Mommy/Daughter Fights
“Mommy, you want to fight?” It’s 8:05 in the morning, and my 9-year old, Áine, is asking me if I want to fight. This is a continuation of our fight from last night, and we only have 5 minutes until we need to put our shoes on to hit the road for the school bus. Despite being crunched for time, I say, “yes, let’s fight!” We take our respective places in the living room, Áine explains the rules in a deep, commanding voice, “any one of these three seats counts. Whoever ends up in one of these three seats is the loser!” Then, she starts the countdown in the same commanding voice, “3, 2, 1 . . . let it begin!” Before I go any further, I will explain about our fights. They are not real fights with yelling and screaming. They are not real fights with hitting and punching. They are just your average mother/daughter takedown fights. We wrestle each other until one of us ends up pushing the other down into one of 3 seat...