Recently, we were on the road, the Shark family, that is, and we stopped at a busy Wendy's for lunch. Since the place was jam-packed, I took my little girl to find a table and get her started while my wife waited (and waited...and waited...and waited) in line.
I positioned my daughter in a high chair so that she could see the group of kids sitting across from us. They were all tween-ish boys with a group of adults, and I figured she'd be entertained by getting all up in their business while I was getting her food ready.
The boys started to kind of split up a bit and scatter, but they were still within eyeshot--and earshot. At one point, I overheard a few boys talking about how late they were up the night before. That's when one of them said the following:
"I was gonna go to sleep, but then Dane Cook came on, and so I watched that and then went to bed."
Now, if I could hear it, I'm pretty sure my daughter could, too. Surely you see why I was concerned. How should I respond to something like this? I don't want my just-over-a-year-old baby girl thinking Dane Cook is worth staying up for...or worth watching at all, really. This is an impressionable age for her. My mind raced as I struggled to come up with the right thing to do.
YOU MAKE THE CALL, folks. If you're me, do you:
A) Pretend nothing happened, perhaps distracting your daughter with a goofy face or by putting a cheerio up your nose--anything to make sure that kid's idiotic statement doesn't "take."
B) Find the boy's parents and let them know you're not judging their letting him watch Dane Cook, but the least they could do is try to muzzle him from spreading his poor taste to the next generation.
C) Get up from your table and confront the boy in a civil but firm manner, reminding him that your young child (among others) is in the restaurant.
D) Remain seated and shoot your hand in the air, making that moronic Dane Cook hand gesture.
E) Accept the incident and, without making a big deal out of it, calmly discuss with your baby girl why that boy is so wrong.
YOU MAKE THE CALL!
The choice for me, sports fans, was E). D) was, of course out of the question. A) was an acceptable but cowardly choice. B) was tempting, but it was challenging at that point to determine who the boy's parents were or if they were even seated as opposed to waiting in line with the teeming masses. C) seemed a tad--just a tad--disproportionate. More importantly, it risked embarrassing my wife and making the rest of the ride home an uncomfortable scenario.
So I just looked at my daughter and said in an even tone of voice, "Now, honey, I know you heard that boy say he stayed up and watched a whole Dane Cook special last night. That's his choice, and he made it. Someday you'll be old enough to make your own decisions about avoiding stuff that sucks. But right now, I want you to know that, yeah. Dane Cook sucks, and I don't think you'll get anything out of watching any of his specials."
Then she made a loud raspberry noise and threw a Cheerio. But I think I made the right call, because the way she did it really indicated that my speech sunk in.
I positioned my daughter in a high chair so that she could see the group of kids sitting across from us. They were all tween-ish boys with a group of adults, and I figured she'd be entertained by getting all up in their business while I was getting her food ready.
The boys started to kind of split up a bit and scatter, but they were still within eyeshot--and earshot. At one point, I overheard a few boys talking about how late they were up the night before. That's when one of them said the following:
"I was gonna go to sleep, but then Dane Cook came on, and so I watched that and then went to bed."
Now, if I could hear it, I'm pretty sure my daughter could, too. Surely you see why I was concerned. How should I respond to something like this? I don't want my just-over-a-year-old baby girl thinking Dane Cook is worth staying up for...or worth watching at all, really. This is an impressionable age for her. My mind raced as I struggled to come up with the right thing to do.
YOU MAKE THE CALL, folks. If you're me, do you:
A) Pretend nothing happened, perhaps distracting your daughter with a goofy face or by putting a cheerio up your nose--anything to make sure that kid's idiotic statement doesn't "take."
B) Find the boy's parents and let them know you're not judging their letting him watch Dane Cook, but the least they could do is try to muzzle him from spreading his poor taste to the next generation.
C) Get up from your table and confront the boy in a civil but firm manner, reminding him that your young child (among others) is in the restaurant.
D) Remain seated and shoot your hand in the air, making that moronic Dane Cook hand gesture.
E) Accept the incident and, without making a big deal out of it, calmly discuss with your baby girl why that boy is so wrong.
YOU MAKE THE CALL!
The choice for me, sports fans, was E). D) was, of course out of the question. A) was an acceptable but cowardly choice. B) was tempting, but it was challenging at that point to determine who the boy's parents were or if they were even seated as opposed to waiting in line with the teeming masses. C) seemed a tad--just a tad--disproportionate. More importantly, it risked embarrassing my wife and making the rest of the ride home an uncomfortable scenario.
So I just looked at my daughter and said in an even tone of voice, "Now, honey, I know you heard that boy say he stayed up and watched a whole Dane Cook special last night. That's his choice, and he made it. Someday you'll be old enough to make your own decisions about avoiding stuff that sucks. But right now, I want you to know that, yeah. Dane Cook sucks, and I don't think you'll get anything out of watching any of his specials."
Then she made a loud raspberry noise and threw a Cheerio. But I think I made the right call, because the way she did it really indicated that my speech sunk in.
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