My youngest Daughter has outdone me: (and that's a good thing)

I realized this morning that my youngest daughter has outdone me. I am a very personable fellow and I'm used to people liking me or even loving me and being kind to me. However, even though my youngest daughter says she loves me, she is the single most difficult person in my life.

We were doing great at her private school from age 7 to age 12. However, then she and her mother wanted her to go to a private Christian School and I said, "This isn't a good idea. They are going to discriminate against her because our beliefs aren't fundamentalist like people who go to a school like that. However, my wife and daughter outvoted me and because getting a divorce wasn't useful because my present youngest daughter wouldn't have a father to raise her just like my older daughter from my last marriage after she was about 5 years old either (even though I paid about $75,000) to try and get custody of my older daughter but wound up with joint legal custody but without primary physical custody. But, at least I had 9 weeks a year with my daughter to travel and ski with her and I had weekends whenever I could afford to drive that far (over 400 miles)(when she wasn't living 2000 miles away at first).

So, my younger daughter went one year to the Christian school and (Surprise!) EXACTLY what I predicted happened and my daughter suddenly was an a complete atheist or Agnostic. (She says atheist but I find mostly people who are really pissed off at Christians are Atheists in general. So, my thought is she is an agnostic because Atheists tend to have been screwed over by Christians more.

So, since she was 13 her  comments towards me go something like this. "You're crazy because you believe in God! Put a Shirt on! Put your pants on! (when I'm walking around in shorts or underwear) or (Close the door to the Bathroom!) or You're crazy because you believe in God and all that crazy stuff! And surrounding herself with straight A students at her present (and different private school) who don't believe in God either but who are going to some of the best colleges and universities next year on the west coast of the U.S. in California, Oregon and Washington.

Lately, I said to her, "We cannot communicate!" and her response was, "We're communicating right now! and my response was: "We need to create rules of communication so you can survive the next year!" And her response was, "What are you talking about?" And then I said, "You need to know when to ask for help of all kinds. Your older brother didn't learn to ask for help even when he needed it until he was 25. That was awful!"

This was met by a dirty look from her.

This is kind of how her last week of finals before graduation has gone. Her mother has been kind of hysterical and difficult and I just have been trying to get through to my daughter because she doesn't seem to be being realistic in a useful way to me.

Of course, I'm 66 and she is 18. So, I realize she has a great deal to learn. However, I just want her to survive the next 5 years or so until she becomes adult enough to make it without many problems after that.

But, then there is the other side of this. My daughter is beautiful but doesn't think she is beautiful. She is dyslexic but also incredibly intelligent like her older brother. My mother and grandmother were dyslexic too and of all the females in my family, my youngest daughter has gone the furthest the fastest because of the best private schools in this county. However, she has so much attitude towards her mother and I it is kind of scary. Her point of view about the world I don't experience as being realistic. But then, how realistic were you and I at 18?

When I look back at my life I sometimes really wonder how I survived 18 to 26 when my son was born just after I go married. This was the first thing in my life that slowed me down and made me think about staying alive another day so my son could actually grow up.

So, even though women are entirely different than men I look at my daughter's privileged life with a new car we bought her last year and her going to one of the 7 colleges she was accepted to in California, Oregon and Washington and I realize there is no way at all that I can compare her life to mine or to my mother or grandmother who were dyslexic like her.

My youngest daughter has outdone me and all the female members of my family but most resembles the scholastic proficiency of her mother, my wife. My daughter has outdone me! And that's a good thing.