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)

力求给女儿营造一个快乐健康的家庭氛围，我和丈夫约法三章，其中一条是：无论多么恼怒，当着女儿的面，都不能吵架。三年来，我和丈夫一直遵守着这个约定，女儿从来没有见过我俩吵架。

昨天晚上，哄女儿睡下后，我要跟丈夫聊聊他玩手机上瘾的问题。我说他这两个月就爱捧着手机玩游戏、看视频，对女儿影响很不好，他百般辩解，越说越激动，嗓门也越来越高，我俩不知不觉吵起来。

女儿不知道什么时候从床上爬起来，直愣愣地看着我们。我怕是吓着孩子了，忙走到她身边，准备哄她入睡。

没想到女儿推开我，对着我和丈夫说：“睡觉没意思，我要看热闹。”◆