Parenting Fail – A Humbling and Substantial Spelling Lesson

~ Twindaddy

The twins are with their mother this week in Florida for spring break.  My boys just turned 13 a few months ago so that meant they are now old enough to have Facebook accounts.  So Baby A decided to IM me via Facebook a few minutes ago.  This is what transpired…

Baby A:hey
Me:hi
Baby A:wut r u doin
Me:working…
Baby A:havin fun
Me:um…no
Baby A:dat sucks
Me:dat?
Baby A:yup
Me:no…you know how to spelll…
Baby A:yeah but it’s faster to type like that
Me:it alway make you look like you don’t know how to spell. don’t write like that
Baby A:ok
Me:and as i’m lecturing you on spelling i’m making all kinds of typos…how fitting

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So that was awesome. I’m sitting there telling him to write “that” instead of “dat” because he knows how to spell, all the while making typos. Way to go, Dad…

Then, the conversation continued. He started rambling on about how awesome he was and I asked him if he had anything substantial to say other than, “I’m awesome.” Then this ensued…

Baby A:i don’t even know what substantial means
Me:ugh…go to dictionary.com and type it in
Baby A:i don’t wanna
Me:and now you have to
Baby A:but why
Me:because i don’t want my son to be willfully ignorant. look up the word. you could have been done with it already if you’d have just done it
Baby A:ugh
hold on
Me:don’t ugh me. i’m not kidding around
Baby A:Important
>
/
?
sorry
Me:see? now was that so hard? and now you learned something
so the next time i say that word you won’t be scratching your head going, “duuuuuuuhhh”
Baby A:i didn’t scratch my head or say,” duuuuuuhhh”
Me:it’s the equivalent of saying, “i don’t know what that means”
Baby A:haha
whatever

baby facepalm

Does anyone else have trouble with their kids doing this? This is not the first time he’s tried to refuse looking up a word he doesn’t know. It’s like he’s happy being ignorant.

Published by Twindaddy

Sometimes funny. Sometimes serious. Always genuine.

126 thoughts on “Parenting Fail – A Humbling and Substantial Spelling Lesson”

  1. My daughter answers me “k.” not even capitol “K” I say it is spelled Okay, or I will except an “OK’. But just “k” is a waste of a text message.

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  3. My son does the same thing as far as text speak over the phone or the computer. Of course, there is a difference between the unintentional typos we make and them just being lazy.

    His laziness is limited to doing his laundry, he is willing to look stuff up if it suits his argument.

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    1. I guess I’m a grammar Nazi in some respects. It drives me nuts that the abbreviations have crossed over to speech. Is delicious so hard to say that we must say delish instead? Really? Is this what we’re coming to?

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  7. No, it’s NOT that he’s happy being ignorant but he’s happy NOT listening to you. It’s much different. I’m sure I would have put hot spikes in my hand and insisted that it didn’t hurt if my mom said otherwise.

    I corrected my kid when he said that’s an ‘epic fail’ and I said “no – it’s not epic fail, it’s epic FAILURE” only to find out that I was wrong and he was using a trendy phrase.

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  9. I’m trying to keep my kids off fb and stuff as long as possible. So far they both think it’s stupid because of all the stories I’ve told them about it. Also, at this point, they’re bright enough to realize most of their friends are idiots. Of course, Thing One turns 13 in June. And she is already addicted to this idiot Animal Jam game where they make themselves animal avatars, hop around and text each other absolutely nothing and play pointless games. So – um – yeah pretty much facebook. Nevermind.

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  10. Oh good lord. I am the worst with typing correctly. I say UGH all the time it drives my husband nuts. My daughter can spell words I don’t even know and she is 8. I believe he just likes to get under your skin….he probably looked it up and didn’t care to tell you after the conversation. lol

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  11. My daughter is a terrible speller, which she inherited from me. Knowing this, I have always kept a giant dictionary in the living room, where it remains, mostly because it’s too heavy to carry. When she was still in middle school and would ask “how do you spell…” I would point to the dictionary. She no longer asks. At first, I gave myself a pat on the back. Then I realized she was just Googling the spelling with a phone app. When I found out, I said “I can’t believe you’re doing that!” She replied, “Dad, it’s no different than using that huge dictionary. Mine just happens to be in my phone.” To which responded in no uncertain terms, “…… good point.” (Schooled)

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  12. My beautiful daughter asked “Mum, how do you spell haff?”, Me- “what do youu mean haff?”, A- “like you haff to do that”, Me- “h a v e”, A- “no Mum, thats have. I want to spell haff. Are you stupid?”.

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  13. All of this stuff is making us all lazy and dumb. Because even if you DO look it up you don’t have to remember it — you can look it up next time you need it. It’s true for me as well — I have 12 tabs open in my browser so that I can remember 12 different health problems I can’t keep straight. In the pre-internet days I would have had to.

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      1. It only works for me if I write it down by hand. 100 times. We’ve been trying to make Jacob do that for his whole life. We have failed.

