Is it irony or just annoying?

My son hates to write.

As I’m a writer, you can probably imagine why this makes me, by turns, sad and annoyed. I mean, I’m not really expecting the next great American novel. He’s only in the 2nd grade. But it would be really lovely if, every time we sat down to do school, I didn’t get a long, drawn out period of moaning should I ask him to do something like pick up his pencil and form a word. Or even a letter.

I’m not sure what the block is. Laziness? Something else? He’s perfectly capable of doing it, once he decides he’s willing to. But oh, getting him to that point…there are days I think sending him off to public school to let someone else deal with it isn’t such a terrible idea. (Of course, then I would still have to deal with during homework, so it wouldn’t really solve the problem. But sometimes the thought occurs, you know?)

Regardless, this year we’re doing a bit more where he’ll be expected to think up things to write all on his own. It’s traumatic already. (Today he wrote about the American flag, having just finished reading about it and how it came to look like it does. It’s a lovely little essay now that it’s done. But you’d think I asked him to transcribe War and Peace.)

Maybe if we keep at it, he’ll learn to love it. That is always the hope. And if not, it’s not like he wasn’t going to need something to complain about down the line, right? Might as well be how his mom made him write. Cause I’m a big old meanie. Or something.