Communication 101
I was sitting on our beautiful new sofa last night, having a glass of wine, and trying to get sucked into my book. It wasn’t working so much last night, and there was nothing on TV, and Ted and Maya were already snoozing, so I was a bit bored. I started going through a drawer, and I found a series of notes between Maya and myself from sometime last year, maybe the year before, I’m not sure. Here’s what I remember. I told her to go to bed, and she ignored me. I asked again, and she ignored me. We got in a big fight about it. I told (yelled at) her that she never listens to me. She went to her room and slammed her door, and wrote me this letter. She brought it to me and went back in her room. I wrote my response, etc. I thought you might get a kick out of the sequence of communication in my house…
I love this one for two reasons…1st, I just LOVE the little angry face.
2nd I love that she is so stinking mad, but she still signs it, “love”. 🙂
This is the other side. She asked me to mark whether I still love her, and return it.
I marked it, and then wrote a note of my own: This is the last page…if you look at the bottom, you can see that she LOVES me, but still calls me a liar for saying she never listens. And she’s right. I am a liar. She does listen. Sometimes.
7 Comments
Autumn's Mom
hahahaha That is so awesome! I envy the way Maya communicates with you 🙂 Autumn would just be able to utter “you never ahahahahahahahhahahah” screaming and crying and I can’t understand a friggen word.
Cherry
I hope you don’t mind, but I often (ok like 4 times) have told people about this exchange that you had with Maya. Every one of my friends have told me how amazing it is that Maya is able to 1) understand how and why she is feeling a certain way and 2) that she is able and willing to communicate with you so clearly.
Nice job Mama!
Oh, and once in a psych class I learned how women tend to generalize and use terms such as never and always, and men (and obviously kids) hear them in their full meaning, as apposed to the generalized sense that we mean. So confusing.
Pony Storm's Ride
Every Mom in the land ought to have the pleasure of reading this piece. Good thing you kept the original “document” of the back-and-forth between mother & daughter.
Cherry is SO right. As a guy I can tell you that for 53 years I took the terms “always” and “never” very literally–until my psychotherapist, at the time, pointed out to me what I had (erroneously) been doing.”Always” and “never” are weapons of mass destruction when used against the gullible.
Uncivil
Truly priceless. I sent an email to every gal in my email address list with a link to your blog!
Maya is wise beyond her years!
Glad I found this
Jimmy
Maya's Granny
I just love how Maya can be so open with you and so knowing about how she feels, and that you can listen to her and realize that there is truth in her words.
Piece of Work
Oh, this is sooo cute! I love it. And I can remember writing similar notes to my mom.
Heidi
Hey J, thanks for stopping by, and the wisdom. Of course I know you are right. But I’m not far from 40 myself so the hormones are egging me on to be irrational in dating land. That said, I love this post of yours. Children, what great characters they end up being on these blogs. Love it! I’ll stop by again!