Outsmarted by a 3 Year Old
Last year, we got Boogs an indoor sports game thing that has soccer, basketball, and bowling. Over the five bowling pins are different shapes, each a different color and numbered one through five. Last night, Boogs pulled it out, rattled off all the shapes, and as he flew through counting one to five, it hit me: he learned none of that from me. He also knows his last name and again, he did not learn that from me. When we gave him a sippy cup for the first time, he knew exactly how to use it; the first time I put him on stairs he acted like he had lived his whole life on a staircase; he hopped right in his Cozy Coupe like he invented it, and none of this has he learned from me. The kid is closing in on 3 ½ years old, and I have taught him essentially nothing in those 3 ½ years.
Some of this lack of teaching I’m more than okay with – like potty training – but mostly this realization has me feeling like the Betty Draper of mothers. It honestly never even occurs to me to teach him things. I think this partially stems from the fact that the 92 hours a day I spend at work, he spends at school, and we’re doing that 5 days a week so when we’re home, we’re tired and doing fun things. But I think this may also stem from trying to dumb him down.
Jesse and I knew there was a very solid chance this child would be smarter than us (we both started our lives with careers in radio and smart people don’t do that), but we thought we’d at least get to the 2nd grade before it became a problem; instead it’s been a problem straight from the womb. This child knows a hexagon from an octagon, to go ask Dad when Mom says no (complete with, “I’m talking to Daddy,” when I interject), and that if you put your tablet on the music stand, you can watch videos while you take a bath. . .and you know his wealth of knowledge is just going to get worse better.
So while I’ve now had the stark realization we should probably actually teach him some things other than the occasional 4 letter word and a deep respect for 90s culture, I’m probably still going to leave it for school. Like Jesse said – why else are we paying them $14,000 a year?
Soybeans, Too 