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  14. Huzzah! Fellow grammar and/or spelling Nazi here also! My son is 18 and looks like he would chop my head off with the dictionary rather than look up an unknown word in it. As far as he’s concerned, if I used a word, then I obviously know what it means and can save him precious time by simply enlightening him. I could take it as a compliment (he thinks there is no chance I could be wrong) but I’d rather continue ranting and raving when he rolls his eyes at my suggestion he look it up. Slight caveat–he does have some special needs, but we still enforce expectations around here.

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      1. I agree completely–we try to help him understand that we may not be around forever. My concern is that we are becoming fossils and that the world is moving in a direction more like the one he seems bent on following. Ew. But in the meantime, we continue on, and I know you will also!

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  15. Twindaddy,
    I asked my 3-year old daughter to look up magnificent™, after I requested she calls me Magnificent™ Clown Dad. Her answer: phoque off.
    Le Clown

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  16. Ompa. This was such a cute and ridiculously awkward exchange, all the grace and blessings of facebook.
    I don’t know much about parenting, but when I was younger I was definitely that kid who not just refused, but was so well at acting dum- uhm, unknowing that my father would just act as my personal dictionary. Hell, I’d do it on days just to hear the sound of his voice. Yeah, maybe you should take it that way instead.

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  17. I’m not fine with willful ignorance but am increasingly sympathetic towards texting shorthand. Why? Because I’ve begun using a Blackberry for the first time in my life (I know!) and those keys are obnoxiously tiny! The less typing the better. I also find it funny that OK is acceptable but K is abhorrent; they’re both abbreviations! I think what we’re really upset about is that our children speak a different language than we do. Twas ever thus…

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  19. What is even dumber is when perfectly capable (?) adults do abbreviations in the work IM. Seriously? We save these for documentation, in case of subpoena. I can imagine some judge reading “wat u do dat 4?” and laughing us out of the courtroom. Embarrassing.

    The dictionary was and still is my good friend. I used to read the encyclopedia for fun. I was not a typical teen.

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      1. Hell no they wouldn’t! They would just have to have someone like your son or my nephew on standby, complete with a waiver to the child labor laws. Hmmm.

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  25. This is my biggest peeve…I hate it!. One time my daughter responded with smh, which I had no idea what that meant. The answer is “shake my head.” I was horrified that emotions were now being relayed this way.
    Ps. I despise “dat”

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  26. I had to point out to a friend of mine that she really shouldn’t spell “come” as “cum” on her FB updates (she was 13 I think at the time) because while yes, it’s shorter, it also has a rather different meaning! Fortunately she knew what I was referring to and changed it. But I’m dreading my eldest niece becoming a teen – she’s just turned 11 and already has an FB account, which I hope is heavily supervised by my sister.

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      1. Very sensible. Other things to make sure are that they know how to report abuse and to not put their whole lives on there, and also that they know to log out of their accounts so that other people can’t post as them. I have some friends who are in their late 20’s who still think that frape is amusing.

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          1. Indeed. An example from two of my ex-school-friends (who are probably still sleeping together despite supposedly being with other people and having not been together as a couple for getting on for a decade) of whom I only had the girl on my FB (but not anymore): she was regularly fraped by the lad who would post really quite foul comments about, for example, the odour of her intimate areas. Which for someone who’s just turned 33, is really very childish.

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  27. Can I join the grammar nazi’s? Although can we have a better name, I’m not comfotable with the connotations implied. I think it’s a generation thing – it’s better to be ignorant because then you can’t be responsible for anything. You should be glad that he can at least manage to spell dictionary. PS – did think about writing this message in text speak – “cn i jn grmmr nzs? Altho cn w hv bttr nm? grmmr nzs suc” Isn’t text speak the same as missing out all the vowels from words?

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          5. Of course, because you are perfect and the standard by which all others should be measured 😉

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  30. I give my hubby credit for constantly using our intercom system to ask how to spell words when he is trying to post something. I purchased a spell checker that he could connect to his computer that would search and try to establish what word he was trying to spell for him…he said that asking me is just easier than reading the manual on how to use it. Welcome to the wonderful world of Teens…they do turn 18 and hopefully begin to care…honest.

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  32. My kids area ll 4 and under so luckily I do not have this issues yet. My oldest is already on his way though. Our biggest issues is using what we call “Jibber” words (you know, Jibber jabber). Basically words that are not real. He has a huge vocabulary for his age but chooses not to use 90% of them.

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    1. Well, that well take time, but the twins have been taking spelling and have been in school for quite a few years and it’s painful to watch them willfully misspell words that know how to spell. Well, painful isn’t necessarily the right word. Infuriating is.

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      1. I know what you mean. I make mistakes but one that gets me in speech is “funner”. My wife says that one despite my dislike, I just correct her every so often. “No, not ‘funner’, the term is more fun.” It grates on her at time but I do not want the kids to pick up on stuff like that.

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