Weekly Thread: The Kid Behavior That Sets You Off
Plus: Are your kids acting out because of you?
A quick reminder that my 25% off Back-to-School sale ends tomorrow! Subscribe now to take advantage of the big discount and, among other things, get full access to my 300-post newsletter archive. Today is actually three days to the day since I launched paid subscriptions here, and I am so happy to have built such a thoughtful and vibrant paid community.
Yesterday in her Substack
, Lyz Lenz wrote an excellent essay about Ashton Kutcher and how even so-called “good” guys often serve to uphold the patriarchy. Among other things, she discussed Kutcher’s antics on the show Punk’d and his “jokes” that often left participants traumatized. She wrote:…if anyone can get away with jokes like that, it’s the puckish white guys — the Ashton Kutchers of the world. Men like Kutcher dominated the early 2000s, with their trucker hats and jackass antics — the men with the jawbone looks, who’d slap you on the ass and say, “Come on, can’t you take a joke?” And you’d laugh because you weren’t uptight, right? You were cool.
In my 20s, I dated a (white) guy who would make fun of me — berate me, even. Then, as soon as I got upset, he would cackle and say, “I was just kidding! Geez. Can’t you take a joke?” Thinking back to those moments still fills me with rage. I felt so impotent, and I didn’t know that what he was doing was, essentially, gaslighting.
Now, decades later, I’m raising my own white guy. Sometimes I see hints of this kind of behavior in 12-year-old and it really pushes my buttons. He’s a funny kid, often kidding around, which I love. But whenever he jokes in ways that could make others feel bad — and especially when he follows that up with a “just kidding” if they get upset — steam starts blowing out of my ears. He’s never done anything truly egregious, but even just a whiff of this kind of behavior is enough to set me off.
In those moments, I always take deep breaths and then start a conversation, staying as calm as I can so that he can actually engage rather than react defensively. I explain to him why that kind of “joking around” can be hurtful (and yes, I’ve used the word “gaslighting,” because everyone should know what that is), and I ask him to consider how he would feel if he were on the other side of it.
What do your kids do that really rile you up and why? How do you respond when it happens? Share your stories and experiences in the comments. And please be especially considerate in this thread — I mean, you always are! — keeping in mind that others may be sharing experiences that make them feel extremely upset or vulnerable.
Is Your Kid’s Behavior Your Fault?
Now for this week’s
Today I’m commenting on this post from @responsive.parenting, which has more than 1,500 likes:
Here are my thoughts.