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I figured it out

By Me | July 24, 2007

You know, I’ve heard that men tend to prefer dogs and women prefer cats because (so ‘they’ say) men like the ability to train and control dogs — something that’s usually futile to try with cats.

(Although, there are always exceptions … like our youngest cat, Baka, who not only plays fetch but will sit on command … sometimes … )

And it’s that trait, I suspect, that is behind the fact that Gina tends to blow up at the men in my house but not at me.

For example … if Gina and I are out somewhere and she says to me, “I’m driving home!” I will say one of two things.

I’ll either say, “No, you’re not.”

Or I’ll shrug and say, “Okay.”

Neither of those responses has ever caused a fight between me and Gina.

If I decide to let her drive home, I don’t ask a single question about which route she is going to take. Occasionally, when she asks, I’ll talk to her about why I take the routes I do but I let her make her own decisions behind the wheel.

That is not what appears to happen when she is in the car with her Dad.

Now, since I’m not there myself, I can only guess at what really happened between the differing accounts of the episode I get from the parties involved. But there are a couple of things I know about all the parties involved.

I know that Gina is fundamentally insecure. When she yells and blusters and gets defensive, that’s what you’re seeing. If that’s what you’re getting from her, that means she sees your questions/comments as evidence that you think she is incompetent.

I also know that her father is not the most perceptive of mortals, so it is unlikely that he fully understands (a) that she needs reassurance that we have faith in her or (b) how he can best give that reassurance beyond just saying, “I have faith in you” - a statement that becomes meaningless if your actions don’t match your words or, for that matter, if the rest of your words don’t match those words. And, while she is often mistaking his words as indicating a poor opinion of her judgment, he is often taking her reaction as a challenge to his waning parental authority.

Although, to tell you the truth, I don’t know if she is mistaken or not. I really have no idea whether he really believes, as I do, that she is utterly competent and ready to fly — even the relatively short flight off to college.

Derek, the other male in the house that she usually gets into screaming matches with, has his own issues and that often causes him to get defensive with her in response to her getting defensive with him. If that sound fairly stupid to you, it is. He also seems to have real trouble letting things go and shares with her a need to have the last word … which will often make a stupid argument turn into a lengthy and stupid argument.

Those arguments usually have to do with his unfortunate habit of butting into conversations that do not directly involve him or his other unfortunate habit of ordering people around. He has done both of these things to me, too, but since I’m not 17, I handle them better.

All of these arguments are really fruitless power struggles and even having to witness them periodically is fairly exhausting for the rest of us … or at least, those among us who are less oblivious than others.

And all of these arguments have to do with the fact that Gina is 17 and, as I mentioned, she is a lot more insecure than you’d ordinarily expect from somebody as pretty and smart and generally awesome as she is. I wish I knew how she got to be so insecure.

I wish I know how I could help her.

Well … other than stuffing socks in certain mouths at certain times, that is.

Topics: Nature's Psyche Lab (aka Family) |

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