Pinky Drops the F-bomb

Yes, that’s right, my nine year old. Not feeling like a great parent right now. Here’s the story (warning--long post ahead--I was never very good at editing)

Yesterday, I picked up the boys from After School Care, and Pinky hesitantly said it was not a good day for him. He sounded frustrated, some run-in with a 3rd grader in after care. He didn’t really want to get into it, but the teachers didn’t know about it so I dropped it for later. He has a project he is working on at home right now, a “book publishing”. They worked on writing a book about themselves at school, typing in the text on the computer, then the artwork for each page is to be done at home. Then it gets sent to a company that “publishes” it, so it looks like a real book. Cool idea. We are a little behind, it’s due Thursday so after dinner I was pushing him to get a few pictures done. He messed up a letter on the cover page, in crayon, and it’s special paper of which he does not have extra, so this was frustrating for him. I tried to help give him ideas for fixing it, but he started to shut down on me. Velo-dude, the more artistic of the two of us, stepped in with some suggestions, but he got even more frustrated. I told him to go up to his room and calm down (I didn’t want him doing permanent damage to the cover page with a temper tantrum) before working on it again. Meanwhile, I noticed that my iPod was on, and was playing a Reel Big Fish song that was repeating the phrase “I don’t f*cking care, I don’t f*ucking care, I don’t f*ucking care, I don’t f*cking care”. I wanted to run over and shut it off, but I chose instead to try to address Pinky and his problem. Velo-dude was in the kitchen as well, and as I sent Pinky upstairs he ran in and changed the song (Bad Parenting Exhibit 1--I have a few third wave ska bands on my iPod, it’s a sound I’ve always liked, and Reel Big Fish even has a parental warning, but I usually don’t play it for the family. But, I kind of forgot about that particular song). Anyway, Pinky came down a few minutes later and apologized to velo-dude for getting frustrated when he was trying to help. Velo-dude resumed help-mode but Pinky immediately got frustrated all over again. Velo-dude said “fine, I’m done” and walked away (I had already done pretty much the same thing, the first time around). Pinky was getting all worked up again, so I again told him he needed to go to his room to cool down. He blew a gasket, left the dining room and out of my eyesight, then reappeared on his way upstairs, stomping, red in the face, hands pulling on his hair, and yelled at the top of his lungs “I AM SO F*CKING FRUSTRATED!!!!”, stomped up the stairs and slammed the door. Velo-dude and I looked at each other with mouths dropped, then did what any sane, rational, and responsible parent would do…laugh. Quietly, of course, so he wouldn’t hear, but laughed pretty hard (that was Bad Parenting Exhibit 2). Don’t get me wrong, I do NOT think a 4th grader using the f-bomb is good stuff, but part of it was shock, part of it knowing that I was at fault for letting the song play, part of it thinking about how good/bad that must have made him feel to be so daring to say that. This kid is a pleaser, and NEVER gets in trouble at school. Very uncharacteristic of him. In fact, I have another song on my iPod that repeats the phrase “g*d d*mn”, and if it accidentally comes on in a shuffle, Pinky will come running from any room in the house, change the song, and say “that was the bad word song, Mom” (was that Bad Parenting Exhibit 3, or can I include that with Exhibit 1?).

Back to the action…I went up and talked to him after a cool-down period. He finally said that he was very worried about the Kansas Assessment Test the next day at school. His teacher had made a very big deal about it, told the kids how important it was to the district that they do their best, etc. Stupid flippin’ standardized tests! I hate them, and the fact that school district funding is tied to them! I know, I understand the pros and cons, at least to a point, but I don’t like it and I never have. And I realize that the state of Kansas is in a major budget crisis, so this year feels even more important. But give me a break, they are 4th graders! I really like his teacher this year, but, to quote a fine young man I know, “I am so f*cking frustrated” with her right now for laying this on so thick.

In the end, Pinky did not get a punishment. But he does realize that if I hear that word come out of his mouth again, there will be punishment, and it will be severe. No punishment because I don’t think it will happen again any time soon. How often does the Perfect Storm brew? This was it… the Assessment Test stress, the finality of messing up on the cover of your first published book, and the f*cking song burning in your ears during all of that stress. I feel bad for the kid. I know it’s possible that he will become a habitual 4th-grade-f-bomb-dropper and I will have to eat my words, but I really don’t think so.

Oh and by the way, once the storm blew over, we were able to salvage the cover of his book and it’s going to look just fine.

P.S. Do you remember the first time you cursed, and meant it? I think I was in the 4th grade also. Very dissatisfying it was, all I could manage to blurt out was "b*tch", and that was to a boy who had knocked me down on the playground. What can I say, I choked, but I've improved over the years. First time I cursed in front of a parent? Quite honestly, I think it was less than a year ago, it slipped out, and my dad was so surprised, HE laughed. Yep, I was the pleaser in my family.