Why is it that children have selective amnesia when it comes to rules of behaviour, chores at home, assignments at school, and the like, but seem to have a phenomenal memory recalling the mistakes, foibles, follies, and errant ways of their parents?!? Every single parent has the common experience of hearing the most popular response, "Oh, I forgot!" from their child(ren) when queried about something the kid was supposed or expected to do. Throw in an additional, "Oh, did you want me to?" or "Oh, was I supposed to?," and that completes the picture at my home. The same kid who feigns ignorance or forgetfulness about a task, will almost always be quick to remember some mistake the parent committed, say 5 years ago, and that too accurately, with all the minor details involved!
Take for example, a common scenario playing out at home. I ask the kid why the newspapers are piling up and why they haven't been taken out to the recycling bins, and pat comes the response, "Oh, I forgot!" The Dad will throw in his two cents' worth to help by saying, "Actually it's you who's reading all those papers!" The same goes for the coke or pepsi cans (Diet, mind you!) rolled under the bed. "I forgot," the kid says and I think how could a child possibly forget to throw them in the trash can which is right there under the table. And it's always the mother's job to send the cans dutifully to the recycling bin as well. When I find the folded laundry from one week ago still sitting on the side table, discover he's been pulling out clean clothes from the pile, and ask him why he didn't put them away in the closet right away, it's "Sorry, I forgot!"
The scenario switches to the school and it's the same story there as well. On the rare days that the kid takes lunch to school, and I question him in the evening about the lunchbox, he goes, "Oops, I forgot!" The same can be said for bringing home the gym bag for the clothes to be washed, or the locker to be cleaned out on the last day of school. And don't even get me started on the number of umbrellas he's left behind at school, all because he forgot! I get a call in the evening about the kid having missed a class, but he insists he was there after all, and so I ask him to meet his counsellor and sort it out. Come the next evening and I go, "So, did you meet the counsellor?" and the answer is, yes, you got it right, he forgot! And when eventually he does meet the counsellor and we find out it was a planning class at lunchtime that he had missed, he says he forgot about the class because it was lunchtime and all he remembered was the food! Husband and I see the validity of his statement and launch into a debate if the school is right in scheduling classes for famished teenagers at lunch break, while the kid silently gives us the slip and slinks off to his room!
It's Christmas and the Mom gets an iPad, and now is the time that the kid's phenomenal memory kicks in. Husband buys an expensive case for the iPad to match the Blackberry's and tells me how to handle the gadget properly on the commute to work. Kid butts in and says,"Yeah Dad, you think she will? Remember how she dropped the Blackberry on the sidewalk and cracked the LCD screen?" And this was like 4 months ago! To add fuel to the fire, he goes, "And do you remember how she left her cell phone in the bathroom stall at the mall?" And this was 4 years ago! Then he turns to me and continues, "Ma, don't think a stranger who picks up your iPad will be good enough to return it to you, just like you got your phone back!", assuming that I am definitely going to misplace my iPad somewhere and lose it. This is just one tiny example of how the kid can recall incidents vividly and rub it in when the time's right. Now what do we do with such smart alecks at home? Tough job parenting, eh?
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