An interesting thought: Why do some kids (people?) seem to be swayed more by what someone says than what they do, or vice versa? For example, middle niece seems to be caught in this mental trap where she seems to be trying desperately to do whatever the adults around her are saying she should do, but she's continually tripped up by the fact that her sisters seem to get away with absolute murder and never get caught or called on it. Or, if they do get caught, they often seem to wiggle their way out of it somehow, with charm or distraction or something. Middle niece, on the other hand, feels like she's consistently singled out for punishment more often, and not only that, once she's in the hot seat, she can never get back in her parents' good graces - she's become the bad guy. So then she feels like there's something wrong with her, and that gets compounded with resentment at the unfairness of how she feels like she's being treated so differently from her sisters:
The scapegoat, in other words.
Youngest niece seems to be the opposite (and this is just off the top of my head, further observation may come up with some completely different theory, who knows): She seems to almost entirely ignore what her parents say (to their eternal - and I must admit, sometimes amusing, to this 'outsider' - exasperation), responding much more directly to what they do.
The third niece, the oldest, seems to strike a balance somewhere in the middle, and she's actullay gotten to the point (she's 8, now) where she calls her parents on their sh*t, pointing out when their actions and their words are at odds. It's great that she can see that stuff (and I like to think I may have helped a little with this one) - I sure couldn't at her age! I was much more like middle niece, I was pretty much completely bamboozled by the words my parents said, I think I never noticed how often their behavior completely contradicted what they were saying out loud.
It's taken (still taking?) me a heck of a lot of work to get to where I can actually notice when peoples' actions contradict their words, and it's even harder yet to call them on it - amazing how often what is considered 'right' has more to do with what a particular someone is managing to get away with, kind of like the Emperor.
I've even read that somewhere, that we define 'normal' by our own behavior - that we can sort of 'train' the people around us to accept dang near anything as normal just by consistently doing whatever-it-is the same way all the time. In fact, my own experience suggests that people so love consistency that even a non-standard, non-conformist behavior can become a 'quirk' that people actually like about you, to the point that if you decide yourself that you want to change it, people actually resist your desire to change. I'm sure there's some handy, well-worn aphorism/saying/whatsit that covers exactly this situation, I just can't think of it. People often seem comforted by the known, the familiar, to a degree that predictability comes to be more important than what is actually 'right'.
(Brings to mind a little sociological experiment I did in 7th grade: There was some kind of two-day seminar/whatsit, and kids filed in the first day and each chose a desk. Second day, just to be ornery and stir sh*t up, I sat somewhere else, just to see what would happen. Sure enough, whoever had sat there the previous day protested, insisting that it was their desk, why was I sitting at their desk. I thought it was funny and pathetic and utterly predictable, and was a little disappointed that the person whose desk I chose didn't have enough imagination/courage/whatever to play along and make a game of it, rather than taking it so fricking seriously. Ach.)
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