Daughters and Sons

I was just listening to John Mayer's "Daughters," and there is a bit in which he talks about girls being essentially fragile, while son's are tough. What's humorous about that, is when I look at my 5 children, (and I am including Sophie and Harris in the mix, because although they aren't mine officially, I live with them enough to have observed them and their fragility and to have an opinion on that quality in them) I see the boys as the more sensitive of the two sexes. Caleb and Harris both quiver and then dissolve if they are yelled at or reprimanded in any form. Sophie fights back. Nora apologizes and shrugs it off. And Rachel, ah..., well, Rachel is another story. I must admit, my concerns about her are deep, and I think perhaps ever-lasting. The condition of her sensitivity has left her in a perilous state I'm afraid. She has become so very aggressive in her defensiveness that she can no longer see she has ceased protecting herself and is now simply wounding others. her vocabulary has devolved into a rough usage of curse words and false yet very modern bravado. "Cunt," "bitch," "like," pepper her speech to turn it black, unless, of course, she sets course toward a sea of sarcasm, and then she becomes even less tolerable.

I love that child. She owns my heart and I suspect she always will, but to listen to her express the harshness inherited from her mother sometimes makes me regret more than I am able to choke down. I find myself gagging on the bile of watching my child trudge through a life of resentment and its dance partner, disappointment. The world doesn't shine upon those who resent. Bad luck comes to them, and this is good, because who else is more adept at telling such worthy stories involving those who did us wrong and those who are beneath our contempt.

I don't think there is a day that goes by that I don't worry about her. She has consumed the wickedest bile there is, and spews it back at the world unknowingly. To chastise her for it produces more anger, more insecurity. To ignore it is to condone it. I am at a loss.