I’m dying to say that to my son. If only he could talk back, so I could harshly put him down. The ability to use verbal abuse is one of the many privileges of being a parent and I’m looking forward to – pun intended – abusing it.

The irony is that when he’s a teenager he’ll turn the tables on me with never-ending sarcasm and constant disrespectfulness; but that’s when I bust out the PHYSICAL ABUSE, Good Will Hunting-style. If there’s anything Papa Hunting knew how to do, it was how to beat the genius into somebody, whether he used a belt, stick or wrench.

But back to my son. He isn’t talking back just yet, but he is talking, at least a little. Or maybe it’s more like “talk.”

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