Which one of us is wrong?

I see where you're coming from, I don't know if you've ever watched 'The Fast Show' but, there used to be two gardeners in it who would just say something like 'what do you think of those chocolate chip cookies?' and the other would reply 'load of b*****ks, innit', they were bonding there, and I see what you're trying to do with your daughter.

On the other hand, I am similiar to your daughter, in many respects. I often disagree with my parents over things, for instance, my mum hates psychiatrists, thinks they make things worse, thinks we should bottle everything up, I often tell her she's wrong, naturally, of course, this has wider implications, I'm in a situation where I can't go to see a doctor on my own, not because of age, because I am legally allowed to, kind of because I can't go out . But, other things too crop up, such as my dad hating genetic engineering, I don't think they fully understand it, though, or my mum hating face wash products.

Having said that though, we never row, we're not at all close, and when one of us says something horrid to the other, we never apologise. So, I'm not entirely sure if it is the same.

Maybe its an age thing, I often get frustrated at how close minded my parents appear to be, I feel as if they have me trapped, but thats just me. Maybe your daughter, because of her age, simply doesn't get annoyed by things, and so she thinks its stupid? I know I think that of my parents, some say people get more bitter as they experience the world and get older, young people, I feel, are likely to have more happy thoughts, and all that.

Sorry, this is a pretty useless post of mine.

Hi Elijah,

So which one of you is 'right' or 'wrong' - well perhaps neither of you are either right or wrong, but just, being human, are both different.

To you this form of complaining is good for bonding, but clearly for her it's not.

So you would like her to change her outlook and see your complaint as gently directed to the world - however you do not have control over her behaviour, but you do over your own -so if your intention is to bond with her and you find that this type of complaining isn't working, then why not do something else? For example you could start pointing out how wonderful she or something else is!

grovelli

Thank you for that link. It was an intersting article and answers some questions.

egor

No apologies necessary and your post is not useless. All input is welcome. You may be right about the age thing. She has always looked up to me and depended a lot on my guidance. Now she is frightfully independent and most likely wants to assert that independence. The arguments are not exactly rows but simple differences of opinion but it feels like she makes a point of having a differing opinion. I understand more about it now than when I first posted the question, thanks to you and others. I appreciate your comments.

M Lavie

I don't necessarily want her to change her outlook, I just wanted to understand it. I already praise her and other things, I was not at a loss as to what to do. I just didn't understand this particular aspect. You said, "...you could start pointing out how wonderful she is...". Start?? You give me the impression that I have not done this in all her 20 years of life. I started pointing out how wonderful she was when she first opened her eyes. It may be among the reasons that we got along so well.

This new change just surprised me. She seems to argue now just to show a difference of opinion. A simple example of the triviality of the argument is that being an engineer, I have frequently used the prefix "mega" to mean multiplied by a million as "kilo" is multiplied by a thousand and so on. I expressed mild distaste at the way the word has been adopted by people who don't know its original Greek meaning and that it has now come into popular use as indicating greatness in general. It even has a dictionary entry to that effect. It is evolving beyond that to mean anything positive.

It was an offhand comment but it turned into a major debate and I was not expecting that in the context under which the comment was delivered. It turned into a discussion on the evolution of languages. I have no doubt that she is correct but there are times when you don't push your correctness. I don't tell her she is stupid when she doesn't know how to connect a VCR to the TV or that she doesn't know how to manipulate computer files outside of email. I am proud of her for obtaining her BA degree and I tell her so.

Languages may well evolve out of misunderstanding of words and phrases. I was simply expressing distaste at some of the ways they do. I wasn't expecting to be attacked for that. This is only one instance of what seems like a recurring theme. I can't make a comment on anything without her using it as an excuse to contradict me. Maybe it is an age thing as has already been mentioned. I don't know. I was just looking for understanding as I do not want to argue with her. She says she does not enjoy arguing with me. I just wanted some insight into the psychology here. Just wanted to understand the change.

EB

It all boils down to this: You were right and she was wrong.