On whether being an adult might be better than being a child

Mike isn't nice to waiters or waitresses.  He may not be outright rude, but he's brusque.  There's not a lot of Please and Thank You.  At breakfast at the hotel, he sends back the bacon, asks if it can be crispier.

That's a difference between us, and I don't mean to flatter myself.  I am polite to a fault, compulsively polite.  And I don't think I've ever sent back a plate of food in my life.  Some of them should have gone back!

It must have felt good to Mike to grow into that.  Kids are expected to defer.  It must have been sweet for Mike to grow up, get a little thicker and balder, and become the brusque, slightly imperious person he was meant to be.

I have marveled at how my oldest child has adapted to college.  She struggled in high school, I just assumed there would be struggles in college, but she has come into her own.  She can deal with adults on a more equal basis, and there are certain kinds of crap that she used to hate, and now doesn't have to put up with anymore.  Hall passes, bell schedules, parents and teachers telling her where to be every minute of the day.  No more.  She organizes life for herself now.

She is nice to waiters and waitresses, though.