Life is rich with irony and poetic justice. Yesterday I had to laugh at life’s irony as children graduate into adulthood and have the tables turned on them.
Any of you who are parents have undoubtedly experienced times when children plead with you to let them do something with their friends and they try to con you by saying that “everyone else” has already been given permission to do it – implying that you are the last holdout and threatening them with mortal embarrassment by withholding permission.
Initially as a parent you sometimes naively cave to that pressure, rationalizing that if other parents have already given permission, it must have been considered carefully, and therefore is acceptable for you to comply. (Of course, then when you meet up with those same parents when you drive your child to said event and compare notes, you come to realize that each of the friends have used the exact same strategy with their parents, and so the “group dupe” has once again been successfully executed!)
But yesterday I was treated to observing this classic in reverse, as a young adult was relating to me how they had been coerced into signing up for an “adult” event at our church by another parent telling her that their own daughter had already signed up. And so this young woman agreed to sign up … of course, only to talk to that daughter to find out that she had signed up only because she had been told by her father that the other girl had already signed up!!
Ahhhh …. there is such a sweet justice in the world sometimes!
