Remember back in those early years (if you are under 40, you don’t qualify for this, BTW) how strong an emotional response you could evoke with the word ‘hate’. How someone who had crossed you (even your best friend) could become the most loathsome creature on the planet, so loathsome that it blinded you, so powerful that you could feel the pressure to lash out at anything in your path? No? Funny, neither did I, until today.
I crossed the teenager today. During a discussion, I suggested in an overly loud voice that perhaps thinking about the situation at hand was what was needed, rather than attempting to make something work that wasn’t going to. What followed was a “I hate you”, and a steadfast insistence that all parents wish to make their (teenage) children suffer. No amount of reason (yeah, funny. Reasoning with a child, right? Sometimes I kill even myself) made the slightest dent. I was being unfair, and being unfair is an unforgivable sin. The hated one was not going to be given an inch of respite, no matter how many hours the argument drug out too.
Fine. As an ‘old guy’, I have a emotional investment cap that I set for myself. At some point I just have to say “do I really care that much about X?” (‘X’ being whatever the child, or whoever, is raging about at the moment) If the answer is ‘no’, I don’t make the investment in working up a decent rant, and I walk away none the worse and not feeling any regrets. In the ever more infrequent instances that the answer is ‘yes’, then I have to make a stand.
So here it is. It’s ‘not’ unfair to expect teenagers to pull their weight and do household chores; and I really ‘hate’ it when someone thinks they are exempt from doing them, whether they get paid or not.
Yes, I know. A radical stand, and a serious emotional investment in working up such a lengthy rant as well. Sometimes you just have to draw the line.
