If you’re a parent of a school-aged child, there are several
things you don’t want to hear the school principal say. One of them
is,
”
I’m calling you today because your child is in my office.
”
If you’re a parent of a school-aged child, there are several things you don’t want to hear the school principal say. One of them is, “I’m calling you today because your child is in my office.”
The other is anything that comes after that, explaining the reason why. Because, trust me, it’s usually not good. Take, for example, the other day, when I got a call from the principal about a teeny-tiny incident that happened at recess. It had something to do with a tetherball, my son and a very bad word. One that’s usually heard in seedy parts of town and R-rated action movies.
Now I don’t need to tell you that when something like this happens, all sorts of things immediately start going through your mind. The most prominent being denial. Which, everybody knows, is the first line of defense. My first thought was that she couldn’t be talking about MY child. The same dear, sweet, innocent baby I rocked to sleep every night in my arms. MY child doesn’t even know That Word. Clearly, with all of the other renegade tetherball players roaming around the campus, they had the wrong kid.
“Oh, it’s him, all right,” the principal said, after I explained my theory.
Once her words sank in, I did what any good parent would do: I moved on to the second line of defense. The one I refer to as, “It’s Got To Be A Mistake.” This is similar to the first line, but here you go on to explain that he didn’t really say That Word. What he had really said was something off the Acceptable-Third-Grade-List-of-Swear-Words-That-Start-With-the-Letter-B. Like, “Booger Nose” or “Butt Head.” It was just misheard.
There was silence.
Then the principal said, slightly less patiently than before: “He admitted it.”
This is when the tide turns. Suddenly, you’re no longer a defender of a wrongly-accused child. You are now the mother of a self-confessed potty mouth who spends his recess time swaggering around tetherball courts casually tossing around That Word.
Once the shock wears off, you find yourself in a new phase: acceptance. And with that comes paranoia. You switch from defending your child to defending, well, yourself. Mainly because you are sure the principal thinks he learned That Word from you, and soon it will be exposed to the authorities that you run a shoddy, dysfunctional household where everyone lounges around all day watching trashy talk shows and eating chocolate candy and saying That Word.
That’s when you break into your 10 minute speech entitled, “He Must’ve Learned it From His Father,” including key points such as all the hours YOU used to spend watching public television together. And how YOU never say so much as “Oh, rats!” Not even the time you stepped on a plastic Army action figure with bare feet.
But deep down you know it isn’t true.
And then, finally, comes the last phase: Taking action. Now there are two schools of thought regarding what sort to take. The first is to simply ignore it and treat the whole incident as if he had said, “My, isn’t Paris lovely in the spring?” Then, with a little luck, That Word will become so boring he’ll eventually lose interest and stop using it altogether.
Now, this theory may work fine with cute little 2-year-olds, but I’m not totally convinced it would work for my eight-year-old. I mean, we can’t be eating Thanksgiving dinner at the in-laws’ house and have him suddenly blurt out, “Hey, (insert That Word here), can you please pass the salt?” And then simply IGNORE it.
Clearly more drastic measures are needed, measures with grounding and apology notes and disappearing video games. And so, like any responsible parent, that’s what I did.
And I think it worked, too. Yesterday, when my son accidentally stubbed his toe on the corner of the kitchen table, he shouted, “Oh, Yabizoka!”
I’m not sure what this means exactly, but I hope it’s Japanese for, “Oh, rats.”
