Parents Say the Darndest Things

It’s too late now, of course, but what I probably should have done is married a man who already had kids. I just think I would be a better step mom than a real mom. As a step mom, don’t you get to be more of a friend than a disciplinarian? I am afraid that, because I am going to want my kids to think I am cool, I will let them do whatever they want and probably try to impress them with all the lurid details of my past and present.

Society, I apologize in advance, but I am probably going to raise sociopaths.

Although, maybe being open with your offspring is the way to go. I have a young lady in my class who seems very well-rounded and pleasant, yet she comes from a household in which her father is very open with his children about his unconventional lifestyle. Well, at least this sentence from her essay makes it seem that way:

My father told me, “I am a young lady and I need to dress like one.”

Obviously, her father doesn’t try to hide from his children that he has a proclivity to cross-dress and assume the role of a young female.

Either that or he has dissociative identity disorder like Toni Collette’s character in United States of Tara, and one of his personalities is a young woman.

Or my student incorrectly used quotation marks.

If, perchance, it was an error on my student’s part, and her father was actually saying that she was a young woman who needed to dress accordingly, let me just offer some options.

1. Since quotation marks are used when quoting someone word-for-word, perhaps this is what she meant:

My father told me, “You are a young lady and you need to dress like one.”

2. Or she could just paraphrase it and forget the quotation marks:

My father told me that I am a young lady and I need to dress like one.

But, if she did quote him correctly and he does want to dress like a young lady, might I suggest that he (Warning: bad pun about to ensue) TAILOR his look more to Swift than Momsen: