People remark upon shared traits of kids and parents all the time, but has anyone ever said, in effect, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” about a trait that you never thought of yourself as having?
My son, now 12, is master of the random, non sequitur remark. Sometimes, it’s apparent to me that he’s riffing on something he’s overheard. Other times, it seems completely random – “WTF?!?” kind of random.
Last year, I had my son with me at a work-related function. He was around a lot of people who’d never met him before but who know me. He was doing his usual odd stream-of-consciousness kind of chit-chat, and at one point I rolled my eyes and said to my colleagues, “My son, the surrealist! I don’t know where he gets that.”
They stared at me, dumbfounded, for a second, and then burst out laughing. “He’s just like you,” they chorused.
I was quite taken aback by that. I think I make perfect sense when I make a quip or interject something into a conversation! Kind of makes me wonder what’s going on in my son’s head…
Quite the opposite. I am always pointing out that the traits others attribute to my three sons being male (hyperactivity, loudness, tendency to climb anything that could conceivably be climbed) they have in common with me, their mother.
My daughter is a sensitive, caring person. She likes to decorate, loves to go shopping, has a flare for fashion, likes to go to the movies and she loves reading Entertainment weekly. She is a clone of my mother.
My son is a mild mannered chatter box who loves video games and comic books. He is the clone of his father.
I took my son to his regular checkup with the pediatrician once, and he made some smart assed (but funny) remark about something. I did my momly duty and told him it wasn’t nice to be a wise aleck. The pediatrician just leveled a disapproving look at me and said “Sarcasm is learned, you know.” Took every ounce of self control I had not to say, “No, really?”
I have to confess though, that boy has every ounce of my sarcasm. I think it’s great
[QUOTE=freckafree]
My son, now 12, is master of the random, non sequitur remark. Sometimes, it’s apparent to me that he’s riffing on something he’s overheard. Other times, it seems completely random – “WTF?!?” kind of random.
My wife used to reminisce about how, when she was a little girl, her mother would place her hand over Laura’s mouth to get her to be quiet.
My wife, today, in the midst of a 30-minute monologue about various assundry items, a monologue that required little participation from me to keep going, remarking on our extremely chatterboxy six year-old: “I don’t know where she gets this need to talk.”
Of course it does. But someone else isn’t going to follow the stream of consciousness that’s going on inside of your head. I do this a lot, and often have to explain how I got from Point A to Point N.
Holy crap, you made me do a double-take there buddy. 13. You have no idea how ancient this makes me feel.
I have no children, but I imagine, and my husband has oft-speculated, that their silliness quotient will rival mine around the age of 5-6 years, after which they will just sit around with Dad and think, ‘‘Wow. She wasn’t just humoring us, was she?’’ I can’t speculate that they’ll ‘‘inherit’’ many traits since we plan to adopt.
The weirdest, ‘‘Oh, I got this from my Dad,’’ moment happened after we were reunited from a decade-long estrangement. Dad still lives in the same apartment, furniture arranged the same way, same cat, everything. ‘‘Well,’’ he explains, ‘‘The landlord has let me stay here for years for really cheap so I don’t see the point in moving. Besides, I don’t have any neighbors so as far as I’m concerned it’s perfect. I never have to talk to anyone.’’
It was then and there I realized where I got my total hermit nature from. I understood exactly what he meant.
My thoughts exactly!! A lot of people think I am interjecting with a non-sequitur (which, to them, it probably is), but my mind has raced from Point A to Point M, and smartly arrived at Quip N! Unfortunately, it means that I am occasionally the only one who thinks it’s funny! :smack:
I think it’s universal law that whatever traits your children/parents have that bug the hell out of you are duplicated in you. I can’t tell you how many times Mr. Athena has thrown his arms in the air over some quirk of his mothers and goes on a tear telling me how annoying it is. 99% of the time it’s something that he does, all the time, to me, but if I point that out I’m in REAL trouble so I just keep my mouth shut.
