Put on a happy face

Wow! My father did the same thing! I had forgotten about that, but when I was 8, 9, 10 years old, my dad would always say things like "Here comes the world's happiest kid!" or "This child needs for nothing!" or "How does it feel to have EVEYTHING you want?!" At first, when he would ask me a direct question, such as "Are you happy today?" I might answer, "Well, today is a little sad, I didn't make the starting line-up of the swim team". He wouldn't take that as a fact, it would be more of a negotiating point, and be followed by "Are you KIDDING me??? If I had the life you have, if I'd even KNOWN what a swim team was, not to mention SIGNING for a hamburger at the "snack bar", I'd give my right arm! You should try working 12 hour days and you'll stop worrying about the backstroke..." In other words, not only was it a 50 year old man versus a 9 year old girl so his arguments always outdid mine completely, but even a small child can see the writing on the wall; my semi-priviledged youth was NEVER going to match up with his poor upbringing, and I really believe this is where my sense of sarcasm began. The idea of saying one thing while meaning another is a tricky one and needs years of honing to be pulled off properly, and that was my training ground!
I had a pretty good childhood, but I had lots of periods of loneliness and boredom, but whatever, I just had to deal with it. Not only did my PARENTS have a diffucult childhood, but even within my own family, they had a rags-to-riches lives, but the "riches" only came very late in life. My older brothers had a lot more "rags" in their formative years and I came along much later in more of the "riches" time period, so they weren't too "happy" about the inequity of one sibling having it "easier". In my defense, this assessment of "ease" was based solely on amount of goods, not dealing with life in any way!
I think it's natural for a parent to yearn for their child to be happy and grateful and gracious. In my own updated way, I do the same thing to my kids that my father did to me. I fish around for them to say any equivalent of "I'm happy" or "My life is good". My version is more like "On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate that trip?" or "tell me the highlight of your day"...ultimately, it is the masked "Are you happy?" question that my father asked me so many years ago.
On your other topic...anxiety sucks! I used to be so laid back, even when I had small children, I felt relatively in control...however, the past few months I have definitely had heightened anxiety, Madison and her health, Portia and her questionable driving skills, Zeke racing back and forth to college on that bike, road trips, alcohol, fuzzy details on where my children actually are, there is so much out of my control, kids arriving home at all hours in a city that is not so safe, it has all added up to giving me general unease, like when I wake up in the morning, I have to stave off a doomed feeling...I was never like that before. I had a "girls night" this week at a friend's "camp", a little weekend home that her family had had for 50 years before Katrina blew the whole thing into the lake, literally the house was 4 inches tall when they got back from the hurricane...they spent 2 years rebuilding it, and the grand re-opening was this month! It's so nice, piece by piece, to see New Orleans back to its old self. I'm not sure why driving 45 minutes away and sleeping at a lakehouse is relaxing, it's not like the crime is any better when I'm there, but it was a perfect combination of girly healthy snacky foods (guacamole, hummus, salads, skinny mohitos) girly talk (Farrah, Jon and Kate, bitchy women we have in common, hair issues) and a solid night of sleep that was so refreshing!
By the way, the Chinese restaurant in my neighborhood is called Five Happiness. Why do those restaurants always have names that make no sense? But we all know what they meant....I guess that's all that matters!

Patty