Conversation Between My Ex-Husband And My Oldest Son
Michael, nearly nine, has discovered that school is for suckers and that the only conversation worth having is had in italics. This conversation took place while Michael was at his grandparents, on the phone with his father.
Michael: Daddy, you know how to write, right?
Bart: Not as well as your mother does, but go on.
M: And I’m guessing you never need to know anything about grammar, right?
B: [doing a pretty piss poor job of stifling laughter, if you ask me] Buddy, if I were you I wouldn’t say that in front of your mother.
M: Why?
B: Because Mummy’s an editor. That’s her home business.
M: What’s an editor?
B: Someone whose job it is to fix people’s writing.
M: So Mummy can do my grammar for me?
B: No, Buddy. People pay her to do that.
Bart called me to tell me this story immediately after getting off the phone with Michael. It would appear that at the same time, Michael was trying to call me as well. This is the voicemail I got:
“Hi Mummy, it’s Michael. How much of my allowance would I have to give you for you to do my grammar homework for me? Can you call me back soon? I need to know before tomorrow.”
***
If you would like to give me some of your allowance to have me do your editing or writing dirty work, click here.
:D Adorable. That put a much needed smile on my face!
Hey, Sushi Day! (I can’t really wrap my mind around the fact that Sushi Day is not your name.) I’m glad he made you smile.
He’s so funny with money. Smart kid, but I think he’s a little communist-in-training. We were in a pet store and they had purebred Himalayan kittens for $1,499. He swore up and down they were for $14.99 and I didn’t have the heart to tell him what it really meant.
Doesn’t get any cuter than that!
I answer questions on the Yahoo Answers site. About a third of the questions sound a lot like that kind of homework. In fact, some of them come complete with the problem instructions. His grammar problem would fit right in…..
(And no, I don’t answer those. I tend to stick to science, math, politics, and parenting.)
That’s brilliant! :)
Great material for a show like Kids Say the Darndest Things… His call sounds so professional - just like a real client.
Haha, classic!
hehe, smart kid. The cool thing is, you can’t even refuse as it won’t take him too much time to figure out how to outsource his homework to India.
So cute ! Now we definitely have proof that business and entrepreneurship run in the family ;)
Too funny. Did you give him a “preferred client” rate?
Here’s my own story:
My teenage daughter had an English project where she and her group had to put together a magazine.
Well, I offered my help, answered some questions about catchy headlines and what motivates people to buy, suggested some ideas… but she was determined to do this on her own. “I *know*, Dad. I can do this.”
Alright, honey.
The teacher ended up giving 60% across the board to every student in her class. While I arched an eyebrow at such a blatant expression of poor teaching (hey, if she’d done her job right in educating the kids, they wouldn’t have gotten 60%, right?), I asked my daughter what feedback she’d requested from the teacher.
“I didn’t ask for feedback,” she sniffed loftily. “I told her my Dad wrote for magazines and did copywriting for a living and gave her your number to request a personal meeting if she wanted some good tips and pointers.”
@James - That is a great little saleswoman you got there. Great job training her!!
@ Chris - For sure! I’m not positive the teacher thinks well of me, though…
Communist in training? Sounds more like you’ve got a Tim Ferris style capitalist on your hands. :-)
Well, Well! Congrats on bagging the hardest client on earth ” your own kid.”
I am thinking you will be trading services instead of having him pay for it. May be make him pick up after himself, get a glass of water while you don’t feel like getting up and all that good stuff that you otherwise would have to yell em’ to do.
I think you got a business man in the making. I am wondering how the deal went. Is it a 18 year contract or a short term commitment;-)
I put the wrong link on my other comment so here I am again. Seriously I am here to interact with you and other readers, the traffic that flows from comments has nothing to do with it ;-).
Anyway, keep us updated on Michael.
Naomi, Michael sounds a lot like my son. Love how matter of fact he was! My story:
I asked my son (12 yrs. old) if he was going to do the Math extra credit work. His answer, “No, that’s ok, I already have an A in Math.” I explained that the extra credit work might be good insurance just in case he bombed a test or something. So, he grabbed a calculator and did some figuring on just how much he could bomb before he’d lose his A and what effect the extra credit would have on his grade if that happened. I swear in the time it took him to do all those calculations and predictions, he could have finished the extra credit work.
