Yep. I’m a bit of a meanie-head. I have three kids, the youngest of whom, Jacob, is going to be 5 this Summer.
For some unknown reason, I love to give the kids nicknames. For my sons, apparently this is traumatic because they invariably don’t like the nickname and loudly proclaim so.
With Jacob, he’s so cute, but he can be a real shit, you know what I’m saying? I call him Boog. Or booger. Or creep-o.
He’ll yell at me " MY NAME IS NOT BOOG, MY NAME IS JACOB MICHAEL SMITH*!!!". And then he’ll command me “Dad, stop joking!” in a petulant tone.
And then the next day, I do it again. Only I think its funny or cute apparently, because just last night, after a similar exchange where I upped the ante by engaging in the “are not/are too” angle of debate, my wife walked up to me and said “Now who’s the four year old?”, rolled her eyes, and stalked away.
I abhor teasing. And when the OP (even a kid) asks you to stop, you should stop. My father used to tease me with a little, crude, sexually-oriented jingle when I was about four. I can still remember every word of this little song, although I have never repeated it out loud to another living soul. I’m now 61 and I will never forgive him for that. It used to make me cry, but he would keep on doing it.
This is your future if you don’t quit it. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s cute/funny. This child has no defense against you, and he’s too young to leave home.
My stepdad called me “Bubblehead” and “Beanbrain”. I didn’t mind, because he never did it in front of my friends, who might have picked up on it. And it was always said with a smile – it didn’t hurt my feelings.
There’s teasing and then there’s teasing, and if the kid is really bothered by it, then stop. And definitely don’t do it in front of his friends.
I’d stop with the nicknames for now. Your son’s four, going on five, and he clearly doesn’t see the humor in the situation. To him, it’s just mean, because he’s asked you to stop and you haven’t stopped. There’ll be time for good-natured teasing when he’s old enough to appreciate it.
What are you expecting us to say, that it’s OK and to carry on as usual? When I was a kid my dad’s cousin called me Carrie (not my name) and my brother Ronnie (his name is Ron). We both hated it. Even when my mom told her to stop, that our names were ----- and Ron, she still persisted in calling us those names. I remember being about four or five and feeling powerless to do anything about it, which really, I was.
If you do something that irritates somebody, like a co-worker for example, even if you are joking around and don’t mean any harm, you look like an idiot after a while to your peers. When you do that to a child that doesn’t really have a peer group yet or any defense mechanisms other than asking you to stop, you’re an even bigger idiot.
Keep it up, and see what happens when your son is older. I work with a 20 year old who strongly dislikes his dad because of behavior like that. His dad always said he was just kidding, why was his son so sensitive, etc. It was never anything major, but when you live with someone for 18 years who doesn’t respect your wishes, you don’t want to be with them if given a choice.
His dad calls him Chris-Chris. He hates it. His dad stopped the office and said “Hey Chris-Chris, I brought your lunch.” After he left Chris turned to me and said “See what I’ve been talking about?” I did.
I do this sort of teasing to my son all the time (who is 6). Enough so that my wife on more than one occasion snaps at me to “quit bothering your brother! … I mean, son! ARRRGH!”
I never did it to either of my two daughters though (who are older than him). Something about him being a boy, and me having grown up an only child always wishing I had a brother, brings it out it me. I guess I can now accurately project how I would have behaved with a younger brother. Pretty typical really.
As for my girls, I tell them straight-faced outrageous lies all the time (about factual stuff, not personal stuff or stuff that matters), usually while cleverly embedding some fact they already know or have heard of within it. Like saying that the city of Cleveland is named after former US President Grover Cleveland, who ruled from it as the capital of a small but independent federation of city-states on the Great Lakes until they joined the Union, upon which he became a state Governor of Ohio and then eventually President.
I used to justify this as sharpening their skeptical side, so that they’re always ready to use what they know and can infer to question or challenge weak points in other people’s statements… But really I just like to see them look dubious and confused. (It’s also a good way to get them to read more because whenever they say “well I’ve never heard that before”, I simply rebut, “yeah, well you’re only 8/9/10, and you should read more”.)
Sometimes this backfires when I tell them something really true but just kind of non-obvious, and I have to spend several minutes convincing them that THIS time I’m not kidding. A friend of ours recently suggested we use a safe word like “banana”, so I can say something like “Did you know Grover Cleveland is the only President to have served two terms, but non-consecutively? He lost an election then came back to win again 4 years later. Banana.”
I should add that my son totally doesn’t seem to mind. He thinks it’s funny and tries to come back with something silly/clever/insulting of his own. It’s my WIFE who’s annoyed by it. Hmm. More psychological insight there for those inclined to read into that, I suppose.
You apparently hope we’ll snicker along with you, Fois Gras, but I’m not. You sound like a bully who revels in it. Your children are your responsibility with raise with love and care—and you’re raising them to despise you.
I tease my 4 and a half year old son all the time - he loves it, as long as I don’t go too far, and actually upset him.
Just yesterday, I was pretending I was a crab, and pinching him (not hard). Then he decided he was a crab, too, and started pinching me. Then, we both scuttled sideways around the living room - he was laughing so hard, and so was I. My wife just rolled her eyes at the pair of us.
That night, getting ready for bed, he told me as he was taking off his clothes he had to molt his shell so he could grow.
Our nickname for him is “The Whibbler”, because, as a baby, he whibbled. I certainly don’t intend to tell his friends that.
Maybe you could ask if he has a nickname he would prefer. Tell him you love the name Jacob but sometimes it is fun to have a nickname. Then ask him what nickname he would give you. Maybe you can have the whole family pick out nicknames together and that way he doesn’t feel like you are picking on him but you still get to use a silly nickname to address him.
Maybe if the nicknames you chose were innocuous, and not such obvious insults that a 5 year old can perceive them, he might object less. Do you really think it’s funny to consistently deride your children? “Creep-o”? " Really? Gee, why would anyone be upset by having the one person they love and respect more than anyone else call them a creep?
I let my mom call me a nickname based off my name that I don’t care for, cause, you know, she’s my mom. If her nickname for me was “little bitchy” I might not be so pleased to have her continue.
Like adults, kids sometimes take things seriously that you wouldn’t think they would (does that make sense?). So I’d take the cues from your kid and knock off the nicknames. My son reacts similarly to nicknames that he hasn’t chosen, so when he tells me to stop, I do.
He also will be in the middle of a tease with us, when he’s pretending to be mad at us or something. Then suddenly he’ll decide that he really is mad and, unless we stop the joke immediately (usually with a, “Hey, overlykid - I was just teasing. No need for upset.”), the whole thing just winds up out of control, sometimes with tears.
My husband sometimes doesn’t take the hint and, when our son begins to whine because of it, gets annoyed with him, which creates a really silly, unnecessary cycle of tease-whine-escalate.
I had an uncle (only 11 years older than me) that teased me in a similar manner to what the OP describes. I hated it, hated him, and avoided being in his presence as much as I possibly could. Unfortunately, the OP’s kids can’t avoid him, because he’s their dad. Seriously, stop it.
Grow up. You’re his DAD, not his little brother. You two are not equals. You have power in the relationship and he doesn’t, and right now you’re abusing your power. Imagine how you’d feel if your boss regularly called you a demeaning nickname at work: “Hey, creep-o, is that report finished yet?” Behavior that is playful between equals, can be really hurtful when it comes from someone who has authority over you.
When you tease him and call him names he doesn’t like it HURTS HIM. It’s like you’re walking up to your son, giving him a hard pinch, laughing, and walking away. It makes him hate and resent you, and will lead to more parenting trouble for you as he gets older.
