Parental Comportment

Be careful with children

If you cannot bring the necessary level of care and comportment to the mission and responsibility of raising children, best not to attempt it.

I really have no patience for anyone who says, Well times have changed.  Or parenting has changed.  This is just common sense.  If you do not want to behave properly with children, fine.  Just don't have them.

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A Father's Contempt

What kind of father has contempt for his children?

Contempt, thy name is father.

From the very first post in this series, I have struggled mightily to understand.  To answer the question:  What kind of parents treat their children this way?

I am still struggling with it.  But at this point, I think it comes down to contempt.  Sheer contempt.

My father always had contempt for his children.  And I do not mean for his adult children, although, at least in my case, that certainly followed.  No, I mean he had contempt for his children from the day they were born.  Sounds crazy I know, but I think it sprang from contempt for neediness and the burden he was forced to bear.  Which of course begs the question:  Why have children at all?  Children are so obstreperous.  And ever so needy.  Burdensome.  Expensive.  Whiny.  Smelly.  And embarrassing.  It's all just so...contemptible.

Later, I think he had contempt for his children's affluence.  Ironic of course because he was the source of it.  But I think he was contemptuous of what we had and how we lived...I suppose compared to what he did not have at our age.  Most parents want to give their children a better life than they themselves had.  My father never suffered from this delusion.

Finally and most importantly, I think he was contemptuous that his children did not measure up to the standards of his vanity.  Certainly I never have.  He's never been one to brag about his children.  But when asked about them, vanity demands that he is able to outdistance and/or outclass the accomplishments of his interlocutor's children.  I suppose it's a pre-digital form of humblebragging.  But even if not asked, he wants to feel superior.  He's perfectly happy to be quietly superior.  In any case, this contempt continues to this day.

The real irony here is that if you want your children to excel in this way, in a way that truly allows you to feel smugly superior, if that is what you need and what your vanity demands, you must first, and always, treat them well.  Responsibly.  If you do, your children are as human as anyone else, and they may still disappoint you.  But if you treat them badly, they will struggle and most likely let you down.  This is no one's fault but your own.  And your contempt is misplaced.

Imagine what it might mean for children if their father holds them in contempt.  Little kids.  And later adolescents.  Of course, if you hold something or someone in contempt, it allows you to justify and excuse any of your own bad behavior towards them.  In the extreme, you don't even recognize it has bad behavior.  Simply put:  Contempt gives you license to treat someone badly.  If you add lack of consequence, you have a recipe for real damage.

And imagine the damage.  The physical and emotional abuse.  While the physical abuse quickly heals, the emotional damage lasts a lifetime.  Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.

But that is perfectly okay because they're contemptible.  Contempt justifies bad attitude and behavior which yields failure and disappointment which produces yet more contempt.  My parents produced three emotionally damaged, even broken, children.  Who later, naturally, became emotionally damaged adults.

And my parents could not care less.  They take no responsibility for the damage.  They were entitled to their attitude and conduct.  Even today, they retain their self-righteous impunity.

Contempt allows for it.

In fact, I think it is only contempt that makes this possible.

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The Waiter Rule

In the last twenty years much has been written about the Waiter Rule.  I have mentioned it in at least one previous post.

Let's state it here:

If someone is nice to you but rude to the waiter, they are not a nice person.

Or more formally:  One's true character can be gleaned from how one treats staff or service workers, such as a waiter.  This is so obvious that I simply don't have anything further to say about it.  But if you are interested, have a look at the above Google search.  Or read this management article from USA Today in 2006.

My father is horrible with wait staff.  Always has been.  For many years my mother indulged him, tolerating his completely unnecessary rudeness.  But even she got to the point where she could not take it.  These days, she will not allow him to even deal with wait staff or pay the bill.  But it took decades.

If you put the question to him, and I have, he would say that in a restaurant, the only way the customer has to deal with bad service is through his interaction with the waiter.  Whether it is within the waiter's control or not, this is the customer's only recourse.

If you choose to skip dealing with the manager, I guess this seems logical.  But it is a lie.  My father never chose to deal with the manager.  No, the reason my father treats wait staff so shabbily is that he is simply not a nice person.  He's mean and miserly.  If left to him, he will gladly leave a zero tip on each and every occasion.  This business of bad service is merely an excuse.  Believe you me, he'll find some bad service.

This became clear to me in my twenties.  I was having dinner with a middle aged couple.  The man's silverware, on the table when we arrived, had not been properly washed.  However this might have happened, once he noticed this, he simply and gently asked the waiter for a new set.  This seems totally innocuous and of course it was.  But it made a huge impression on me.  Further, he went on to treat the wait staff with tremendous respect and left a generous tip.

I knew immediately and devastatingly that I had been raised improperly.

Imagine that feeling.

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Your Parents Did Their Best

Earlier this year, someone said to me:  I'm sure your parents did their best.

I am not an unreasonable person.  I can forgive a lot if it is true that anyone does their best in any endeavor.  Most of us can.

