It's a Man's World? No, it's MY world.

My son asked me, "Why does mommy make all the decisions?" I replied defensively, "Mommy doesn't make all the decisions. We make decisions together by agreeing on them." "No, mommy makes all the decisions. She decided we were going to move, and were moving.." There was no sense in arguing. The boy couldn't possibly understand how I am just as much of a decision maker as mommy, if not more. For instance, he is completely unaware of the fact that mommy lets me pick out the movie 9 out of 10 times.

All jokes aside, when I mentioned the exchange to my wife, we wondered if he saw a problem with mommy making decisions because of sexist gender role expectations or what. When we asked the 6 year old who should be making the decisions, he pointed to himself, clearing up THAT confusion.

Bragging rights

I found out from my wife recently that my 5 year old son was bragging in the back seat to a playmate that "My daddy got arrested. He went to jail".

Okay, first of all, that was when I was 17. I had a little too much to drink and got out of the juvenile facility in less than a day. But nevermind that. My son recalled that tidbit of information that I think I revealed to him when he asked me if I had ever been arrested, at least a year ago.

Why not mention that his dad is in graduate school and getting a 3.9 GPA? Why not mention that his dad has traveled to Africa several times and is taking him to Africa next year? why not point out that his dad is a Director and works at a school named after the first African-American president? Or that his dad reads to him every night and makes robots with him? These are the things that I think are having an impact on him but no, he is much more enamored with telling his friends that his dad has been to jail and is good at making guns! (I made a cork pop gun out of a pen when he wanted me to BUY him one.)