Asked recently about her apparent unwillingness to cooperate or to act according to her parents’ wishes, Abigail Moore explained, “I don’t really listen to them. I pretty much do whatever I want.”
Pressed for additional details, Abigail continued, “look… they have their agenda and I have my agenda. Sometimes our goals synch up, but often we simply want to go in different directions. Hell… lots of times I can’t even figure out what they’re babbling about any way, so I’ve learned to just tune them out most of the time. I just filter out all the words except backpack, quack quack, raisins, Granma, and bath.”
Abigail’s father was not shocked to hear such revelations from his daughter. “Yeah… that sounds about right. I’d estimate that Abby listens to me about 10 percent of the time and complies with my requests about 1 percent of the time. I’m hoping to double my success rate over the next 17 or so years.”
Abby’s mother insisted that the problem was overblown. “I haven’t seen much of this behavior. Abby frequently does what I want her to do as long as she wants to do it and has started doing it prior to me asking her to do it. It’s not a perfect system, but it works out. Success is all about anticipation.”
Asked if she plans on behaving better in the future, Abby reflected, “probably not. Right now I’m in a phase we small people term ‘liftable.’ As soon as I get a little heavier, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to ignore my parents completely. The dog weighs about a buck-five and he hasn’t listened to anyone in like four years. He’s the gold standard for me right now.”