Watching the Commotion

By Gong Fang

Striving to create a healthy family atmosphere for our children, my husband and I came up with our own“constitution.” One of our rules that we have is: no matter how angry you are, never argue in front of the kids. For three years,we have kept to our agreement and our daughter has never seen us quibble.

Last night, after coaxing our daughter to sleep I talked with my husband about his cell phone addiction problem. I told him that for the past two months he’s been wondering around carrying his phone everywhere, playing games, watching TV and that it has a bad influence on our child.He used every possible means he could think of to try and justify his actions, getting more and more excited as he spoke, with his voice growing louder and louder.Unwittingly we had already started quarrelling.

I’m not sure at what point our daughter woke up, crawled out of bed and stood, dumbfounded,starting at us. But, I was afraid that we had scared her, so I rushed over to her side ready to get her back to sleep.

Unexpectedly, she pushed me away and looking at us, said,“Sleeping is boring. I wanna watch the commotion.”◆

(From Mini Novels, November 2017. Translation: Sam Bowden)

力求給女兒營造一個快樂健康的家庭氛圍，我和丈夫約法三章，其中一條是：無論多么惱怒，當著女兒的面，都不能吵架。三年來，我和丈夫一直遵守著這個約定，女兒從來沒有見過我倆吵架。

昨天晚上，哄女兒睡下后，我要跟丈夫聊聊他玩手機上癮的問題。我說他這兩個月就愛捧著手機玩游戲、看視頻，對女兒影響很不好，他百般辯解，越說越激動，嗓門也越來越高，我倆不知不覺吵起來。

女兒不知道什么時候從床上爬起來，直愣愣地看著我們。我怕是嚇著孩子了，忙走到她身邊，準備哄她入睡。

沒想到女兒推開我，對著我和丈夫說：“睡覺沒意思，我要看熱鬧。”◆