I often get annoyed with our eldest son, too often. There are other circumstances, to be sure, but one type of interaction has really stood out in recent days. It's worth mentioning, both for your entertainment, hopefully, and to organize my thoughts and ideally convince myself this doesn't need to be such a big deal. I am not solely a logical creature and this is more apparent the longer I stay home with the kids.
Here it is. It bothers me when he's utterly confident about something but is also very wrong. The kid does not lack for confidence, in many ways, though maybe with starting actual school and meeting more older kids he's come down from thinking, for one, he's the fastest kid in the world. Even ambition and the kid's version of pride aside, he wants to be right. He likes to apply what he knows and make generalizations. And, what's perhaps the piece of it that rankles me most, he loves to tell other people when (he thinks) they're wrong. It comes out like he knows all the things and how dare you say or do something that strays from what's in his head. It's become a somewhat regular occurrence that, while we're on the road, I'm informed I'm driving the wrong way. This pushes my buttons, I do know how to get where I'm going thank you, and it's the clearest example of this behavior frustrating me. I could give more examples but the purpose of this isn't to call out my son.
The reason this strikes me to my core is a simple fact: he's me. (He's actually everyone in my immediate family, none of us can stop ourselves from authoritatively correcting one another, but let's just stick with he's me.) I also do these things, all the time. I overly trust my memory. I can extrapolate what I know beyond reasonable comparisons. I like to correct others when I believe I have the facts. There's more of a filter but it's still there. It's easy to think that I'm right more often (of course, I have 30 more years life experience and a fully developed brain) but that's besides the point.
Twice recently I've been humbled because I was myself confidently incorrect, and they both involved our eldest and his school. First, a few weeks back, I didn't pick him up on time and he ended up in the 'extended school day' after school program. It was a Monday and he was signed up for a golf class after school on Mondays, but there were also conferences that day and golf was canceled. I'd mistakenly put the class into my calendar because I wasn't looking closely at the details. Anyway, I ended up getting him an hour late and didn't feel great about it but he actually loved staying longer, they were playing outside, and asked to do it again. No harm no foul. Second, the school had a big gathering for their weekly chapel celebrating Veteran's Day. It was a big gathering and a bunch of visitors were coming. His class was singing a song and he had asked his mother and me to be there. I told him that was my plan (my wife couldn't make it work). For this I showed up at 215, when the chapel normally starts, instead of 130, when the event started that day. Once again I thought I knew the information without checking and it bit me. I missed it entirely, and felt much worse.
The solution for these two specific events is pretty simple, I need to pay closer attention to times when the school sends out messages. But taking the wider view, I am wrong with regularity and need to remember that. It's good to double check, to verify, and not just think I know with utmost, probably unearned, conviction. For the rest of our lives my son's and my innate need to be right won't go away, and we will butt heads time and again. Hopefully I can stop taking it so personally, even if it's basically me driving me crazy.
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