My oldest son got into a skirmish with another kid the other day, and it led to an awkward conversation. He came out of aftercare, clearly distraught, and I asked him what was wrong. He didn't want to tell me, but the aftercare attendant happened to be right there, so she filled me in. Apparently, another kid, a girl, accidentally hit him, but he didn't realize it was an accident so he got mad, and then she got mad back, and then she apologized, but she told her friends about it, and they started making comments under their breath, which got him more aggravated, and then... well, you get the idea: stupid kid stuff.
The attendant didn't seem to think it was too big a deal, so I wasn't too worried about it, but I was a little bothered by a few things. For one thing, he kept saying in his defense, "I didn't even hit her, yet," which is not really such a great defense. (Need to work on that kid's lawyer skills -- "yet".) And then there's the male-female thing, which the attendant also mentioned. In fourth grade, that's not such a big deal, but it will be someday, and that day isn't all that far away, if you do the math.
On the car ride home, I had a talk with Lil' S1 about it, and since Lil' S2 was also there, he got in on it, as well. It went something like this.
Me: Hey, why did you keep saying "yet" -- "I didn't even hit her yet"? Were you planning on hitting her?
Lil' S1: I dunno. She hit me first.
Me: On accident, right?
Lil' S1: I think so.
Me: Okay, then why would you hit somebody who hit you on accident?
Lil' S1: Well, that wasn't actually what got me so upset. It was afterwards. She told Taylor and Colleen, and they were saying things about me. They went behind the curtain, but I could still hear them, and they knew I could still hear them.
Me: That's still not a reason to hit somebody. You don't hit somebody because they're saying mean things. That's not okay. You can only hit somebody if you feel threatened, like, you're getting attacked, and even then you're probably better off trying to run away first.*
*I threw that last part in there, because I'm pretty sure that would be the best bet for my oldest son if he ever got into a serious fight. I at least want him to know running is a viable option. There's no shame in the Nike defense!
Lil' S1: But they were attacking me. They were attacking me with words.
Me: No. That's not the same thing. You can walk away from that or tell them to stop it. You can't hit somebody because of what they say. It's not okay.
Lil' S1: *Grumble, grumble*
Me: And you especially can't hit girls. At your age I know girls and boys are the same size, but as you get older, it's especially important not to be violent towards women.
Lil' S1: Why?! If women want to be equal to men, then it should be the same to hit a man or a woman.
Me: That's not what equality means. Most men are much bigger and stronger than most women, so it's especially bad when a man hits a woman. But really nobody should hit anybody.
Lil' S2: Yeah, but girls can hit you, and you can't hit them. Does that seem fair?
Me: Again, nobody should be hitting anybody.
Lil' S2: Yeah, but why do you say it's worse to hit girls?
Me: At your age there isn't much difference, but it matters when you get older.
Lil' S2: [Very emotional on the verge of tears for some reason] Yeah, but that's not fair!
Me: Fine -- just don't hit anybody then.
Lil' S2: Fine!
Lil' S1: You know, other than that one incident, aftercare went pretty well.
It's weird to have kids sometimes.
And speaking of my kids, I spoke to my kid's class yesterday. Lil' S1 asked me to do a virtual presentation about my job. It's probably not that interesting to a class of fourth graders, but he was really excited for me to do it, and he asked me specifically, not S, which she was legit offended by. I did my best to make it kinda fun. I think it mostly worked. Lil' S1 said he thought it went well, and afterward a lot of kids asked me questions. The thing about computer programming is that it's very visually based. You can run a program and show them what happened, and then change something in the code and show them how that changes things in the next run. That's kinda cool. Also, the nerdier kids are just impressed by the written code. It this crazy secret language of command words and symbols. It's a bit like seeing the chalkboard covered in equations -- a certain kind of kid finds that type of thing intriguing.
In other news, non-kid news, the world is basically shite right now, innit? We've got massive inflation and are probably headed toward a recession to boot; war is still raging in Ukraine with no sign of stopping; we seem to be headed for a civil war of some sort here in the States; people are still getting sick with Covid; there's a mass shooting seemingly every other day; violence in general is way up; homelessness is out of control. Oh yeah, and climate change is threatening to wipe us all out -- or at least make us suffer. I couldn't even take the boys to the park today after school -- it was 97 degrees at 4:30 in the afternoon.
But we persevere, right? Solve some crossword puzzles, drink some coffee, do some pushups, watch some basketball. Actually the NBA season just ended last night. Boston didn't win, which pleases me. The Stanley Cup finals are still going, but I could use something else to watch when they have an off night. I'm debating starting a new show. S is away on business for a few days, so I could watch something she's already seen or wouldn't be interested in. I'm thinking maybe White Lotus. I have always been a Mike White fan. The other thing I could do is start in on Mad Men, which I've never actually seen, but that seems like a commitment I'm not ready to make.
S and I were watching Severance together, but we bailed after episode five or six. I think it was the right call. It was intriguing, but it wasn't actually going anywhere. It's, like, you gotta give the viewer some small payoffs for investing in your weird shit, and there weren't any. Every episode can't be what? some have to be aha! Maybe they were saving everything for the end, but I'm not going to invest another five or six hours to find out. Actually, I read the Wikipedia page for each of the episodes we didn't watch, and I'm glad we quit early. Quitting gets a bad rap, but it's actually a useful life skill. Often it's just better to stop investing your resources (time, energy, money, etc.) into something you don't really enjoy than it is to see it through to the bitter end.
Actually, I was thinking that Severance would have made a great movie, and it's the type of concept that twenty years ago would have been a movie. That's the biggest problem with prestige TV -- there's just too damn much of it. I bet a lot of ten-episode shows would be better as two-hour films. Although, I say that, but I'm much more inclined to watch a show rather a movie. It's because one hour at the end of the night often feels doable, but two hours doesn't. Maybe I need to get used to watching movies in two sittings. I remember listening to somebody on a podcast once (Jamelle Bouie, I believe) who watches a bunch of movies, and he said that that's how he does it. In fact, he said he would watch them in even shorter increments, like 20 minutes at a time. Somebody else on the show said she would find that too annoying, and his point was, yeah, it kinda is at first, but you get used to it, and it's usually either that or not watching a movie at all. So, it's better than the alternative. Maybe I should try it. Maybe right now.
Until next time...
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