But with a bit of reflection, I had to ask:  Really?  Because I do not think they did their best.  That would mean that they actually tried to do their best and I just do not see that.  They simply did not care enough about the project of raising children.  As I pointed out recently, responsible parenting was beneath their dignity and tolerance.  They were not willing to take the time and make the effort required to be decent parents.

By the time you get to my age (over fifty), you've seen good parenting and bad.  You've seen parents say:  Look little Johnny, I told you not to do that; now go sit on the stairs for a while.  And you've seen parents grab their kid and beat them for accidentally knocking over a glass of wine.  It's just not a difficult distinction to comprehend.

And while it may not be politically correct to say, surely education level plays a part.  To my mind, more educated parents have less excuse for mistreatment of children.  They should know better.

They do know better.  Some just don't care.  They do not care enough to conduct themselves in a proper manner.  And whatever you may think of this, it is very difficult to argue that:  They did their best.

They certainly did NOT do their best.

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Misadventures in Real Estate

A Letter of Discontent

I did not find this house for you; you found it all on your own.  But you did ask me to help you with the transaction.  And yet almost immediately, I detected a sense of irritation and resentment from you.  I first noticed this when I was preparing the offer which we had already negotiated verbally.  You seemed to resent having to use a contract at all – You're above all that pedantic rigamarole.  I realize that you acquired several properties back in the ‘70s and ‘80s without contracts, but the only way this can ever be done is with the understanding and agreement of the seller.  We surely did not have that here.  No, this seller expected a closing, with all of its accoutrements.  Maybe after contract execution, you could have arranged for the seller to sign the deed, in the driveway, on the hood of your car.  But it just so happened that from the time the contract was signed until the day before closing, the seller was out of the country.  Everything went through the seller’s agent. And I can assure you, without the seller’s direct involvement, the listing agent would never allow this.  No escrow; no way to insure her commission.

So as the closing is typically arranged by the buyer, as soon as the contract was signed, we immediately started talking about a lawyer.  I arranged for my usual attorney to handle the transaction.  You said you did not want to pay for title insurance.  Okay fine, whatever.  Then you said, you did not want to pay the attorney to do a title examination – You could and would do it yourself.  But when I told you that I thought any competent attorney would do their own title examination no matter what, you flipped out.  And promptly told me, with the venom that only you can muster, that that was absurd.  That conversation and all future conversations went downhill from there.

That was the middle of May 2019.  I have not had a pleasant conversation with you since.

I can only imagine what you wanted.  A third-rate pettifogger to only draw the deed.  I am sure they exist but I do not know any, and I felt this was outside of my purview.  If you wanted one, you could have found your own.  And yet…

On May 24, during another testy conversation you asked me if I thought you should reach out to the listing agent to inquire about an attorney.  I told you that you were welcome to shop around for an attorney.  But that I chose my attorney based on a combination of competence and price.  I then requested that you not call the listing agent for this or anything else.  I told you that it would make you look bad and it would make me look really bad.  That is a direct quote.  So without my knowledge and behind my back, you called her the very next business day.  And you were deceitful about it, never mentioning it to me.  Not even during the three hours that I spent with you the very next morning.  I suppose you thought I would not find out.  But of course the listing agent, sheepishly, told me.  She was obviously embarrassed to tell me – Embarrassed not for herself, but rather embarrassed for me.

There is only one reason that a client contacts the agent on the other side.  That is because they do not trust what their own agent is telling them.  That's it and everyone in the business knows it.  And to my knowledge you never called anyone else.  I mean you could have called every agent and attorney in the Triangle.  But no, you only called the one person I asked you not to call.  No one else; you confirmed this yourself.  Now to me, this proves that you were not, in fact, really interested in finding a cheaper attorney.  If one thinks about this, one does begin to wonder if the actual goal was to simply make me look bad.

(For those readers who need me to be meticulously accurate on this point:  You called the listing agent for a referral to an attorney.  She gave you one and you did call that attorney.  So I guess that is technically two phone calls.  You also called my sister, a former attorney, for a referral.  She also gave you one, but you were not interested enough to call that attorney.  So again, technically, that is three phone calls.  But the problem was only the one call to the listing agent.)

I could forgive the actual phone call.  But you paid no regard to my simple request and were deceitful about it.  Demonstrating a total lack of regard and respect for me.  And so it became just another exploit in your protracted arc of misbehavior.

After that it was trench warfare all the way to closing.  Every little thing was a bitter fight.  With accompanying and palpable venom.  I would have withdrawn from the transaction but felt obligated to see it through – You blamed me for everything and I did not want you to be able to blame me for losing the house.  I could continue with a play-by-play, but I don’t see the point.  I have already left much out, but this is enough for the reader to get the flavor of it all.  It went on day after day, week after week.  You did not have a bad day, or a bad few days, or even a bad couple of weeks.  In fact, it went on after closing and through July. And I assume to this very day.

