what freight is. I do not know what a cutter is, but “boat” will do. (I have never finished that story with anyone.)
Today I am reading with Victor. He is medium-size and physically unexceptional except that he holds his shoulders even more stiffly than most and smiles even more seldom.
We have now established the relevant facts. Then, like one about to place the 52nd card on the carefully built, very shaky tower, I ask, “In this case, did Father know best?” Victor nods. I see the frightened, guilty look of someone who has no alternative except to lie.
My husband says: “He is giving you a safe answer. If he says “Father Knows Best,’ nobody will hit him.”
