My eldest child has decided to go to my father’s alma mater. My father is over the moon. He’s always had a good relationship with our kids, but now he’s noticeably (to everyone, not just me) less terse with me, calling or texting out of the blue and generally now thinks my life isn’t a miserable mess.

Less conflict with Dad is nice. I don’t want to be childish, but really? Now I’m acceptable, after all these years? I really don’t know how to react here or how to handle this newfound chumminess of Dad’s.

— Ouch

Ouch: Dad’s chumminess may be newfound, but it’s the same old Dad — as in, all about Dad. You’re either just like him or you don’t matter. We’re talking profound insecurity, not strength; why else would he be so threatened by the courage it took for you to differentiate? Anyway, you’re simply getting the shiny side of the same Dad coin, now that he finally sees the glow of his own reflection.

I’m sure the reduced conflict is an upgrade. However, he’s put you in a deceptively tough position. When Dad was judgmental and terse, you could be terse right back at him. In its adult clothing, of course — cool civility. But his being judgmental and friendly is a hot potato.

If you return his warmth, then it’s a tacit endorsement of his corrupt system of approval.

If that seems overstated, then here’s a thought exercise. Swap out his comically niche elitism for something viler, like sexism, racism, classism. Now imagine privately being a witness to his demeaning treatment of people in the -ism class, then, hmm, in public he’s warm and solicitous of you, because you’re not one of those people. Same general mechanism of bestowing warmth and contempt arbitrarily.

You see it, right? There’s a soul cost here, to accepting warmth on these terms. It’s to your credit that you’re unsure how to respond to your dad’s.

The good news is, you’re no rookie. You’ve been pulled into these games before. At all of 18, apparently, you felt the tug of generations of men in your family, and chose your soul instead.

All of which is to say, you can do this, probably better than I can advise it. You found your happiness squarely in your father’s blind spots, and none of you can think that’s a coincidence. You also had the wisdom to let that suffice and released your kids to their own relationships with your family.

The work now is merely a matter of deciding what strength, love and peace — the key elements of your “wonderful life,” I’d wager — look like for you in this new situation. What response they demand.

Do they insist on more arm’s length civility? On saying the “Really?” part out loud, calmly, once? On recognizing you were stronger by 18 than your dad has been in your entire awareness of him — so this is no different from any other occasion of simply, kindly doing what’s right?

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