To my way of thinking, a heart-to-heart about what do with your life is a bit different with daughters than with sons. Girls, I think, are best “talked to” by their mothers. Not just about baking a cake, shopping on a budget, knowing what fabrics don’t go in a washing machine; but more personal things, like wearing the right cosmetics, recognizing when your man wants to make love, or letting him feel chivalrous by opening doors for you.

Boys, on the other hand, are a father’s concern. (Read: nightmare) Between struggling with a torrent of testosterone, confused by the stifled male instinct of domination, and fighting off urges to grab a female by the buttocks, sons give fathers all the challenges of parenthood they can handle.

Not to mention what communication difficulties arise when your son not only happens to be Mensa material, but is razor-sharp on world affairs, and a smart ass to boot.

DAD:  Sit down a minute, son, I thought this might be a good time to…

SON:  Talk about sex? Sorry, Pop. Anything you say, I already know..

DAD:  Is that so? Well, big shot, it’s not about sex. I‘m talking your future.

SON:  Oh, that. Well, I already got that nailed. I’m gonna be a politician.

DAD:  Hey, son, good choice! Want to make some laws, huh?

SON:  Uh uh. Money. I hear those guys make over a hundred thou a year and that’s not even counting book deals.

DAD:  Listen, son, there’s more to being a public servant than money and book deals.

SON:  Public servant?  It’s too late for that, Pop.  I want to get kickbacks from construction companies, campaign contributions from corporations, greenies for special political favors, and beaucoup bucks from lobbyists, like Washington insiders are getting.

DAD:  Ye gods, kid, is that what you want to go to Washington for?

SON:  Why else would I want to go Washington? 

DAD :  Well, some people actually go there to help run the government.

SON:  Yeah, right into the ground.

DAD:  I don’t get it. Where you getting crazy ideas like that?

SON:  Are you saying, Dad, that you don’t know America is going down?

DAD:  Now, wait a minute! This country’s got some troubles, sure, but we’re the strongest nation in the world.

SON:  Yeah, and we got troops all over the world to prove it.  We’re forking over billions in blackmail to keep some fruitcake countries from nuking each other.

DAD:  I know that, but…

SON:  And we’re canceling the debts of nations we’ve been propping up for years. We’re blowing money on armaments like a drunken sailor. We’re supporting a U.N. that’s pulling our chain. We let wacko dudes in the administration push us into a war we can’t win, to protect us from WMD’s that aren’t there.

DAD:  WM what?

SON:  Geeez, Pop, you’re REALLY out of the loop!

DAD:  Whoa..just a cotton-pickin’ minute, young fella.....

SON:  Congress is a house of cards that doesn’t have the backbone of a night crawler. And we let some dinky little country in the Middle East call the shots because we’re afraid of being called anti-Semitic.

DAD:  I think you’re going overboard with this kind of thinking, kid!

SON:  And to top it off, we got a bunch of media freaks who recite the Beltway line on cue, and wouldn’t give us the truth about what’s happening to America if they were on their death bed. 

DAD:  Hell, kid, if you think our government is THAT bad, why do you want to be part of it?

SON:  I can’t fight ‘em, so I might as well join’em. The neocons got this country so screwed up I figured I might as well get in on the action before it all caves in.

DAD Well, son, that’s not exactly the kind of future your mother and I had in mind for you.  And frankly, I doubt if President Bush and his advisers would like your idea of patriotism.

SON:  Really? Well, I think THEIR idea of patriotism sucks too, so we’re even.

DAD:  Jesus, kid, where did you get all this stuff about what we’re doing wrong in America?

SON:  Reading about it.

DAD:  Reading who?

SON:  Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton.

James T. Moore
http://jamestmoore.us/