It was intentional and malicious conduct.  You made a conscious decision to act this way.

~~~

I have to admit that I was caught off guard by this.  All of it.  After the experience in February and March with the Randleman house.  There, again, you found the house yourselves.  But I helped you to put it under contract and advised on due diligence.  And based on the due diligence, you decided to terminate the contract.  Following my advice, you were able to do so without any contractual expense.  In other words, you were extremely well-served and well-advised.

So going into this house, I expected a similar experience.  That was naive.  So what was the difference?  I think the problem in a nutshell is that you decided to purchase a house for cash when you did not, in fact, have enough cash to purchase it.  And this of course created a lot of problems, large and small.  I think in your minds, I should have done more to solve these problems, and in any case, been more sympathetic to them.  Well I did solve the underlying problem; you just did not like my solution, although it was perfectly reasonable, attainable, and affordable.  As for being sympathetic, by the time this came to light, after you had insisted on (no...demanded) moving the closing up as early as possible, I was way beyond sympathetic.  Had I known there was any possibility of a loan, I would never have acceded to your demand to move the closing forward.  So this rather significant hurdle – your lack of necessary cash and its ramifications – you blamed this on me.  There was simply no one else to blame.  In your minds, everything that one need do in order to purchase a house became a lost opportunity to help you save money.  Or even an attempt to cheat you.  I was, after all, the one telling you each and every thing you needed to do. And you resented every bit of it.  Like any of it was going to make up for your six-figure deficit.

(And let me just add this:  I have no idea how you ultimately raised the cash.  But do not even think of blaming me for your choices.)

I could go on and on, but let me skip to the chase:  You believed and continue to believe that your conduct was acceptable.  This includes your ill-conceived and reckless decisions, your malicious and perfidious behavior, and your oh so venomous attitude.

Decent people would be ashamed of themselves.  Clearly you are not.

And this is unlikely to change, as the whole experience was reminiscent of your abusive behavior when I was a small child.  And similarly, you continue to believe that was acceptable.  I can assure you that it was not.  Yet decades later, you remain wholly unrepentant.

I did not learn or experience anything new in 2019; your abuse was all too familiar and you remain untrustworthy.  But after fifty years, I did decide that a new response is required.  All these months later, I stand by that decision.

~~~

Again, the above is NOT a full accounting of the problematic events of May, June, and July.  Examples of items not included:

• Your desire to move stuff in before closing and the seller’s response.
• Your last minute request to move the closing back (after insisting on moving it forward).
• The many acrimonious conversations about how much money you would need at closing, how this figure is determined, and how to get the money to the attorney.
• While this was never discussed, I am sure you wanted to short-pay the attorney (his fee), because after all, the attorney did not do anything. Like I would ever allow you to waltz into my attorney’s office and piss on our long-standing relationship.
• My offer to apply the whole buy-side commission to the purchase.
• Your completely petulant attitude and demeanor at the closing itself.
• Your uninvited, unannounced, and most importantly, unapologetic, visit to my home three weeks after the closing.

Oh, and one final note:  It is worth remembering that you did walk out of the closing with a deed to the property.  Not a trivial point.

This was an incredibly easy deal.  Your cash issue was solved easily enough, and you decided to forgo any real due diligence.  There was literally nothing to fight about.  Yet for some reason, you chose to make this acrimonious.  For as long as I live, I will never understand that.

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Better Offer

I grew up in a small town in rural North Carolina.  These were pre-internet days, and small-town life was not very exciting.  But my grandparents lived just south of Chicago.  And every so often when they would come see us, or even on the phone, my grandfather would say, next time you come up to see us, we'll go see the White Sox play.  Well we could hardly be described as a sports-oriented family, but hey, a Major League Baseball game was high excitement for my brother and me.  We must have been six and seven at the time.  Something like that anyway.

Soon enough we did visit them.  And so it came to pass that my grandfather secured four tickets to see a White Sox game.  Nose-bleed tickets, but who cared?  It was my grandfather, my father, his son-in-law, and my brother and myself.  Now my father would rather have had a colonoscopy than sit through a baseball game.  But much to his chagrin, when we got to Chicago, he learned that my grandfather had purchased four tickets rather than three.  So politeness demanded that he had to go too.

We drove into the city from their little town, found parking, and headed towards the stadium.  And almost at the gates, some fellow, a complete stranger, comes up to us and says, "Hey, I have an extra box seat ticket that I cannot use.  Do you want it?"  Very kind of course.  But he had one box seat ticket.  And again, there were four of us.

Now let's stop right here and ask:  What would be the response of any normal person?

But if my family was normal, we would not be here, reader or writer.  So my grandfather, without so much as a look in our direction, says, "Man-oh-man, that's great, thanks so much!"  Then after the fellow trotted off, he turns to my father to rather disingenuously discuss how they would use this unexpected windfall.

So, my father and brother and I went off to watch the ball game, together, in the cheap seats.  And my grandfather went off in another direction, to watch the game from the best seats in the house, with strangers.

To this day, it is the only MLB game that I have ever attended.
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