{Patience}[27th September 1990]

[Redbook7:340][19900927:0000]{Patience}[27th September 1990]

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(8)

My children are training me well into their way of thinking.

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For example, I found a pair of sunglasses on a shelf in the sitting-room, where probably [s] had removed it [to] from the bedroom drawer where it lives. A year ago I would have muttered darkly, and put it back where it came from; yesterday, I just left it.

As we train them, so we are ourselves trained – particularly into a kind of glad service in little things – things they cannot do themselves but require frequently, like getting a drink – which is almost wholly taken for granted: which is as it should be. Only in those things they can do for themselves do we gently encourage a little reciprocity.

I am certainly far more patient than I was two years ago – not yet patient enough;* but far more than I was. Much of this is thanks to (d) and (s), who have nobly put up with my poor state of development.

**For the first time that I can remember, if I haven’t finsh{ed} a particular section of work before I go to bed, I go thinking: ‘There’s always tomorrow’.

*{No indeed – far too bad-tempered}

**(Inserted)

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