Just You Wait, Mother
Kids are Dogs, Teens are Cats
(Playing ~ "Hello Mary
Lou")
I just realized that while children
are dogs ~ loyal and affectionate ~
teenagers are cats.
It's so easy to be a dog owner. You
feed it, train it, boss it around.
It puts its head on your knee and gazes at you as if you
were
a Rembrandt painting. It bounds indoors with enthusiasm
when you call it.
Then, around age 13, your adoring
little puppy turns into a big old cat.
When you tell it to come inside, it looks amazed, as if
wondering who
died and made you emperor. Instead of dogging your
doorstep, it
disappears. You won't see it again until it gets hungry ~
then it pauses
on its sprint through the kitchen long enough to turn its
nose up at
whatever you're serving. When you reach out to ruffle its
head, in that
old affectionate gesture, it twists away from you and
then gives you a blank stare, as if trying to remember
where it has seen you before.
You, not realizing that the dog is
now a cat, think something must be
desperately wrong with it. It seems so antisocial, so
distant, sort of
depressed. It won't go on family outings. Since you're
the one who
raised it, taught it to fetch and stay and sit on
command, you assume
that you did something wrong. Flooded with guilt and
fear, you redouble
your efforts to make your pet behave.
Only now you're dealing with a cat,
so everything that worked before
now produces the opposite of the desired result. Call it
and it runs
away. Tell it to sit, and it jumps on the counter. The
more you go
toward it, wringing your hands, the more it moves away.
Instead of continuing to act like a
dog owner, you can learn to behave
like a cat owner. Put a dish of food near the door and
let it come to
you. But remember that a cat needs your help and your
affection too.
Sit still and it will come, seeking that warm, comforting
lap it has not
entirely forgotten. Be there to open the door for it.
One day your grown-up child will
walk into the kitchen, give you
a big kiss and say, "You've been on your feet all
day.
Let me get those dishes for you."
Then you'll realize your cat is a
dog again!
~ author unknown
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Carolyn Springer Harding
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