An outsider's view of the family

An appliance repairman came this morning.

I found it really interesting to hear about some of his experiences. Here is one of them:

Usually it’s the kids that I talk to.

I can’t stand the way they talk to their parents when I’m there. Here I am, on the floor, working on the appliance and I hear them say, “I want this (blank) done right away,” or “You can’t (blank) tell me what to do,” etc. Well I get up (and he’s big, over 6 feet tall) and I say to him, “Look, I’m only here a few minutes. I don’t know what your problem is, but I don’t want to hear about it. You can either speak differently to your Mom, or go into another room.”

He leaves and the mother turns to me and says, “I don’t know why he speaks to me that way.” And I reply, “Because you let him.”

“It’s one thing the way the teenagers speak among themselves, and we can’t control that; but we’re in charge of the way they speak to us.”

Finally, I ask Bill, "You’ve raised kids?" Yes, one is in Virginia, and the other just came back from Iraq. He’ll be going back to Iraq or Afghanistan.