Daddy's girl

[constance]

Boy, am I glad to be back at work, after a Father's Day spent with a father determined to pretend (very badly) not to be angry at me, pretend badly enough that I recognize immediately that not only is he angry with me after all, but that he wants me to see that he is angry with me and that he is furthermore martyring himself by pretending not to be angry so that we can spend Father's Day together without being at odds. He wants credit for his goddamn generosity, man, but he kind of cancels out the generosity by being, as is often the case, a pigheaded control freak in a towering rage.

Of course, I totally asked for it by having the execrable taste to be backed into in a parking lot two days before Father's Day. Damage: slight (a cracked fender and a scrape which is mostly paint off the other car). Liability: hers and not mine (she backed into me, as I was driving down an aisle, and what's more, she hit my back fender, which means she had plenty of time to see me and stop before she hit). Do these things matter? Not a jot. Not when my father is primed to be angry.

This is what life with my dad is like sometimes. It is a little like having a four-year-old for a father. His capricious temper more or less unrelated to logic, his constant implication that anything done which puts him out in any way could somehow have been avoided but deliberately was not avoided. His constant need to make certain that we are wrong and he is right at all times, even when he contradicts himself while voicing this need. (Sample conversation from yesterday: "I don't wear an XL shirt. I wear a 2XL." "But Dad, when I got you those shirts for Christmas, you got mad because they were 2XL and not XL." "I couldn't have -- I wear a 2XL." "Well, you did." [curmudgeonly silence])

I love my father, despite these traits which make me perfectly crazy (in him, and by extension in anyone who shares them). But sometimes he just exhausts me, when I spend all my time trying to second-guess his mood and guess how best to deflect his rages. Life at work is easy by comparison. :/

:::

At home, I am beginning to make some attempt to plumb my guest room sink (the bathroom was left half-complete when the last owner moved out). Wish me luck. *gets out waders and washers*

Comments

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

God, parents. The older they get, the younger they get, don't they? Or maybe we just notice more.

I was going to tell you all about the state of my mom and me but I think I'll spare you. Just ... it's similarly frustrating and old resentments keep me from trying to fix it so I guess it's a two-way thing. grrrr.

{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

I'm just so fucking glad Father's Day and all the attendant hype are over that I can't even begin to tell you, and I didn't even have to endure the day with my father.

[gmth.livejournal.com]

Oh, *hugs.* I swear, sometimes I feel parents should be outlawed. I'm sorry you have to go through that. *hugs again*

[luthien.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. This sounds so familiar. Emotionally damaged parents are such a trial. At least once you're grown up you can escape the stress of having to live with that sort of personality, thank God. *hugs*

Also: I see from your music selection that you're well on the way through it. I will have to dig out another one when I'm feeling a little better.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Ooh, the next time you're in the mood, my ears are open. I'm very interested in this topic, since my parent/child dynamics have changed so much over the past 10 years.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

There's no winning with capricious control freaks, is there? And trying to figure out the best way to deflect/sidestep has a spotty success rate, even for those who've spent a lifetime honing that skill. Hats off to you for putting up with it, although I wish you didn't have to. Especially with stuff that's already *^#@ stressful, like being backed into, or, say, PICKING OUT A PRESENT. (Sorry, but the XL/2XL thing just sounds beyond frustrating.)

Big hugs to you, and hurrah for Father's Day being over.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm pleased to return the favor of a listening ear, if you ever feel like venting! It sounds as though we're in quite similar positions, you with your mother and I with my father.

In my case, I'm not sure the dynamic has changed so much on his part -- it's just that as I've grown to adulthood and learned that parents aren't this way by default, I've grown to view his behavior as a form of childish self-centeredness. I still pander to it more than I ought, because I hate conflict (guess who taught me to hate it?), but I resent it very much at the same time.

*hugs you back*

[tofty.livejournal.com]

oops, that was me!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I agree totally. It's a ridiculous, pointless holiday, even when one's relationship with one's parents isn't fraught with hidden pitfalls. :/

I wish I'd spent the day fixing the plumbing instead.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

*hugs back tightly*

Here's to difficult parents! *raises glass high*

[tofty.livejournal.com]

It's true that I am grateful that I don't have to live with him. Living near him is bad enough, thank you! *hugs*

I am loving Frederica! Love, love, love. I do know what you mean when you say that you prefer Heyer to be read by women, but this is just splendid. Many thank-yous, again, for sharing!

