Cider Press Hill

Jekyll and Hyde

There are days. It was one of those when the latent obstinate teenager in my son came bubbling through. And while it doesn’t make me angry, it is, nevertheless, tiring. One of those days in which he challenged everything that came out of my mouth. I’m not even sure that it’s intentional, even if he is aware that he’s doing it. It’s as if once he gets started he’s a runaway train. It’s just what 17 year olds do. I think we’re going through a stage. And I’m very, very tired.

But then he announced, this evening, that he was treating me to dinner tonight because he knew he’d given me a hard way to go today...and he didn’t mean to, but he knew he was doing it. And well...did I ever act that way when I was his age? “Ohhh, quite a lot worse, if I recall. Which doesn’t give you permission to do likewise, okay?”

If I wasn’t so pooped, I might have something philosophical to say about this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome. But I don’t. I’m going to bed.

Posted by Kate on 09/19/04 at 10:50 PM
 

 

Comments

He’s a paragon.  When I did that it took six months for me to recognize what I’d done. ;)

Posted by Linkmeister on 09/20  at  01:59 AM

LOL! Paragon isn’t the word I’d necessarily have used yesterday. But yeah, it was cool that he acknowledged that he’d been kind of rough on his old Mom.

Posted by Kate on 09/20  at  06:45 AM

I’m with Linkmeister only while it might have taken 6 months to recognize it, I am not sure I would have ever acknowledged it to anyone other than myself!!  Every now and again my younger son (older was just easier all around!!) would actually admit he had been rough on me and make what passed for an apology.  It was a good feeling to know that at least he recognized it...it didn’t change much and it, of course, happened again, but when they know, realize AND react, then you are on the right path!!  I like this kid of yours!!

Posted by cyn on 09/20  at  10:16 AM

Hey, I like this kid, too. smile I could do without his challenging behavior (it would be nice to be able to utter a complete sentence without an argument breaking in before the punctuation!), but I do recognize that being able to have a rational and even convivial postmortem about the hard-way-to-go moments is a positive thing. At the end of the day we’re usually on excellent terms. But getting there can be exhausting!!!

Posted by Kate on 09/20  at  02:02 PM


Leave a Reply

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.

Weblog

Next entry: Neocon dreams

Previous entry: Worried