Pleased to meet you, I'm dad

[andrewducker]

It's only recently that I've realised that the reason that there are "dad jokes" with the structure "I'm hungry. - Pleased to meet you Hungry, I'm dad." is not because dads are determined to annoy their children but because children phrase everything as a statement about their, well, state.

I've had long conversations about how Sophia can turn her internal state ("I'm hungry.") into a request ("Dad, can I have something to eat please.") to very little effect. If she feels something then we are informed, and then it's up to us to solve the issue rather than her to formulate some kind of solution and bring *that* to us.

Clearly I'm far too demanding of a four year old, but I do at least understand now why dads resort, after a while, to annoying their children in return, in the vain hope that it might work where discussion has failed.

Comments

[ng_moonmoth]

My folks got us out of that habit pretty quickly, using a very common tactic. The response was always along the line of "Well, I could use some help with [some household task]. How about you pitch in?" And the less time since the last time one announced boredom, and the more times boredom had been announced, the more onerous or time-consuming the tasks became.

It didn't take any of us too long to work out that finding ways to entertain ourselves, or taking an early offering, were much preferable to holding out for better.