I imagine, it’s easier to be “fun dad” when your kid doesn’t want to join a gang, take drugs, and impregnate people…
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I’m pretty certain 99% of hetero teen boys want to impregnate people. Or at least not take significant action to avoid it, like think through their consequences in the moment.
I can remember being in middle-school, and a friend explained to me how he had intentionally developed the habit of swearing all the time, but not around grownups. Basically, know your audience. That said, he was also a little shit who swore at his mom.
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I had a friend growing up who referred to his parents as “the bitch” and “the bastard”.
They were an odd family. The mom actually had two families that eventually became known and lead to divorce, good times.
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I struggle to understand how one could pull that off for any amount of time!
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We wondered too
Our little one is 4 so we don’t have to deal with this just yet.
But its always a constant struggle for us not to let her environment at school (friends) influence her behavior.
Don’t know about the US, but having full-time nannies till age age 6/7 makes things much worse.
I had to put my foot down on that one (no nanny just babysitter) as it creates so many behavioral problems for children (they become infantilised and way too dependent).
Well-off families with teenagers down in Brazil are hugely affected by Aflluenza. Its a big problem now from what I can see.
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Lol, my 4yo was pitching a fit and was mad at me disciplining her:
“You are not my daddy!”
“Well, you can take that up with your mom, but you’re still gonna …”
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I always a bit surprised that marital affairs are so common. I mean, yes, I can’t fathom lying about anything like that to anyone I care about, but also how does anyone have the time, energy, and wherewithal to live two lives. I can hardly manage one.
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How does a mother hide a second FAMILY? The physical evidence alone seems impossible to hide. Unless it was purely a blended family arrangement and she was a stepmother, I suppose.
In this case, I don’t think the 2nd family had kids. I mean a pregnancy would be a bit tough for a woman to hide.
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I deliberately swore around friends in middle school but I sure kept it clean around adults, especially my parents. I never swore around them even as an adult.
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You have several spare kids.
My younger son’s birthday is 8/16, so he thinks his half birthday should be 4/8. Ignoring the rules of math, that’s pretty cute.
So I asked him what my half birthday should be, as I was born 6/1, or his dad, who was born 1/6 (yes it’s so cute that our birthdays are opposites, kismet). Or his brother, 9/24, or his foster brother, 3/6.
“Well I guess that’s just some bad luck for all of you, I’m the only one who gets a half birthday in this family!”
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This morning I heard some random kids arguing whether a book from 1999 was in fact 20 or more years old. I like hearing how weirdly excited and confident they sound.
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Boy, is he going to be mad when you tell him about his brothers’ one-third and two-thirds birthdays…
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I was at lunch, and I heard daddy at the table next to me say “why don’t you tell mommy she doesn’t need any makeup?” Kid looks at mommy and says “but you do need it”
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Mini T-2 made it to the Div 3 Championship (top 20) for the 60 m hurdles in track and field. She get to represent UW-LaCrosse in VA Beach this weekend.
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I need some parenting advice. Never dealt with this before.
Got a call from the school today. A teacher on the playground heard foster son swearing. She says she has told him many times to not swear, and told him the next time he does it, we are getting a call.
Well, foster son does not have a track record of telling us the truth. He doesn’t lie about anything big, but he’s incapable of telling the truth, lying just seems ingrained. We are working on it with him, and always give him an out from a lie, but he doesn’t take the out.
So he tells us he’s never sworn at school, this teacher must be confused or have it out for him. But this woman clearly loves him and only had nice things to say otherwise, and clearly didn’t want to be calling us. So I don’t know why she would lie. She also knew him from his former school and so she is very familiar with him, he’s not some random kid on the playground.
So now we are at a point where he is bawling about how he didn’t do anything wrong, and I asked if he wants us to call the teacher back and all get in a room together and hash it out, because I don’t want to call him a liar, but I also can’t just take what he’s saying at face value given his history.
I will say that I have never heard him swear here, not even once. So this whole thing does seem out of character for him. But he’s a show off and likes to do things to fit in, so maybe it’s that.
Am I doing the right thing here? He’s so upset, he’s never been this upset before, even when he’s been caught in a lie. I don’t want to punish him and basically call him a liar who couldn’t possibly tell us the truth, but at the same time…he hasn’t done himself any favors on this.
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Maybe? Avoid the confrontation entirely, because the problem you’re solving isn’t swearing in the past, it’s swearing in the future. So have a sit down, and just say, whatever the teacher is talking about doesn’t matter. What matters is, going forward, be real careful about swearing around this teacher so that we don’t have to deal with this anymore.
That’s not confrontational, not accusing him of anything, nobody has to have done anything right or wrong, it’s just you being helpful. "buddy, be careful and don’t do anything that could be considered swearing around this teacher, ok?'. And ask him if he can manage that.
And then, this is just me, I’d put on the song ‘Fuck tha police’ and have a dance with him.
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