Alpha daughter has a bum knee. I overhear her father's long-distance phone conversation with her about the problem. Her doctor is advising surgery to fix the moving part that's irritating the other moving parts. Then to my surprise I hear Paterfamilias say, "I can fly up there to help out if you need surgery." It is certainly a nice gesture since both our daughter and her husband work full time and a 9-year-old child needs to be walked to and picked up from school and otherwise cared for. But then he goes further. "I can go to see the doctor with you. I can take notes and ask questions. It's a help to have someone else with you. I had your mother with me when I went to see my doctor about my hip replacement."
This is another very nice gesture--or does it cross the line and infantilize our daughter? Truth be told, it is helpful to have another pair of ears in the room but she is a grown woman with a caring husband, and it may be a stretch to have one's father fly up to the city where you live to go to a doctor's appointment with you--especially for a non-life-threatening ailment.
I cringe a little when I hear him make his offer. I worry that she will take this gesture the wrong way--see it as an infringement of her maturity and independence. Fortunately, she doesn't. She may not need her dad to come up to be with her, but she takes his comments for what they are: a gesture of his love and concern for her.
Sometimes our gestures or comments may cross the line. If we're lucky, our children understand why and accept the words graciously. Other times we're not so fortunate. There's a fine line between showing them our concern and treating them like the little children that once lived in our home. And an even finer line between which option they choose.
