Cantr II Discussion Forum

He is 3 and standing quietly in the woods, listening to the birds like his mother taught him. She makes sure he eats healthy foods and keeps chemicals away from him, but in the forests, it is the birds who can tell a boy if what approaches is just a deer or something to be cautious of, like a copperhead.

He is 6 and climbs trees with the girl next door. His eyes are blue, but his hair is dark and straight like his father's, from the time before the Europeans came. The girl next door holds the key to his heart, so long as nobody points that fact out, because his love isn't yet stronger than his pride. His mother watches them from below, but it's not fear that they'll fall that is making her legs shake.

He is 15 and combing his hair at the mirror above the sink, getting ready for his first day of his first summer job. His posture tells his mother that he feels like a man, and she is sad that he's not her little boy anymore, which is why she's in the bathroom with him and why it hurts.

He is 17 and feels trapped in highschool. He only likes the maths and sciences, but usually jumps through the hoops for all of his classes, because he wants to go to college in California and learn everything about computers and be a programmer and have a house on the beach. His mother knows she is losing him, and it is breaking her up inside and making her writhe, because she doesn't know programming and can't help him solve errors in the code.

jeslange wrote:He is 3 and standing quietly in the woods, listening to the birds like his mother taught him. She makes sure he eats healthy foods and keeps chemicals away from him, but in the forests, it is the birds who can tell a boy if what approaches is just a deer or something to be cautious of, like a copperhead.

He is 6 and climbs trees with the girl next door. His eyes are blue, but his hair is dark and straight like his father's, from the time before the Europeans came. The girl next door holds the key to his heart, so long as nobody points that fact out, because his love isn't yet stronger than his pride. His mother watches them from below, but it's not fear that they'll fall that is making her legs shake.

He is 15 and combing his hair at the mirror above the sink, getting ready for his first day of his first summer job. His posture tells his mother that he feels like a man, and she is sad that he's not her little boy anymore, which is why she's in the bathroom with him and why it hurts.

He is 17 and feels trapped in highschool. He only likes the maths and sciences, but usually jumps through the hoops for all of his classes, because he wants to go to college in California and learn everything about computers and be a programmer and have a house on the beach. His mother knows she is losing him, and it is breaking her up inside and making her writhe, because she doesn't know programming and can't help him solve errors in the code.

I suppose you don't want commentary, but I felt obliged to comment nonetheless.

I'm trying to relate if this is a story of someone specific, considering the occupation that the adolescent takes, and the field in which you write the Short Story for, and if it is someone of Staff, for instance. But I doubt that's the case. I have to believe that this is just a generalization for the progression of the child, as he distances and departs from the care of his mother, and her having to come with terms to it through out the stages.

Or are you looking for something else in a response?

I'm not looking for anything particular in response.
Readers determine the meaning, so it's about what you said if that's how you interpreted it.

He'll be the programmer and have the beach house... and his mother will lose him... for a while.

Then, he'll contemplate on it all, and allow himself his mother again. Never the same though; he'll be a fellow adult now. Will she be able to cope with that?

Ok my 2 cents worth.... I think you captured and described a mothers heart....the emotions she carrys as her child grows, how a mother gives of herself all that she knows her child needs, but is saddened when her child reaches the point when she can no longer help him along the way and she has to come to terms and let go.....and watch him as his life continues without her guidance...only her love.

The mother seems to have already come to grips in the first paragraph, because she apparently allows him to be alone in the woods where there are things that can hurt/kill him, and that there are some things about nature that she can't control for him but can rather only try to help him overcome himself. In the other paragraphs, she seems to only be observing the boy and not interfering with him at all.

On the other hand, the mother seems to actually worsen throughout the work. In the first paragraph, there is no mention of how she feels. In the second, fear is mentioned, but it doesn't specifically say she is feeling fear, although something is certainly happening to her. In the third paragraph, we see that she is distressed and pained, and in the fourth, we see that she is in extreme distress.

Either way, I'd argue that her coping degrades or remains stable, rather than progressing.