weird grown-ups

My poor husband made an enemy of sorts the other day. He made an offer of advice and suggested something to think about, nothing terribly critical. He could not for the life of him understand why this woman reacted so defensively and her eyes glazed over while she just waited for him to be done talking.

"Timing is everything." That's what my friend Barb wants on her headstone. By offering help and suggestions this early in the game without benefit of any degree of friendship or right relationship established, her perception is that it was all criticism and thoroughly offensive. She's young, inexperienced, gave all the same answers Kev did as a new coach, and I have a gnawing feeling she was "warned" about Kev approaching her. She seemed ready with bottled responses.

He kicked himself for a while. He would've waited if he'd known it would go like this. Don't you hate being misunderstood? He was in the middle of still trying to get over it when Jylle said exactly the same words we heard from Ryan for four years, that she "hates me for some reason." That set him off all over again. Coach dislikes Dad, so she takes it out on the kid. She used the same adjectives Ryan did, and Jylle was never privvy to these conversations because they were need-to-know. They were words like invisible, nothing good to say to me, never says I do anything right, helps everyone but me. Both kids said this in newspaper tones--without emotion and like they were just stating the facts. They want to know what the coach wants so they can adjust and do it right. They're not rebels or whiners. They know they're not the greatest players, so they want to improve.

For now she'll stick it out and see how the summer goes. She'll be a C-squad or at best a JV player, so she'll have a different coach during the actual season. But she's not the one I'm concerned about at the moment. It's her father. Kids can shake off things and chalk them up to weird grown-ups. As a grown-up in a weird grown-up world, it's harder for Kev. He always wants them to be reasonable and get beyond their weirdness and bad habits and attitudes. Of course he's not blind to the fact that they deem him as weird and unreasonable, but that's beside the point because he's the one who's right!

Forget Kev. I don't know if I can take Kev trying to get through another child going through this... Daddy, help!