Nothing lasts/you can’t always get what you want
I just came across an undeleted e-mail that Little One sent to me while she was staying at her grandparents’ house during the summer holidays and I was slaving over a hot computer in the office. "I miss you Dad," it went. How touched I was then. She missed me. I swelled to fill the universe.
A far cry from yesterday’s shouting match in which she was practising the use of emotional blackmail in an attempt to wangle a DVD on dance from me, claiming that I loved her much less than her friend Maria’s parents loved Maria because they had bought the disk for their little darling. Fortunately, Little One’s tactics were the unsubtle workings of a ten year-old (although when I’m off my guard emotional coercion can lead to ego-swelling of cosmic proportions).
"You’re just like your mother," I replied provocatively, knowing that Wifey was in earshot and would rise to the bait (vengeful response to an earlier unfinished bout of quarrelling).
Enter Wifey
"What do you mean she’s like her mother? It’s you who spoils her senselessly. It’s you who she treats like a servant. She can get you to do anything she wants. No wonder she behaves like a spoilt brat!"
We then got stuck in a pantomime oh no I don’t/oh yes you do Möbius loop of assertion and counter-assertion/negation that Little One thankfully wrenched undone by ordering us to stop bickering.
The angst produced in Little One by the two squabbling animals from which she was derived outweighed her desire for the DVD, which she promptly forgot about. She ran off to her room to sulk and stand on her head.
She doesn’t do a true Shirshasana (because she leans her legs against the wall) but getting into an upside-down position is a curious way to respond to conflict.
"Why do you always stand on your head when you get in a strop? I asked.
"I’m not talking to you!" she snarled, yet talking to me nevertheless.
Missing me didn’t last long, but neither did the stroppiness.
I wonder if I'd see a thirty-year stretch in jail in the same way?
I just came across an undeleted e-mail that Little One sent to me while she was staying at her grandparents’ house during the summer holidays and I was slaving over a hot computer in the office. "I miss you Dad," it went. How touched I was then. She missed me. I swelled to fill the universe.
A far cry from yesterday’s shouting match in which she was practising the use of emotional blackmail in an attempt to wangle a DVD on dance from me, claiming that I loved her much less than her friend Maria’s parents loved Maria because they had bought the disk for their little darling. Fortunately, Little One’s tactics were the unsubtle workings of a ten year-old (although when I’m off my guard emotional coercion can lead to ego-swelling of cosmic proportions).
"You’re just like your mother," I replied provocatively, knowing that Wifey was in earshot and would rise to the bait (vengeful response to an earlier unfinished bout of quarrelling).
Enter Wifey
"What do you mean she’s like her mother? It’s you who spoils her senselessly. It’s you who she treats like a servant. She can get you to do anything she wants. No wonder she behaves like a spoilt brat!"
We then got stuck in a pantomime oh no I don’t/oh yes you do Möbius loop of assertion and counter-assertion/negation that Little One thankfully wrenched undone by ordering us to stop bickering.
The angst produced in Little One by the two squabbling animals from which she was derived outweighed her desire for the DVD, which she promptly forgot about. She ran off to her room to sulk and stand on her head.
She doesn’t do a true Shirshasana (because she leans her legs against the wall) but getting into an upside-down position is a curious way to respond to conflict.
"Why do you always stand on your head when you get in a strop? I asked.
"I’m not talking to you!" she snarled, yet talking to me nevertheless.
Missing me didn’t last long, but neither did the stroppiness.
I wonder if I'd see a thirty-year stretch in jail in the same way?
posted by Bob at 7:15 pm
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