Sometimes, I get a little opportunity to flesh out my idealistic ideas in the real world. Tonight was one of those times. R was at work late, so when I got home I decided to take the girls out for some Chinese food. L had been bugging me for Panda Express for a long time and I thought we could do even better at the little Chinese Restaurant down the street.
We had a nice, relaxed meal. Good Shrimp Fried Rice, Orange Chicken, etc. We were starting to wind down, when I remembered that L
had mentioned to me earlier in the day that she and B were not speaking. The had butted heads over something. My idealistic principle is this: It's always better to just talk it out, whatever the issue is. Just get it out in the open. It might be a little painful, but over time you will be glad you did. So I probed a little more: What was the argument about? Turns out B had jumped out of nowhere and scared L. Normally, L doesn't scare very easily, so she was really mad. This was followed by some reposessing of borrowed clothing, trinkets, ipod, etc. back and forth until both of them were apparently quite worked up. They were all smiles, best buddies until I made them tell me about this episode over dinner. Pretty soon, L started to cry. She's 12, but still kind of a cry-baby. All she wanted to hear was an apology, something that B never gives. Pretty soon, B had to excuse herself to go to the restroom and compose herself. L stopped crying, but she remained right on the brink of doing so. Oh brother! Pretty soon I started getting worried that someone might think the big old bald white guy had kidnapped these poor crying, brown little girls.
I don't have the confidence that R does to get B to apologize and then have them kiss and make up. I could maybe get them to go through the motions, but it would be totally fake. Maybe a fake apology would have been better than no apology.
So dinner ended abruptly tonight, thanks to my insistence on dredging up an episode that would have been forgotten. Or would it? I still maintain that unaddressed wrongs tend to accumulate. Maybe it happens under the surface, but they are still remembered. And if nothing else, the root cause of the problem (disrespect, meanness, even mis-communication) goes unaddressed.
I don't know what you think. Maybe there are times when it's better to not ruin dinner with idealistic principles.
We had a nice, relaxed meal. Good Shrimp Fried Rice, Orange Chicken, etc. We were starting to wind down, when I remembered that L
had mentioned to me earlier in the day that she and B were not speaking. The had butted heads over something. My idealistic principle is this: It's always better to just talk it out, whatever the issue is. Just get it out in the open. It might be a little painful, but over time you will be glad you did. So I probed a little more: What was the argument about? Turns out B had jumped out of nowhere and scared L. Normally, L doesn't scare very easily, so she was really mad. This was followed by some reposessing of borrowed clothing, trinkets, ipod, etc. back and forth until both of them were apparently quite worked up. They were all smiles, best buddies until I made them tell me about this episode over dinner. Pretty soon, L started to cry. She's 12, but still kind of a cry-baby. All she wanted to hear was an apology, something that B never gives. Pretty soon, B had to excuse herself to go to the restroom and compose herself. L stopped crying, but she remained right on the brink of doing so. Oh brother! Pretty soon I started getting worried that someone might think the big old bald white guy had kidnapped these poor crying, brown little girls. I don't have the confidence that R does to get B to apologize and then have them kiss and make up. I could maybe get them to go through the motions, but it would be totally fake. Maybe a fake apology would have been better than no apology.
So dinner ended abruptly tonight, thanks to my insistence on dredging up an episode that would have been forgotten. Or would it? I still maintain that unaddressed wrongs tend to accumulate. Maybe it happens under the surface, but they are still remembered. And if nothing else, the root cause of the problem (disrespect, meanness, even mis-communication) goes unaddressed.
I don't know what you think. Maybe there are times when it's better to not ruin dinner with idealistic principles.
No comments:
Post a Comment