“Mom, I have something to tell you that happened today.”

This is the after-school greeting that requires me to both gird my loins and maintain an air of tranquility at the same time. All before five o’clock, which just goes to show life isn’t fair. Confessions that follow such statements should really hold off until one glass of wine, but, what do you do?

“Some boy was making fun of me in the bathroom. He called me an idiot, a dummy, and a geek.”

I knew that was coming. Take it in, Heather. Breathe. Stay calm.

I’m not sure what it says that the process of taking it in, staying calm when finding out my son is being teased is pretty easy now. Does it mean I am one step closer to becoming a swami?  Or that my son has been picked on enough that it’s just becoming…nothing to get upset over again?

I’m walking a tightrope here, you know. I want to show my son that I care about what happens to him and that this isn’t the right way to treat people, but I don’t want to add dramatics to an already hurtful event. Also, it’s hard to teach your children a “eh, fuck you, too” societal attitude if your busy with histrionics.

The more I walk down this out-of-the-box mothering path, the more I realize the importance of teaching my quirky son how to mentally flick the bird to Them, with “Them” being define as the asshats of the world.

But in order for me to teach him how to not let them get to him, I have to learn how to not let them get to me. So basically I must learn to part the Red Sea, OMG, I’m a mother! With a protective bear inside of me! That has rabies! And I will eat your obnoxious young if they dare hurt my precious cub!

Breathe. Stay calm. Breathe.

“So this boy called you an idiot, a dummy, and a geek. Is that right, Payton?”

“Yes.”

“Are you dumb or an idiot?”

“No.”

“Absolutely not. I don’t know about you, but I question the intelligence of anyone who calls you dumb. Who’s really dumb here?”

“Yeah! Who’s the dumb one? Not me! Hahahaha!”

“And he called you a geek too?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you thank him for it?”

“Thank him?! No, why would I do that, he was mean!”

“Yes, he was, but did you know, Payton, that geeks usually grow up to be rich adults?”

“Really?”

I could see the spark of interest flame to life. He does love money.

“Oh yes. The richest man in the world was a computer geek as a kid.”

“Who?”

“Bill Gates. He’s the richest man in the whole world. Worth billions of dollars.”

“Billions?!”

His excitement charges the air around us.

“Yep, billions. He could probably spend every waking moment spending his money and still not spend it all before he dies, that’s how rich he is.”

Eyes grow bigger.

“How much money does he make per second?” Payton asked.

And because I am Swami Shake-Shake who looks for teaching moments everywhere, we figured out how much Bill Gates makes per second. And tada! Both a spiritual and mathematical lesson all in one.

We figured out an approximate number and Payton began jumping up and down in excitement for geeks.

“So Bill Gates was a geek, became the richest man in the world, and now he uses his money to help charities. I dunno, Payton, it sounds like geeks are pretty cool to me.”

“Yeah, they are!”

“High five for geeks!” I said, and held my hand up in the air.

“High five for geeks!” He high-fived back at me.

Next time someone calls him a geek, Payton said he’s going to thank them for it.

Maybe this is the right way to handle it. I certainly don’t want to have stuck in my mind that teasing and name-calling is something Payton will always have to deal with as a kid and I better teach him the right way to deal with it, because self-fulfilling prophecies and all that. I don’t want to create that reality.

But on the other hand, as a human, I can be objective enough to see how Payton stands out from others, and it’s not all because he inherited his mother’s good looks. I’ve volunteered enough at their school to know that other people’s kids are assholes. Wait, did I say assholes? I meant to say…yeah, I won’t put up false pretenses. I meant assholes. Some. Not all. I’ve seen enough at school to know how it goes.

So maybe it is better that I take a different approach than Mama Bear and teach him how to turn the hurtful words around.

At least until he’s an appropriate age that I can teach him how to flick the bird.

(I kid, I kid! Sort of.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 10:26 am and is filed under Quirky Kid Dossier, This Mom Gig. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.