Re: [pf] a short post - extended.

>At 07:56 PM 1/24/01 -0800, David MacClement wrote:
>>· My 23yo daughter ...
>
At 13:52 28/1/2001 -0800, tully wrote:
>Now if I could only get Eric to say something like that instead of looking
at me accusingly and saying "how come you are so different from everyone
else's mom?"  :(
>

· That's a big reason I put in "23yo" when I refer to her; wait until Eric
gets to 25-26 (for most boys, the age at which they'd have a similar
maturity to Ruth at twenty three and a half).

· When she was 16-18, we couldn't get along at all - I believe she had some
very harsh words to say about me to her school counsellor. I was still
somewhat of a martinet; that was before I changed my personality and
accepted that I had some major faults just like other people, rather than
being better than almost everybody else. Since then, she's changed a little
- the normal maturing - and I've changed quite a lot.

· And don't forget the obvious results of her having proven that she can
make her own way in the world, /anywhere in the world/, ranging from
Switzerland through North America to China. You need a certain minimum of
tolerance to start with, and you surely learn a lot more, by doing that.

· So, you people with teenagers: just hang in there, trust them to come out
well in the end, after a period of insisting on their independence. They're
watching and being influenced by you all the time, and /wanting/ to admire
you. If you're consistent in your own views, but willing to really listen
to theirs, particularly when they're different from yours, they'll respect
you. That's the bottom line, IMO. Your children may even love you, when
they're in their mid-20s (if not always before), but that's a bonus.

David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/index.html#top
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