Six Sentence Sunday

[delphi]

Six Sentence Sunday: Post six sentences from whatever you're working on, if you're game!

Kathleen considered herself an excellent mother, which to her meant never saying no to any of her boys. The fact that she couldn't always deliver on the yeses didn't matter. It was the thought that counted.

Of course, boys needed discipline, and that was why she had worked so hard to make sure there was always a good male role model in the house. She'd made a special effort to date from the pool of her sons' teachers, coaches and scoutmasters in the hopes that some of those fatherly instincts would take root. To her eternal disappointment, the boys never seemed to appreciate her efforts.

(Team Fortress 2 - an RP ficlet doing double-duty as backstory for a Scout/Sniper fic)

Comments

[hokuton_punch]

Oh, no, Kathleen - I don't think your strategy is a good idea...

[raven_cromwell]

OH fuck I was full-body cringing in sympathy for these poor, poor kids! I mean A.: the uncertainty created when your mother says "Yes" to everything and then over half the time it just vanishes into vapor is bad enough.

But then! dating teachers/coaches etc. Just UGH what an unending nightmare for these kids. Even assuming these dudes are kind/generally decent, it's bad enough! to never be able to escape people and have the authority lines of teacher/mom's love interst be blurred in horrible ways. But honestly? she seems...empty-headedly flighty, which means I suspect most of these dudes are rugged and drill-sergeant-like; something about "fatherly influence" mixed with the worst most stereotypical advice from a parenting book shockingly gives me low confidence in her ability to pick well ;) Which then gets into entire other awful kettles of fish for these boys and I just wanna cocoon them.
(Craftwise, though; damn! you do such a good job of making her chain of decisions seem entirely rational while conveying to us it's a trainwreck!)

[perverse_idyll]

Whew. Every single thing about these 'strategies' is making the hair rise on the back of my neck. Talk about delusional parenting in a nutshell. The narrative tone makes Kathleen sound genuinely naive and well-meaning - and a monster of narcissism. This would be a killer character summary fit for a piece of original fiction, with the economy and elegance you employ to nail a certain kind of human blindness: laziness that calls itself soft-heartedness, stupidity masquerading as indulgence, and selfishness that insists every indefensible choice is only trying to do what's best for you, baby.

Weirdly, I still feel sorry for her. But I feel a hundred times sorrier for her boys. (I also wonder how many boys she'll produce by the time she's no longer fertile, and pray there are no girls, whose childhoods would be a nightmare.)