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My son is at that age where he loves to prove just how dumb his mother is.
He doesn't do it in a mean hateful way, but rather through silly little riddles and the type of questions that lead you to the wrong answer and make you look like an absolute dullard.
Every parenting book advises that you and your children all come together in the evening and sit down together for dinner. This, however, is where I've faced some of my most humiliating moments as a mother and I've nearly convinced myself that perhaps I'm just not that bright.
As an example, my son asked me this rather innocent question just last night and had a way of wording it so that if I got the answer wrong, I would appear dumber than the poor simple people in the example. Tonight his attack was on mental patients and the criterion which defined whether they should be institutionalized or not.
Okay, I've been accused of being mentally unstable but not certifiable so I told my son to bring it on.
He asked me why I thought the following test was given by mental health professionals and how the answer could determine if someone should be committed or not:
"If, mother dearest" he began in dramatic fashion, "I were to go and fill the bathtub up with water and then offer you a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket and ask you to empty it…"
OOhhh, I know, I know!
I quickly cut him off and said any sane person would of course use the bucket because it is larger than the teacup and the teaspoon and was certainly the best and most logical way to go about emptying the tub. Come on little man; is this the best he had to offer as a test of my mental stability?
He just looked at me and shook his head, "No mother, a "sane" person as you put it would simply pull the plug to drain the tub…Now, shall I contact the authorities or will you come along with us quietly?"
Aaaagghhh!! He got me again!
Of course everyone laughed at me and my face turned that ridiculous shade of red it so often does when I'm embarrassed. He did not even feel bad and I wondered just when was it that he had become smarter than me…or is it I?
My youngest daughter was laughing too and I felt like crying at the loss of innocence. My little girl who looked up to me and thought I was the center of the universe was now laughing at me instead of laughing with me.
I don't know what the parenting books say about banning any type of communication at these family dinners, but I'm certainly considering instituting a gag order, especially for my son who spends entirely too much time trying to set up his poor old mother.
He told me he was just kidding and I asked him why he felt he needed to treat me this way and he said he just thought it was funny was all.
I told him that making fun of other people was not a nice thing to do and that I had a good mind to tell his father about this behavior.
"Where do you think I get these riddles", was all he said as he put his dish in the sink and went to his room.
I knew it! I've been set up by the ol' ex and I was not going to stand for it. I got on the phone and really let him have it. I explained to him that I was not only fairly intelligent but that I was a normal, lucid individual who maybe sometimes hears voices but then again doesn't everyone now and again, and that I was not going to tolerate him feeding this type of garbage into my son's mind and have him disrespect me this way no matter how innocent he thought it to be.
There was silence on the other end of the line and I just knew I had let him have it good and he was left shaking and speechless.
Finally, I could hear what I thought to be laughter on the other end of the phone, the kind of noise that escapes you when you have been laughing so hard you can't even breathe right.
"Just what the hell are you laughing at", I screamed into the phone, "Do you really think this is appropriate behavior?"
Catching his breath he said that no, he did not approve of what my son was doing but that did I realize he had been working out of town and had not seen the kids for more than a month? That my son was obviously setting me up again?
And then I heard it, coming from behind my son's bedroom door, that kind of noise that escapes you when you have been laughing so hard you can't even breathe right!
Aaagghhh…he got me again!
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