Can I talk about my son Matthew for a minute?

[weirddave]

First of all, he's an idiot. He's almost 16 years old, being an idiot is endemic with him. Hell, *I* was an idiot at his age. He drives me up a wall trying to deal with him. But....but....he constantly surprises me with how good a kid he is. I adopted him 5 years ago, I made him my son on par with my other son Jimmy, and even though I may sometimes

Comments

[davew0071]

That's a great experience, seeing man-like behavior from a kid. It gives hope for the future, and such generational observations are obviously not new. But being now the "elder generation", we see, as did our parents, those signs that the world is not doomed.

I didn't write about it at the time, but a little less than a year ago, when Barb was spending weeks upstate tending to her dying mother, and Hal and I had to stay home and hold down the fort, the tension on both of us was tremendous, but one evening I just had to tell Hal, "I know this is really really difficult, but you're taking it like a man, and I'm very proud of you."

And every once in a while, I see him making the decision to rise above the standard behavior of a 16-year-old and take the mature position.

I guess we're doing something right.