COMMUNICATING WITH MY 18 YEAR OLD SON or DAD, WHY ARE YOU TORTURING ME?

I have a confession to make. I have an 18-year-old son. We try to not appear in public together because if we did, it would have very serious consequences for his social life and self esteem at that moment. I can fully understand this fact, and figure they may be the same issues the Little Woman has. So I have decided to join an organization that helps you understand your child’s point of view. It is called “So Much Understanding Can Kill” The idea is that you knock yourself out trying to understand and be accommodating in all aspects of your child’s life. This means listening to his/her political opinion, social evaluation of your pathetic life and buying into anything he/she tries to run past you.

For the sake of expediency, I will refer to the organization by its more popular name – SMUCK. Now SMUCK meets every Saturday night while your child is out. Meetings start punctually at 7:00 p.m. at the Agnostic Assembly of God, led by parents of former children, who allow their parents to go to church by arranging it with the home that also provides a caretaker. The concept is once you complete the course that is offered you become a SMUCK.

For those of you who do not have an 18-year old at home, conversations are usually very one-sided.

For instance:

Me: How’s it going?

He: OK

Me: How was school?

He: OK

Me: Did you learn anything today?

He: Yeah

Me: What?

He: I forgot.

Or perhaps you are sitting peacefully one night watching the TV, when all of a sudden the SWAT Team arrives, the Police surround the house, and the fire department is on it’s way up to his room with a ladder from the lawn, and twenty guys with axes going up your staircase to his room. You look at the little woman, she pops her eyes wide open, so you do the dumb thing and go investigate.

Me: What’s going on????!!!!

He: Don’t worry about it

Me: What do you mean don’t worry about it, what happened????

He: Nothing, now go back downstairs.

Well the organization teaches you to go back downstairs, and believe that nothing is going on. Once you are fully convinced, you become a SMUCK.

I am having trouble passing this course, but knowing that if I try hard enough I will someday do so. After all, I signed up for a similar course in the past when the Little Woman would tell me things I shouldn’t worry about. I passed back then with flying colors. She hung the diploma up in our den, but decided to take it down because it would be just another thing to dust. The name of the organization? “Don’t Offer Prevailing Emotions”.