Maybe I’ve blocked out my children’s embarrassing me in public, but boy, do I remember the stories I’ve heard from family.
Like the time my step-nephew announced to all and sundry during the children’s sermon at church (where the minister gathers all the children down to the front for a little lesson in front of the congregation) that his mommy doesn’t clean, she goes into the bedroom and has sex with daddy. When confronted about this later by his red-faced mother, he yelled, “It’s true! I’ve seen you!”
Or the time my niece, after learning about drinking and driving at school, announced that “Oh, my mommy drinks and drives all the time!” Mind you, her mother was a teacher at that school, so in addition to being very embarrassing, could have cost her her job too. So, my niece was asked to clarify what mommy drinks while she drives.
“Bottled water, soda, lemonade…”
I’m getting a giggle out of these stories…keep 'em coming!
You mean there are parents who haven’t been embarrassed in public by their kids?! I thought that was a little kid’s prime directive…
The only one I can recall my mom telling me about was very mild. I was pre-school age at the time and said, “Who’s that cat?” about a black man, who smiled and laughed at the comment. This was in the '70s so that was very “hip” slang for a little kid, and I suspect I’d seen something like that on TV - plus we lived in an area where very few black people lived and didn’t say that to anyone white (that I was told about), so I probably thought that was how you talked to black guys or something!
When I was a little tacker, I was on a bus with my mum. An old lady got on at an intermediate stop, and the driver accelerated away as she was walking up the aisle. So she held the handrails, hand over hand, as she walked towards the back of the bus…
…at a moment of perfect quietness, a three year-old TLD piped up loudly:
VERY LIKE A MONKEY!
I’m nearly forty. I reckon my mum will forgive me soon.
My little one, is fortunately too young at 13 months to cause much emberassment. My sister, however has had something very similar to this. It seems my niece, when receiving punishment from my bro-in-law (“go to your room” or whatever) will yell for all to hear “NO DADDY NO! STOP DADDY NO!”. They also got a visit from their local neighborhood police.
My bro-in-law, being fully aware of why they were there when they pulled up was sure to answer the door… so the officers could clearly see he was not harming her as she could still be heard yelling, “NO DADDY!”
Back when we used to live in a townhouse, Dweezil had screaming fits (related to the autism; he’s since gotten a lot better) and Moon Unit had really loud violent tantrums (she’s not autistic but does have some emotional challenges) . We knew the houses had lousy insulation between the units (I could sit on the toilet in the master bath and hear the next-door neighbor snoring).
We genuinely wondered why the screaming never resulted in a call to the police . We ultimately concluded that we were living next door to some really awful, uncaring people who didn’t care that we had a hobby of torturing the kids :eek: .
I’m not sure it’s cojones you’d need. If I saw someone behaving as she says she as behaving, I’d think she was the one with issues instead of the child. The answer to her child’s bad behavior is some bad behavior of her own?
I have no children of my own, and thankfully, my students aren’t in a position to embarrass me.
I can, however, tell the stories my mom has told on me, as I had a habit of embarrassing her as frequently as possible.
When I was about seven, my mom took me to her school’s library to get some research. She taught at a post-secondary professional school and was also working on her Master’s degree. She promised me that if I was very good and very quiet, she would take me over to the students’ dorm and buy me a Coke. Well, I was very good and very quiet, so she did take me over to the students’ dorm, where the students recognized her and were introduced to me, and we stood in a short line for the Coke machine.
Mom drops the money into the machine, hits the button, out pops the Coke, and I pipe up with, “Mom, does the Coke come out of the Coke machine’s vagina?” Caught off guard, my mom went “uh…well…ah…” and one of her students said, “You know, Mrs. Phoukamom, that’s a very good question.” Mom still swears she threatened to flunk that student.
. We ultimately concluded that we were living next door to some really awful, uncaring people who didn’t care that we had a hobby of torturing the kids :eek: .