So I get a call from a blocked number

It is my kid’s second grade teacher! Turns out my kid thinks she’s too good for school and has apparently been logged in but spending her time playing games on another device

First I was right this woman is 25, nailed my assumptions

Secondly she’s smart as a whip, we’re all on speaker and I’m telling my kid “girl if you don’t properly apologize I will absolutely go full writer on you and we’ll chat about miss lady’s life here”

Teacher laughs

Like imagine you’ve spent basically your whole adult life in preparation for this and then life hands you a pandemic and also my kid

Idk who she pissed off in her last life

Anyway it’s beautiful when parents and teachers team up to troll the kid who’s too good for this

Me: hi miss lady, lily won’t be logged on until she stops giving me murderface

Teacher, repressing giggles: okay. But lily, if you’re not logged on by 1245 you’ll be docked and that would make us both sad, right?

Kid: full murderface

I’m editing the written apology for tone is where we’re at now

This kid is the child of a writer and she’s pretending she doesn’t know how to draft an apology

She’s about to be in trouble for crimes against literacy

Y’all. My child. Has just told me. She can’t write an apology because she doesn’t know “what to write besides fuck you”

I have never been prouder and I can’t laugh because this is Very Serious

Imagine in ten years when she’s protesting tho

Turns out raising strong women who question authority has a downside, who could have predicted this

Me: kid I’m not mad you were bored I’m mad you’re being a dick to your teacher, stop it

Kid: oh wait, okay, yeah that I can apologize for. I shouldn’t be condescending.

Me, to my second grader: yes don’t condescend to the adults in your life, as a rule

Kid has just informed me she won’t write “fuck” in her apology because the younger kids shouldn’t know that word

I asked who the younger kids were and she said kids who won’t turn eight until summer

I’m now explaining hyperinflation in detail because she can’t write an apology because she’s just ready for harder material

It’s fucking well backfiring because apparently my second grader thinks hyperinflation is as fascinating as I do

If you’ve ever wondered is it jarring to hear a seven year old say “monetary policy”

It is. It is fucking jarring.

Also she’s been paying attention apparently and has opinions on Tony Abbott

WHAT AMERICAN SEVEN YEAR OLD HAS OPINIONS ON FORMER PRIME MINISTERS

Tom says this is a me problem like this isn’t his kid

She’s still only seven words into this apology

“Mom am I apologizing for being condescending or for being right, I forgot”

This kid

Is gonna kill me

The situation has devolved into me yelling DO YOU EVEN KNOW THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD LITERALLY and tbh yep, now I see how we got here

Kids if your mom is a writer don’t yell “I literally don’t care” at her

She is now grounded from devices for a week

To which her rejoinder was HOW AM I GONNA LOOK UP HOW WORDS STARTED WITHOUT GOOGLE, YOUR RULES ARE ILLOGICAL

Kid you ain’t never heard of a dictionary? Just ordered one for you. Be here in two days. Suffer.

We are fully dug in over here. Kid is half an hour late logging in and I’ve called her dad in to explain the concept of drill instructors

Girl you thought you’d try my will? Me who is having “try again” tattooed over my blind eye?

She might be gifted but she’s bad at this

Her curse is I was also a gifted kid

Ain’t nothing new or cute here, I also once was bored in second grade

Kid is now trying tears because let’s pull the stops out

I am explaining that an apology is when you acknowledge what you did wrong

We have called off school and she’s doing windsprints because apparently she has angry energy

Cool let’s solve that problem small one

Parenting is basically all trolling harder all the time

Kid you are seven. I have been hating authority for 31 more years than you.

Kid is now writing an actual apology to her teacher and then we can get started on the disrespect she showed me

Fuck authority but what we won’t do is be rude simply because someone is kindly sharing their wisdom

Lesson fucking well learned

Parenting achievement unlocked

The best and most salient curse is “may you have children just like you”

Kid is now in legit tears and she’s writing not just a paragraph apology, she has sixteen whole sentences because she had the balls to tell me she could do my job

Cool cool cool, that’ll be four paragraphs in your first person narrative nonfiction then

I’m so fucked when the hormones start, god help me

She’s seven

I’m so screwed

Kid has rethought everything and now would like it to be plain that she was just mad and she understands how fair works so it’s fine she’s grounded and writing paragraphs

See this is the smart kid I knew was in there this whole three hours

This is how she’ll take over the world

Also she negotiated to three paragraphs instead of four

I might be fucked during her teen years but you are all fucked after that