Englewood Cliffs, NJ

My practice is grateful for my parents. Truly so, I'm not being sarcastic. Things they insinuate, things they do, things they outright say, things they represent are all opportunities for me to watch my practice in action, and overall I think I've come along quite satisfactorily.

And on top of that is genuine, normative gratefulness, simply for what they've provided and for how much worse they could've been as parents and were not. And below all the gratitude is a recognizable indifference towards them that informs me that they should not in any way be a part of what I decide to do or not do. I don't owe them that, nor do they necessarily deserve such consideration.

My reactions of becoming a cold wall, or feeling a tightening ball of anger or annoyance gripping in my chest, to what so far has been the worst reaction of becoming outright sarcastic and snarky, are all being watched and minded.

The first two types of reaction are easy to handle; they are immediate and immediately recognizable, and easy for me to grab a hold of, acknowledge and relax and let go of. Stop it. Good practice *pats practice on the head*.

In general, try to do no harm, don't say anything harmful or creates negative tension, even in response to an offense.

I'm neither articulate nor observant enough to describe their perceived offenses, but suffice it to say they are family things. Things that only come from being family and just about anyone knows it when they encounter it with their own families.

The incident involving sarcasm and snark was a response to relentless, although likely unintended, condescension and insulting of my intelligence by my approaching senility father, and the breaking point led me to start repeating what he was saying in exaggerated, mock agreement. I don't regret my behavior as it was harmless and more defensive exasperation than an offensive cut at his cluelessness that I twisted after plunging it in.

I've also been learning suggestions that my father, in general, can't be claimed to be a good, well-intentioned, self-sacrificing figure towards other people in his life, both professionally and personally.

As a medical doctor, I have no reason to doubt he has always conducted his business to the highest professional standard, strictly speaking – he has been sued for malpractice, but has won every time because his records are meticulous and logic and reasoning competent and defensible – but he never went the extra inch to help someone, not much of a bedside manner, I shouldn't wonder.

Personally, I always look for the good, well-intentioned person and read that into the non-expressive, blank wall exterior of my father, but I realize that may just be my own projections. Whatever, really. In my experience, he has never gone beyond the call of duty except for acting as the family bank, and that's significant enough, so fine.

They off-handedly called me "spoiled" in response to my apathy and lack of interest towards my life. So much to say about that. The great irony of a parent calling a child "spoiled" is that, well, someone did the spoiling (hint: it was them). Another thing is that they were calling me "spoiled" when I was a teenager. They're still calling me that?! Come on, where's the progress?! Where's the imagination?

But where I understand how it might have made me angry before on multiple levels, it doesn't now and I was content to think to myself, "maybe so".