Wounded Animal Syndrome

Teenaged son was doing fair to middlin' on his attitude today. That is, until he was working in the yard cutting back some decorative grass. He sliced almost the whole fat pad off his left middle fingertip. He came in bleeding, moaning, screaming, yelling and cursing...at me!

Of course, it was my fault. Everything always is with him, I'm getting used to it. But this time he was aggressively angry to the point of hysteria. I call it Wounded Animal Syndrome. You know, like the stories of normally peaceful animals who go berserk when they are injured and attack people? The boy is far from peaceful, but being human, I tend to attribute a bit more logic and reason to him than a wild animal.

Whoa. Not so today.

Once we got it bandaged, stopped the bleeding and got an Advil in him to help with the pain, he seemed to calm down quite a bit. What really helped, though, was me doing his chores for the rest of the day, and letting him watch a movie.

But we will be using this experience (sooner rather than later so it's fresh in his memory) to show him another reason he's just not ready to drive. Imagine you and this child touch bumpers at a red light and he bangs his jaw on the steering wheel. You do not want to engage him after such an incident. The police arriving at a scene like that would not react well, neither would the traffic court judge when the matter is brought before him.

I know he's anxious to get behind the wheel. I know the imaginary freedom a driver's license represents and the fearsome responsibility it actually holds. And this is my promise to you, dear reader, that I will do everything in my power to make sure my offspring are emotionally stable and trained before turning them loose on the highways of our nation.