At a resort, I witnessed a family playing cards together.
Ah, sweet Rockwellian scene.
Let’s describe the family shall we?
Father, psychiatrist and considerably overweight. What is it about people that think they can tinker with the minds of others, and yet obviously have issues they can’t address?
Wife, thin, old and unhappy looking. Marital bliss never looked so becoming.
Daughter, pretty in an ugly way, or ugly in a pretty way. You pick. Hair dyed blond, mouth in a perpetual scowl. Complaining about everything at the resort. Nothing was at her standards. She sits tall and imperious
Son, already beaten down by life. slump shouldered, head hanging low, hair disheveled.
A look of despair on his face.
Why such different yet terrible outcomes for the two children?
The daughter concedes to things, the boy goes along.
The parents would assure you that they treat their children equally . . .
Now contrast them with another family I saw there.
A man and wife with three daughters.
The wife is a stay at home, thin and smiles all the time. The father works out of the house, yet the woman brags that he never works when the kids are home from school.
The daughters are all fresh faced and demure.
There’s a piano in the lobby and each of them take turns playing, and they play beautifully.
Concert level perfection.
They blush when people compliment them and say thank you like they mean it.
