One of the things I notice as a parent is how much kids learn from socialization. I have identical twins so I am schooled daily in what it means to be 'hardwired' a certain way, but there is so much that kids learn via societal norms. And some of those societal norms suck, but you can't really avoid them.
Case in point. Yesterday D said to me that the man who runs the summer camp they are attending "was fat." First of all, he really isn't --he has a bit of a belly, but clearly she has not been near a middle America mall lately. So I said to her, "That isn't a nice thing to say about someone Dylan." And she looked at me completely confused and asked, "Why?" In her mind she was just stating a fact.
And I was stumped. If I tell her that people don't like to be called fat then she starts to think that being fat is bad. If I let her call people fat then she may hurt people's feelings (and embarrass me) in the future.
I tried to say something about how people don't always like comments about their appearances (and used the example "Do you like it when people tell you that you are shorter than Charlotte?") and something about how people don't always like to be told they are fat because it makes them feel unhealthy.
But it was not a model mother moment.
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