Adapted from an online discussion.
Dear Carolyn: My husband and I have a terrific 15-year-old. She’s kind and funny, a great student and a varsity athlete. She’s also a procrastinator and a frequent half-[hearter], and she’s prone to blaming others when things don’t go her way.
My husband recently angrily commented — our kid wasn’t home — that she “will always be an underachiever.” I was shocked and said that’s a terrible thing to say about our child and that he can’t predict her whole life on how she is at 15. And also, at 15, she’s doing great. He doubled down and said she’d never reach her potential.
I was stunned by how cold and critical he could be. He adores our daughter and dotes on her, but his comment made me wonder whether this is truly how he sees her.
I told him I hoped he’d reconsider what he’d said, and he sarcastically thanked me for “the lecture” and said no more. I want to move on, but I’m still angry and sad that he sees her this way. What do I do?
— Overreacting?
Overreacting?: Has he always been like this? It’s such a high level of crappiness to come from out of the blue.
If it is out of the blue, then it’s time for an: “Are you OK? This is not like you.” If he’s anxious about her future but also not great at processing vulnerability, then his anxiety could theoretically present as smug certainty of disaster. Because “See? I knew she’d fail!” is more ego-protective than “My kid is struggling,” sad to say.
If it’s in character, then, whooh. Pessimism, omniscience, sarcasm and defensiveness are the four horsemen of domestic apocalypse.
But your shock and dismay and his history as a doting father suggest it’s new(ish), thus a good candidate to be a problem of expression vs. a problem of thought or conviction. Try thinking of it as “really worried” + “really sucks at admitting that” and see where that takes you.
I say new(ish), by the way, because if he does struggle with anxiety, then you’ve probably seen it many times before in other forms, but it took the full bloom of her adolescence — and all the parental stress triggers of that — for his anxiety to turn on her.
Re: Daughter: “A procrastinator and a frequent half-[hearter], and she’s prone to blaming others”: Wow, the husband only called her an underachiever. It seems both parents have concerns, but only one is being singled out.
— Anonymous
Anonymous: The letter writer is diagnosing the moment — adolescence and all its … adolescence — and the husband is diagnosing Eternity. That is a huge difference. If the teen picks up any of her dad’s disgust, then it could be devastating to her emotional development.
Re: Daughter: My mom used to get really upset at what she perceived as my half-[hearting]. I’m 48 now, have a PhD and a thriving and influential career, and I still think there is very little that’s worthy of my applying my whole entire [heart].
