esrosedotblog

DOG BITES

This in Slate today: Grandpa Got A Dog....Oh No!.

It is a humorous and, I think, insinuatingly nasty piece on sibling rivalry between human kids and a family dog. Extreme examples are given and the point is made. Yet, I can't help feeling as though more is going on here than meets the eye.

There is a reverse form of the 'empty nest' syndrome. When kids leave home, I observe, some of them still yearn for parenting in a way that denies their adulthood. The author seems to fit the mold. Her expectations of her own and other parents, in general, seems to contradict a certain reality: when kids grow up, parents move on.

I have to admit to a certain bias here. We sort of ran away from our kids 8 years ago to get to someplace that was warm and cozy and supportive for us. It is also clear that, in a way, we were running away from home and family and, inevitably kids and grandchildren. OK so far. Lots of grown up adults do this. There are those who choose to stay close and dote or to visit back and forth frequently. We do not. We like the distance and we like the close times together which are less frequent than average but high quality. Or we perceive it that way.

One thing I see that we miss out on is the extent to which a lot of older people are micro-managed by their kids. We have been spared that. I suppose that some of that is because we do not and never have micro-managed our kids' lives. What goes around comes around. We have all minded our own business and, them that don't get caught out at it. They find themselves being told what to do by their kids when they least want to be messed with.

Now for the dog part. We got a dog. Is he more important than the kids on a basic life or death basis? No. Is he more important on a day to day basis as we sort of putter our way through life? Sure he is. I would put his walk before returning a regular phone call back east.

We do not leave him alone for very long. He is part of our little family in his doggy way. Yeh, we know he is a dog but he is our dog. He is one, of many, reasons that we do not trek eastward to spend a harried time running from place to place 'visiting'. And that is to say nothing of the discomfort of flying today. We simply do not want to board him or do without his company for very long.

Of course, some young people do not understand this. They are so involved in what they rightly consider their own life style that other life definitions seem tenuous at best and dead wrong at worst. I remember feeling that way about my parents. What a boring life they led. They could not possibly have been as happy as they acted.

This is why, I speculate, those that meddle in their parents' life meddle. They view an alternate reality as strange or unrealistic or are threatened by their own possible future. They cannot imagine doting on a dog. In a few cases, like this author, where they obviously have not grown up and are insecure, they see an oldster attached to a pet as a parent guilty of child neglect and abuse.

Too fucking bad. When you get to my age, a walk with a dog and some snuggling (to say nothing of a chase and wrestle or a game of tag or a session of fetch) is just about enough. The dog enjoys every minute as I do. And when we are done, we can quit and go our separate ways. Not so for the author. She is going to stay around and nag.I

There is a sea change in who we are and what we want as we mature. This is the case whether we are going from adolescence to young adulthood or from parenting to 'retiring'. The changes come whether you want them to or not. Mostly, I want them to. The main thing I am willing to do is to let them happen. Oh that some ungrateful children would do the same and not write bitchy pieces like this one. She got to me, eh?