Act of War.

It was my daughter's 9th birthday recently, and we're throwing a party for her tomorrow.
A lot of the activities and crafts that she wants to do hinged on certain conditions that her mother laid out.
One of these activities was to make a bunch of pillowcases tonight to give to her friends as gifts tomorrow.
Mommy told my daughter that she had to finish her cleaning first, because the pillowcases would take an hour to do, and she had to be in bed by 9.
My daughter claimed to have misunderstood, and thought it meant she had to be done cleaning by 9. Her mom then said tough luck, no pillowcases, and my daughter was devastated.
I heard her crying "But I worked so hard..." and it was a tone from her that I don't hear too often. She does her fair share of complaining and crying for things, but this one seemed particularly painful to her. It reminded me of when she was potty training, and she wanted a dollhouse that we had set up for her as a reward for the first day she stayed completely dry. At the end of the night as she got sleepier, she had an accident and burst into these deep, pained sobs, so disappointed that you could feel it coming off of her.

I stepped in on her behalf with my wife (out of earshot of the little girl, because I didn't want any friction) and asked if we could rethink it. She accused me of undermining her, which I can understand, and which is why I approached her privately. To our daughter I had backed her up completely, emphasizing the importance of listening to Mommy.

I left it alone after my wife got really mad at me. She did eventually go and get my daughter to do the craft. Now she's really pissed off at me however, and I know that it's the kind of pissed off that is never going to get better. It won't be forgotten. It will be locked away somewhere to fester and grow and explode in the middle of another confrontation somewhere down the road. I'm fine with that.
Here's the thing.
I hate my own birthdays. Birthdays to me are fraught with disappointment. They're like an annual perfomance review conducted by that hypercritical little voice in my head that always tries to convince me I'm no good. Birthdays are reminders of my failings. They're an unmistakable and unavoidable yardstick of my mortality. I get so tremendously down that I just want to hide from the whole world, including my family. I think a lot of that is centered on experiencing huge disappointments on virtually every birthday I've ever had. I don't recall any birthday parties other than my 9th, which was my first birthday at a new school. I do recall a lot of birthdays that were celebrated with apologies rather than gifts and parties.
I recall a lot of very lonely birthdays. The best birthday present that I ever received as a kid was a trip to the arcade with my brother-in-law to blow 10 bucks.
What I'm getting at is that when I heard my daughter's aching disappointment tonight, I felt all over againt the pain and disappointment that I've felt over 38 birthdays, and I don't want her to feel that way.
I think that if we can limit the disappointments and the hurt while she's young, she might somehow grow up to be an okay kid, despite having her father's genes.