Kids are little sponges -- and you never realize how true that is until you hear their sweet little voices repeating something that you blurted out in front of them. TODAY senior producer Dee Dee Thomas learned this the hard way when she commented on the, shall we say, ample girth of a local dog.
By Dee Dee Thomas
The other night, my beloved 5 year-old son, Charles, told me in his most exuberant voice: "Mama, you have a fat butt!"
It stopped me cold. This child, who I would walk through fire for, called me out because of a few (or more) extra pounds. I looked at him and said, "Charles, why would you say such a mean thing to Mommy?" His face turned very sad. He clearly knew he had said something wrong -- but then he responded, "But the other day you said that dog was fat ...."
And he's right; I did. Totally. Last week, my husband, son and I were out for a walk and this pug or bulldog or some sort of small dog that lives 2 inches off the ground waddled by -- but this one looked like a Mack truck. And I said, "Wow! Look at that big, fat dog!" My husband was shocked and asked me, "What is wrong with you?" I shrugged my shoulders, not seeing anything wrong -- I mean, good grief, it's just a dog, right? My sweet, dear, precious son just laughed, and obviously filed it away in his brain for future use. Then he pulled it out to describe his mom (who is eight months pregnant, by the way) and her backside.
This became a teaching moment. I threw "ugly" into the lesson, too. You don't ever call someone fat or ugly. Those are just hurtful words, and we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings -- even fat, ugly dogs. I think he got it.
Lesson learned: Whatever you say will be absorbed by your children, and trotted back out when you least expect it. In this case, my own words came back to bite me (in the a**).
What words have you said in front of your children that came back to haunt you?