Holy Jeebus!

Conversation between boy, 12 and girl, 10.

[a boy, 12 and a girl, 10 are sitting at a table]

Girl: Sometimes, when I’ve been talking for a while, I stop and try to think back to how I got to saying what I was saying from where I started talking.

Boy: Yeah, I do that sometimes when I’m thinking. Like, I start off thinking about cheese, and then a little while later I’m thinking about dragons, and I stop and try to backtrack.

Girl: Yeah, cause cheese goes on tacos, and tacos have beans, and beans make you fart. And dragons don’t fart.

Boy: Exactly.

[scene]

My 6th grade son’s math homework was full of rounding errors.

The topic isn’t rounding, it’s conversions, but the instructions said “round to the nearest tenth” and he rounded to the nearest 100th in most cases, and did so incorrectly at that.

He’s been having some focus issues with math and is currently carrying a C where he’s had straight A’s in all classes, all year. We’re working on it.

Any way, 7 out of 12 wrong on his homework, due solely to the rounding errors. I asked him “do you know what the grade would be for 5 out of 12 on a test?” as I punched in 5 / 12 on the calculator and held it up for him to see.

“A forty-one?” he says.

Sigh.

Son: Don’t the people they’re talking about [in political ads] have to approve the message?

After watching a Rick Scott ad attacking Alex Sink:

Son:

Don’t the people they’re talking about [in political ads] have to approve the message?

Me:

No, just the person who makes the ad.

Son:

Oh. Because, I don’t think any of the people they’re talking about would approve.

Kids are honest. Brutally so, sometimes. Go with it.

Kids are honest. Unless they’re talking about something they want, or something they did (or didn’t do), you can rest reasonably assured that whatever a kid under 12 tells you is the truth. They have no filter. If a kid tells you you’re fat, you are. If a kid tells you you’re ugly, well face it - you’re ugly. And if a kid tells you you’re Billy-Joel-ugly, but without the talent or fame, go ahead and smack him for being a rude little shit. After you do that, though, you should also give up hope of ever dating anyone remotely resembling Christie Brinkley (unless you are talented and/or famous).

Realistically speaking, though, these are things you already know. Take me, for instance. I’m fat. I know it. At a soccer practice some kid’s 3-yr-old sister comes over and says to me, “you have a BIG belly”. The kid’s mom, mortified, grabbed her daughter and started to scold her. The kid wasn’t doing anything wrong, she was just being honest. I told her mom “it’s okay, it’s not a secret” and she chuckled and relaxed a little.

The point is to not let it get to you. You know you’re ugly, or fat, or an asshole. I’ve never actually been called an asshole by a little kid, but I’ve seen it in their eyes. They’re thinking it, and the only reason they don’t say it is because they know they’ll get in trouble. Regardless, it’s true - I am, at times, a complete asshole. Especially to little kids, who are easy targets because they can’t really fight back.

Don’t fight the truth. Just admit it to yourself, embrace it and move on. One final example… My son (10 yrs old) was explaining to me something they’d been doing in art class, where they drew a portrait without looking at the page or lifting the pencil. He asked me if he could draw me and I told him no. He asked why not, and I answered “because I’m pretty ugly”. His response… “No, daddy, this would just be your face.” You know what I took away from it? My son thinks I’m a pretty good-looking guy. From the neck up.