fighting why

My children fight with each other. Why? The middle daughter insists that the other girls are not better than her and cannot judge her. Judging is bad, young people say, as they go about making their judgments, without which there is no life, no decision, no seeing and no growing up. The second to the youngest son has separated himself since childhood (yes you are special and can hide safely said mother ostrich) and gets prickly when others come close, breaking out in rash of worry as soon as talk gets any more serious than movies. Thinking is disruptive, so save us from it. The Nintendo savior keeps at bay the wolves demanding responsible response. The good girl cannot find room for apology for telling a rude truth as she sees it, insulting the sister without seeing it. Facts are facts as she sees them. And the silent older boy, still mumbly sleepy with hair in his eyes and baggy sweet in my mind and lap - he has a birthday, again, and I have no idea what he wants. Will he tell me? Will he talk to anyone? Will his sister tell me what he is thinking, or will she just keep assuring me that he is not angry? The boy getting married next month sends an invite with a photo but they are not touching in it and not looking at each other in it. He used to hide with the protecting approbation of mother ostrich, but now there is work to be done and lessons to learn and growing up to do, but instead he picks a skinny little ostrich girl who can keep the world away just like mom used to. How long will he be in the basement? How long will he kneejerk switchoff his thinking organ to keep the dark dark? The college grad girl calls me up balling because her sister was mean to her, and her sister comes over with the young guy she said was pushing her around, but not it is unmentionable, and according to the nonballing one the balling one is lying about everything and nobody knows what is going on but her. You see if nobody knows, everyone is cut off. If everyone is cut off, then nobody can say a word. If nobody says a word, then all we have is movies. Then we can all sit in a circle repeating lines from Nacho Libre and laughing together about how we all laughed together when we hear those lines. Then we can all have the laughing in the right hand, while kicking around life like a soccer ball with the left foot.

And after a few years, they will wish they had family.