Kids …. :-)
Naomi,
That story is priceless. I don’t have kids, but I do have a 7-yr-old sister whose conversations I document similarly in a private blog I maintain. One day, I will print them out and give her a good laugh. It’s hard to pick which conversations to write down since everything that comes out of her mouth cracks me up. If I ever have a bad day, I just call her up for a smile.
I’m sure it’s that way with your kids.
Rachelle
Excellent. Funny thing is for me, I love to have an editor when I write. I always found that an editor could help me get so much more out of my own writing. At the same time I serve as an editor for other people. Now, what i need to do is get my teenager daughter to pay me for editing her high school papers. That would be something.
And really, did we all sign like her when we were teens and full of angst? Never sure if I should hug her our laugh after reading some of her poetry.
Naomi,
I’m a sucker for a good kid story! Thanks!
My daughter is eight, and a budding graphic designer/product designer. We spend vacations and about half the summer near my parents and her cousins, and she ropes them into service as junior designers, putting out the product line for her “company,” The Artistic Dog Studio. (She wants to know why I can’t whip them up a website, eeek!) On our way back from winter break with the family, she told me it was time to send her work off to Target, because they appreciate good design. I said they have a lot of fine designers who do work for them already, what about poor Charles S. Anderson (whose stuff she’s seen in my design mags)?
“Don’t worry,” she said, “once they see my stuff they won’t need Charles S. Anderson any more. I’m better.”
Eight going on full-of-self. Whew! Watch out, Chuck, my kid’s coming to get you.
Regards,
Kelly
@ Naomi - :D You may refer to me as Sushi Day. :P
My genius child (he is 2.5) just referred to doing something “on purples.” I’m going to start doing more things on purples. It is a good way to do stuff.
Jeffry is really right on the money about M outsourcing his homework to India.
I hope your not gonna charge him, you should do it for free. :)
This is the first thing that made me laugh all morning. I’m guessing you’re not going to take him up on his offer.
My kids have recently realised they can cheat on their French homework by going to a website that translates it all for them. You just copy and paste the text, press a button and it’s done.
I know I shouldn’t say this, but I wish we’d had the Internet when I was at school.
Classic, especially for the “nearly nine” crowd.
In answer to your questions, no, I am not going to charge him. I’m also not going to do it. Normally I’m all for helping but he’s being such a colossal whiner about the whole thing he can go ahead and fail for all I care.
He’ll spend the whole time arguing with me about how my way is dumb. I don’t take that shit from clients and I’m not going to take it from my son. :-)
@ Sonia - Can we trade?
@ Kelly - Is she available for logo design? I have clients who might be interested.
Naomi,
She did three for Pepsi last year when they were having that design-the-can contest. Sadly Pepsi didn’t choose them. I keep meaning to put them up on the company website; everybody loves a precocious kid (except the annoyed parent).
Re: Target, I told her just a little practice wouldn’t hurt anything, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Time to conquer the world now, so she thinks. Well, she’s got a lot more energy than I have for world domination so maybe she’s got something. What were all the years of putting in dues and schooling and re-schooling (and more dues) all about anyway?
I don’t know about logos right now, I’d have to check her Blackberry, but oh, she can boss a team around for you. She’s always got time for that.
I love her like crazy as you clearly do yours. Who do you think encourages that wild creativity and stubborn ambition?
You help them with their homework until the day they wake up at thirteen and decide you’re an idiot as well as such an embarrassment to be near, because in the back of your mind you know the day is coming when they won’t ask for help anymore. (James, is that about right?)
If anyone’s lurking around my blog after this you’ll find that she’s twice gotten credit for inspiring posts, which isn’t as good as her own site but does swell her head even more.
Regards,
Kelly
That’s a pretty sharp kid, before you know it he’ll be outsourcing math and science homework to India. :)
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Aww, that is so sweet. Made my heart swell and put a real big smile on my face. You have a beautiful son.