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Hurd Hoffman's avatar

"But when the time came, Josie wanted to stay that one more night to watch the next morning’s competitions. She pleaded with her Mom to make her Dad say yes. But M said, “You’re going to have to be the one to ask him.” More pleading. More Mom standing her ground. So she did, and of course he said no, insisting that this was “family time” and he’d already given up a day. It’s a three hour drive. She whimpered in the back seat for a while, then was quiet and I’d watch her bereft face, anguished in the rearview. We pulled into the driveway after dark. Nonni asked if she wanted one of us to walk her to the door. “No, I got this.” She got out of the car, settled her backpack, took a deep breath. She got to the door and we could see her paste her smile on just before she rang the bell. I’d seen that move before. She was two weeks shy of eleven."

I'm sorry but I'm not sure exactly what the point of this was. Why wouldn't mom help her daughter convince Dad to say yes to another night the meet? What would be the problem with that? Forced independence like this doesn't seem healthy. Nor does a child being trained to put on a performative smile for an adult. I came here from your comment on Mike Males' post and while I agree with what you're saying about technology in this article, there were other parts that made me raise my eyebrows.

The "restaurant voice" part also made me uncomfortable because I imagine little kids who are that obedient and demure in public being subject to severe punishment behind the scenes since kids are naturally high energy and excitable unless forcibly suppressed. Maybe this has to do with how I was brought up but my instinctive reaction to the "hand on table" gesture was as a threat of being hit if the kid didn't quiet down. I do apologize if this is offensive. Marian's parenting style as described here seems kind of harsh to me overall with so much holding ground against a child's distress. It reminded me unpleasantly of Amy Chua's tiger parenting. I recognize that what I'm writing here probably contains assumptions colored by my own upbringing but I'm genuinely confused and would appreciate clarification.

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Rhymes With "Brass Seagull"'s avatar

Well-said overall.

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