When my son went to his first dentist appointment, the dentist asked him what he liked for snacks. Without skipping a beat, he said, “mostly pop and candy cars.” My son has never had either of those things, in his entire life, save two mini chocolate bars over the course of the last two Halloweens. Yesterday, my mother-in-law asked him what she should do to punish him if he wasn’t going to listen to her when visiting and he said, “I dunno… hit me?”
Kids.
Kids are like a rioting mob. When it comes to weapons, kids will grab whatever they can. They’ll throw newspaper boxes and bottles and bricks - whatever comes to mind or hand. And a lot of the time the best weapons that a kid can get their hands on are the words that float around them all day long.
I don’t swear around my kids. I’m not saying I should get a trophy, and I understand why you might drop an f-bomb here and there as a parent. But I’ve made a conscious effort because I don’t want that phone call from school where they tell me that my son told an 8-year-old girl to “go f’ herself.”
But I’m sarcastic around my son, and this is becoming a problem.
A few days ago, my son was trying to get my attention. While I do my very best, there are times when I must get things done. In this case, had asked my son to give me some time and space and that I would help him or play with him… or whatever the hell it was he was trying to get me to do. His response? “Ok… that’s fine… if that’s what you want to do, I can’t stop you.”
Ughhh.
You might think: “Problem solved. He left you alone.” No. Kids don’t DO what they’re going to say in cases like this. They just want you to know that they’re listening… especially when you’re at your worst. This wasn’t me at my worst. It wasn’t even close. But it taught me a valuable lesson. One that I keep learning and keep forgetting.
My son is very much a product of genetics and environment. And his environment, for the first five years of his life, was me. I was around every single day, full time, so I shouldn’t be surprised when he does and says things that I KNOW, in my heart of hearts is something that I would do and say.
Let me tell you a little story about farts.
One day I was giving my kids a bath. My son was finished first and so he got out of the tub so that I could dry him off. While I was drying him off, he turned so that his back was to me and farted on me.
Farted.
On me.
And then he laughed like it was the early 90’s and he’d just watched Eddie Murphy’s Delirious for the first time. He laughed so hard I thought he was going to puke.
I was furious. I became irate. I got so angry. I made him leave the room while the two of us composed ourselves. He came back into the room and we had a good talk about respect and human decency. He understood and we carried on. I continued to dry him off and about 10 seconds later he turned his back to me and farted on me again.
Again.
I lost it. All the normal bedtime routine was out the window. That TV show he was going to watch for 23 minutes? Nope? Four books? Lucky if he would get one.
So. Angry.
My wife got home and I told her the whole story. She said, “is that a boy thing? I don’t understand how boys think that is funny.”
And then it hit me.
I had just returned from a vacation in Ottawa where I had hung out with my best friend for five days. During this trip, my best friend was sitting on his couch watching TV and I walked up, stopped directly in front of him and farted. And then I laughed and laughed. And he was furious… for a second. And then he laughed and laughed.
As I stood in my kitchen with my wife, I came to the realization that almost everything that my son had ever done could be pretty easily traced back to something my wife or I said or did or the way we carried ourselves. So how could I possibly be mad at my son about this?
Now obviously, I need to keep up appearances. I don’t excuse my son’s behavior because I’m also a terrible person. But I do realize that there’s a certain hypocrisy in getting angry at a 5-year-old about something that I can’t control in myself.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let him fart on me.
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