PARENTING June 11, 2001 Issue

Love and science

By Elizabeth Richards

My fourth-grade daughter Sarah was fretting about a science test one night and said she couldn't go to sleep because she was so worried. She couldn't stop thinking about doing badly on it.

I knew that her fretting came in part from an unpleasant exchange we'd had over the last science test she'd brought home, with a poor grade that she'd hidden from me for as long as she could. Because it's her school's policy for a parent to sign all graded tests, Sarah brought the test to my attention fairly late one evening.

As a single parent only recently divorced and working full time, I'm sometimes very short-fused. What I know to be true and how I reflect that in my behavior aren't always in synch—while I know my children are divine gifts, I'm not always as grateful and even-tempered as I imagine mothers are generally meant to be.

About the author

Elizabeth Richards is a high-school English teacher in New York City, a single mother of two daughters, and the author of two novels, "Every Day " (Simon and Schuster, 1997) and "Rescue" (Simon and Schuster, 1999).

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