Boy children. Hrmph.
I don't think I've ever mentioned it here, but James has become very standoffish toward me in the last couple of years. I mean, he's always been Daddy's boy, but I felt like he and I were just not very close at all. And now he's getting to that age. He always dodges when I try to hug him. But Jimmy said just keep at it, don't be discouraged,
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Lindsay was always a Daddy's girl growing up, but now that she's an adult, unless we're talking about books or movies, a lot of our conversations involve long pauses. But get her on the phone with Barb, and it's non-stop yakkity-yakkity. Which is fine. They have a healthy, adult female relationship, and it's good for both of them.
When Hal was younger he was...well, not a Mama's Boy, because that has negative connotations, but he was closer to Barb than to me. She was the nurturer, the teacher, discipliner, and they spent more time together. Now that he's 15, he and I do Guy Things, like bowling and golfing, and we watch sports on TV and laugh at burps and farts and other guy things. And Barb has complained that she feels as if we're excluding her from the Boys Club, and she resents it.
Well, we're not doing it on purpose, and certainly not maliciously. It's just where the relationships have gone, and we're bonding the way fathers and sons and guys in general have done since we were wearing bear skins and shitting in the back corner of the cave. We're just doing what we're hard-wired to do at this stage in Hal's life.
There may be other dynamics with James, especially since Ericka The Mad is involved, but the more normal and insistent (in a nice way, as you've been doing) you are, the more he'll come to accept it.
WIKTORY, indeed.
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