With school now in full swing, the kids and I are settling into a routine. Gone are the early morning cartoons and all-day pajamas. Welcome to clockwork wake-up times and daily hair brushing. Punctuality is a work in progress; I can get both kids clean and fed but it’s pure luck if they leave with matching shoes.
Our social skills degraded over the summer. The burping contests and bare feet that seemed funny in August are frowned upon in the school lunchroom. My husband and I have also failed to teach Molly about inner monologues. At school yesterday, Molly, seeing an overweight woman, turned to me, and said, “there’s the lady with the BIG FAT TUMMY.” I waited for the sweet release of death, but nothing happened. Later, I explained to Molly that everyone has a different body, some bigger and some smaller. It would be boring if everyone looked the same, right? I also told her that it’s impolite to comment on people’s looks.
I was commiserating with a friend, and she said “that’s nothing. My son once pointed out a woman’s facial hair. His exact words were ‘she has a beard just like daddy!’”. The second-hand embarrassment on that one is huge! Kids are brutally honest, and they call it like it is. Molly came out with another classic one morning when she hugged me and said “mama, your breath stinks!” She wasn’t wrong, but darn it, I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet! Teaching kids about polite society is a double-edged sword. We advocate sincerity and truth, but then we place conditions on those. How are kids supposed to differentiate between being impolite and honesty?
An old family friend once related a story about her loudmouth child, and, forty years later, she’s still embarrassed by it. Susan was at home with her son, Bradley, a quiet boy who was whip-smart and missed nothing. She had recently put her house on the market, and a last-minute request for a showing came in. She rushed around tidying, putting away errant toys and books, when the doorbell rang. She opened it and found “the oddest-looking couple [she] had ever seen. There was a very, very overweight woman with a florid complexion, and beside her was her husband, an absolute beanpole of a man. Not a drop of fat on him.” Already flustered, she graciously welcomed the couple inside and began showing them around, while Bradley watched with owl eyes and a bottle in his mouth. Susan showed them the first floor, then moved the tour upstairs. Mr. Beanpole was first, then Susan, then the wife. As Susan climbed the stairs, she heard the bottle pop ominously out of Bradley’s mouth as he inhaled and screamed: “UH-UH! SHE’S TOO FAT TO GO UPSTAIRS!” Dead silence followed as Susan, trapped between the couple, kept climbing the stairs and hoped that a plane crashed into the house. She quietly showed the couple the upstairs, never meeting their eyes, until the tour mercifully ended. They did not buy the house.
We should appreciate children’s honesty. Who else is going to tell us that our favorite pair of pants has a hole in the seat? Who else is going to sing a song about how much they love us, in the middle of the grocery store? Who’s going to tell us that we’re their favorite person in the whole world? The harsh realities of life are always going to be here. Let kids be kids for as long as they can. Besides, Andy is still learning to speak, and I’m sure he’ll come up with a few doozies of his own before I’m ready for them!