(BTW, I've been meaning to mention to you that I do actually have a next-up request for when you're feeling up to an upload. It is Cotillion! And I don't suppose you have a copy of The Unknown Ajax?

[tofty.livejournal.com]

There really is no winning with them. :/ And to be honest, I don't even need to win: just a nice, amicable draw every now and then would be nice. A successful deflection is a nice treat, but one gets tired of always being on guard.

And you are so right that picking out presents is a horrifying ordeal! I was so careful about this shirt, too! I mean, I got him something else as well, but I also made him a t-shirt, in the size I was sure he wanted, a Godfather (http://www.phoneuploader.stellernet.com/dl.php/699/Godfather_God_Father_001.jpg) image photshopped to read The Grandfather (which plays on both his love of gangster movies and his personal choice for his Grandfather name, which is Parrain, French for Godfather). And I still got it wrong -- but at least I can make him another in a size 2XL, assuming I can control my own temper enough to start over without leaving scorch marks all over the shirt.

Come to think of it, dealing with him is a little like what I imagine dealing with a mafia boss must be like! Only without the good chance of actual death, of course. :D

[luthien.livejournal.com]

I have an mp3 version of Cotillion, but it was done by someone else and is not the greatest quality so I was thinking of doing my own from the cassettes. I also have TUA on cassette. Neither of these are available on CD. It's so weird how many of the relatively minor and less popular Heyers are available on CD and how few of the "top five" perennials!

Actually, these are both high on my own list for converting to mp3. Good choices. I'll let you know when I've made some progress. ;-)

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I should have said but didn't: I hope you feel better very soon, regardless of whether or not you post another audiobook. *hugs again*

[luthien.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I've just hit a bit of a bump in the road. Thought I'd better mention in case I end up falling out of sight for a while. I hate offering things and then having to disappear.

[thalia]

{{hugs}} I'm sorry you have to deal with that. I think it's good that you recognize what's going on, but it can't be easy.

My father died when I was 8, which always leaves me feeling a bit sad on Father's Day. But sometimes I think it was just as well--I don't think we would have ended up liking each other very much.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd have understood, and I'm sure everyone else on your flist would too. It's been a rough couple of years for you.

I'm glad you do check in, though -- when you're gone for too long, we start to worry.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

A couple of months ago, my dad remarked that if could have, he'd have frozen time back when we were six years old or so and saved himself a lot of grief. At the time, the remark hurt me very much, but now I think I understand a little better what he meant. Not that he doesn't love us as adults, but that the relationships became more complicated and harder to work out the older we got. It's tough to maintain close relations with someone you don't really understand.

All that said: I don't think I'd want to be without him. I'm very sorry that you didn't get to grow up and know for sure, with your own father. *hugs tight*

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Interesting comment of your dad's! I've often thought that if my own dad had his druthers, he'd have frozen time when we were about 12 and 15. He loved being the dad that all our teenage friends thought was "handsome, fun and cool", and he had just the right sort of lenient, humor-infused temperament to deal with us (on weekends, anyway!) at that age.

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

He was angry because you got backed into. Well, he was angry because he damn well felt like it. ARGH. That's just . . . enough to make you act like him! Don't you just want to, some times?

[tofty.livejournal.com]

My friends were mostly just kind of scared of him, except for this one who insisted that he reminded her of Bobby Knight and called him "Coach M." He loved this, and loved her too -- probably the only one of my friends he's ever expressed any active interest in.

And my parents would no more have wished me to freeze at 12 years old than they'd have wished for the apocalypse to descend. I was awful when I was that age -- how lovely and unusual that you and your sister weren't!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Actually, as crazy as he makes me, and as short tempered as I can be, I always feel embarrassed and ashamed of myself when I lose my temper -- that's how I feel about him when he loses his temper, so I guess it's only fair.

Still, though. Totally agree with the ARGH. If he were a kid of mine, he'd so be grounded right now.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine you being awful at any age. What sort of awfulness did you exude at age 12? I guess it is unusual that my sister and I were very late bloomers in teen awfulness; Julie didn't get snarly till age 19, and I only recently became dismissive, know-it-all and rebellious within the past 5 years. :D

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I only recently became dismissive, know-it-all and rebellious within the past 5 years.

Hahahahahahaha!

"Dismissive, know-it-all, and rebellious" is a good start for 12-year-old me. Add in sullen, disdainful, and contemptuous, and you've got me pretty much dead to rights. If I ever have a daughter like me, she'll be lucky to survive adolescence.

On the upside: I did improve drastically by about age 15, and I've been okay ever since. I am almost never any of those things any more.