He Learned It By Watching Me?

6 comments

Watching a child grow and develop is an amazing thing, a true privilege as a parent. It allows even the most cynical, jaded and beaten-down of us to experience anew the simple joys of youth. It gives us a chance to revisit a sacred time of sublime innocence and joy, when the world wasn’t so complicated and shaded in gray. It is a sacred opportunity and it should be cherished.

Except when it sucks.

As a first-time parent that was 100% ignorant of the developmental schedules of children, I am constantly amazed by how quickly my son grasps concepts and figures things out. It happens a lot faster than I expected.

Despite that ignorance, one of the few things I did know going into this whole parenting racket was that kids are sponges; it doesn’t take them long to pick up on your behavior and start copying it. So much of what he does is based on what he sees my wife and I doing, and it’s hilarious to watch his miniature impersonations. It’s like watching an Ewok do stand-up (and my son does a KILLER Chris Walken – NO JOKE).


Thank God I was aware of that, as it lessened the shock when I suddenly had to start acting like an adult, lest my son start emulating me in my most irresponsible moments. Once he turned three months old, I made sure to pay more attention to what I was doing when I was in his presence. which meant immediately retiring my Buffalo Bill dance. It just wasn’t healthy, for many reasons.

So far, my wife and I have been pretty good about limiting his exposure to inappropriate gestures and actions, and to limit his TV to an Elmo song every once in a while; he doesn’t see much we don’t want him to see. Which makes his sudden adoption of behavior we’ve never practiced all the more alarming.

For example…

My son’s at the age now where we are starting to give the whole discipline thing a try – which mostly involves the two of us agonizing about what terrible parents we are when we can’t get him to finish his dinner. After every little tantrum, we’re convinced we’re blowing it and raising a spoiled brat (at best). It stresses us out. Never mind that he’s only 15 months old; when he’s 15 years we’ll probably be in therapy.

But, young as he is, he already knows what “no” means. And he’s already figured out that ignoring that word is an easy way to get a reaction from his parents. And he already enjoys provoking us to get that reaction! So he’ll stand there, hand near an outlet or on the TV or next to the wine cabinet, grinning his ass off as he threatens to pull the plug or push the flatscreen or polish off our best red, staring at us and smiling mischievously as we say No! No! No! over and over again. To no avail. The best reaction we get is a laugh. The worst reaction we get is some stunned crying. Most of the time, though, he just stands there and taunts us: I’m gonna do it! AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME!

Where does he learn this stuff? I stopped taunting my wife years ago, and he hardly ever sees TV. Besides, when he does, it’s usually either Dolphins games, in which little taunting occurs (you have to win to taunt, though that doesn’t always hold true with Brandon Marshall) or an Elmo-based sing-a-long, and I’ve yet to see a “Sesame Street” where they teach psychological warfare.

There are really only a few potential sources of this behavior: evolution, the collective memory, or Jesus – the Latino handyman who occassionally babysits for our son. But it’s hard to pinpoint the culprit.

And that’s the lesson: there’s no real way to keep track of all the different things that influence our kids, and it’s only going to get worse, both as he gets older and more independent, and as our progressively intrusive technology finds new ways to get inside his head. All we can do is continue to do our best and hope for the best.

And not let him see Silence of the Lambs anytime soon.


Print page

6 thoughts on “He Learned It By Watching Me?”

  2. Die Top Anbieter Deutschlands haben darüber hinaus eine
    facettenreiche Spielauswahl, faire und lukrative Boni sowie sichere und
    schnelle Zahlungen zu bieten. Zu den Merkmalen der besten Online Casinos und Internet Spielotheken auf dem deutschen Markt gehören kurze Bearbeitungszeiten bei den Auszahlungen. Zu fairen Bonus Bedingungen gehören eine moderate
    Umsatzsumme und ausreichend Zeit, um sie zu erspielen. Beste Online Casinos und Slots Seiten sind auch an attraktiven Bonus Angeboten mit spielerfreundlichen Bedingungen zu erkennen.
    Wie kann es denn sein, dass ich den ersten Bonus
    bei meinem ersten Deposit 60x durchspielen soll und das in einer Woche?

    Wenn man wie ich nur Automaten spielen will, ist Magic Red sicher eine gute Adresse.
    Unsere Experten haben nicht nur die besten deutschen Online Casinos
    im Vergleich. Als echter Geheimtipp für deutsche Zocker gestartet,
    bietet Play’n Go mittlerweile über 400 Online Slots. Der deutsche Spielautomaten Hersteller Bally Wulff bietet Klassiker wie
    Fancy Fruits, Magic Book und Roman Legion.

    References:
    https://online-spielhallen.de/lex-casino-promo-code-ihr-schlussel-zu-exklusiven-vorteilen/

    Reply

  3. Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief operating officer, will lead the company’s global expansion and manage corporate partnerships
    as CEO Sam Altman shifts his focus to research and products,
    according to a blog post from OpenAI. The
    company has updated its policies to allow ChatGPT to generate images of public figures, hateful symbols, and racial features when requested.
    OpeanAI intends to release its “first” open language model since GPT-2 “in the coming months.”
    The company plans to host developer events to gather feedback and eventually
    showcase prototypes of the model. In a series of posts on X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company’s new image-generation tool’s popularity may cause product
    releases to be delayed. This feature is rolling out to ChatGPT Pro
    and Plus users first, excluding those in the U.K., EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.
    On the list of upcoming models are GPT-4.1 and smaller versions like GPT-4.1 mini
    and nano, per the report.
    While OpenAI had previously allowed users to ask ChatGPT questions without signing in, responses were restricted to the chatbot’s last
    training update. In response to pressure from rivals like DeepSeek,
    OpenAI is changing the way its o3-mini model communicates its step-by-step “thought” process.
    However, the analysis doesn’t consider the additional energy costs incurred by ChatGPT with features like image generation or input processing.
    Using OpenAI’s latest default model for ChatGPT, GPT-4o, as a
    reference, nonprofit AI research institute Epoch AI found the average ChatGPT query consumes around 0.3 watt-hours.
    As a result of that roadmap decision, OpenAI
    no longer plans to release o3 as a standalone model.

    Help your students connect and achieve more together, whether in the classroom,
    at home, or around the globe online with collaborative tools.
    Quickly design anything for you and your family—birthday
    cards, school flyers, budgets, social posts, videos, and
    more—no graphic design experience needed. Microsoft 365 empowers your organization to organize, and safely store files in OneDrive
    with intuitive and easy organizational tools.

    References:
    https://blackcoin.co/best-australian-online-casinos-aussie-gambling-sites-in-2025/

    Reply

  4. Once you’ve signed in, check your email by opening your inbox.
    We work hard to protect you from spam, phishing,
    and malware, before they reach your inbox. Google Workspace is a set of productivity and collaboration tools that helps individuals, teams, and
    businesses stay on top of everything. Gmail offline lets you read, reply, delete, and
    search your Gmail messages when you’re not connected to the internet.

    In the table you list for the blue USB port “Twice as fast as the Blue USB Port.” That’s a
    little error there. I bet the majority of people don’t even realize there are different colors and that the different colors
    have different meanings and applications, LOL. I thank you for sharing your knowledge on these cables/ports.
    It should say “It’s much faster than the WHITE port” not black.

    References:
    https://blackcoin.co/aus96-casino-in-depth-review/

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.