What is the funniest/ embarrassing thing your child said...

↑ deena19k ↓

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 9:15 am

I don't get some of these stories. Don't any of you teach your kids that there are all different types of people in the world? That people come in all types of colors, shapes, and sizes? I don't get why kids are so confused to see people who don't look exactly like what they are used to. And yes, you can start teaching these things from when they're toddlers, and then most of these embarrassing stories would never happen.

myself

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 10:03 am

deena19k wrote:

I haven't posted earlier but I'll explain what happened in my case -

We had an African American Ger for a Friday night meal and he kept singing 'oy oy oy Shabbos....' to our almost two year old son in the hopes that he'll join him and sing along. DS had never seen an African American Jew before (there are none in our community, this guy was visiting the area) and was confused as to why we had this man joining our Shabbos meal, suddenly DS loudly pipes up 'a non-Jew doesn't say Good Shabbos'. embarrassed

I was absolutely mortified and tried to change the topic right away. Of course I later explained that Jews come in all colours, shapes and sizes with him later, but since the guest was completely unexpected and we never came across anyone like that before, there was no way for me to forewarn him. Oh well, at least now they know.

shevi82

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 12:10 pm

For parshas berishes my dd (age 3) brought home a booklet she made, where each page showed what Hashem created on that day.
SO my dh asked what did hashem create on the first day? Light and dark she replied. and on the second day? Not so sure, She looked at the painted blue page and and said:"paint".

my 5 year old was talking to my six year old and asked him "what is Olam Haba?"
"you will see when you die" was my 6 year olds answer.

Tova

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 12:21 pm

My 5 year old daughter to my husband (she was 4 I think when she said it): "Abba, if you let your beard grow very long then you will be a bigger Talmud Chacham."

My 6 year old son when seeing a picture of a vacuum delivery of a newborn (he got into a pregnancy pamphlet my insurance company sent, and it showed diagrams of the growth of a baby in utero as well as deliveries...oops, not that he really processed more than the baby part of the picture): "So if it's a boy baby then the doctor puts a yarmuka on it when it's in the Mommy's tummy."

bigsis144

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 12:23 pm

deena19k wrote:

Even if my kid watches diverse shows like Sesame Street, reads multi-racial, handi-capable picture books and has a mother who gives him the, "well, sweetie, people come in all colors, shapes and sizes" speech -- THE KID IS STILL ONLY 4 YEARS OLD. Some of the kids people have mentioned are even younger!

There's only so much of a filter that they have at that age, and even if a question is not socially acceptable, I'm glad my child is curious and hopefully my matter-of-fact and positive response will prevent anyone in earshot from thinking I'm a lousy bigot of a parent.

I think the lesson needs repetition to truly sink in, and kids will be more likely to ask about someone that they see in real life than simply looking at a picture book to understand.

At that age, kids don't even necessarily understand themselves. Little boys think girls have p-nises, and little girls think if they cut their hair they'll turn into boys, and boys think when they grow up they can be a Mommy if they want...

tl;dr deena19k: don't get too worked up about it. As long as parents handle these questions with tact and respect, it's not terrible for toddlers/preschoolers to be asking them.

↑ deena19k

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 12:40 pm

bigsis144 wrote:

I hear what you're saying, but I guess I still find it strange that a kid would see a black person and think he is a dog (like one amother said). To me that's beyond just childlike innocence.

octopus

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 12:49 pm

my 2 year old walked over to a man (at a simcha) with a big black beard and said, "zaidy?"
the man was horrified. he said it would be one thing to call him abba, does he really look like a zaidy?? I was embarrassed and tried to explain that my dh doesnt have a beard, and she associates beards with zaidy. eeek.

ora_43 ↓

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 2:27 pm

bigsis144 wrote:

And kids who are very aware that people come in all different shapes and colors can be so comfortable with that fact that they don't understand that it might be offensive to refer to someone's race in a certain context, or why.

Thinking here of a child of mine who went to a racially mixed preschool, but didn't know better than to shout out to some (ethiopian) girls she was playing with at the playground, "hey blackies, look what I built!" embarrassed

Fortunately her speech was so bad they couldn't understand her anyway.

(Of course in retrospect that maybe could have been prevented with a talk about how we shouldn't refer to people by bodily features, but since it had never come up before, I just hadn't realized it would be an issue. My point was just that "teach kids there are different kinds of people" is almost never enough; racial and cultural sensitivity is a whole complex issue that even well-meaning adults often get wrong, let alone toddlers).

↑ ora_43

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 2:34 pm

I think I've shared this story here before, but will post it anyway:

For some reason, my very stubborn then-three-year-old decided that her belly button was a p*nis.

I made the mistake of telling her flat-out that she was wrong, which escalated until she was marching around the house topless, loudly singing, "I HAVE A P*NIS!!!!"

I'm not sure what the neighbors made of that (ftr, she continued to refer to her belly button as a p*nis - both at home and elsewhere - for another several weeks).

↑ amother ↓

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 7:01 pm

2 year old son's lines:

"Baby, don't cry we love you...and there is always tushie cream."
"Savta? Why does my daddy sleep in the succah?" (savta answers: cuz it's a mitzvah) "Oh! When I'm a daddy, I am going to sleep in the succah and have a really big p*nis."
"I know what the white part of an orange is called...P*ss!"

4 year old's:

"Look at the brown boy hanging from those bars- he looks like a monkey" (he meant cuz he was hanging, the brown was to reference which boy).
to a lady in costco wearing full muslim garb "look daddy a real ghost!" she looks at him and says "I'm not a ghost, I am Muslim!"

↑ Superwife

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 7:19 pm

octopus wrote:

LOL! We are Lubavitch, and often point out pictures of the Chabad Rebbeim to our toddler. In the mind of my toddler: Since Tatty has a beard, and the Rebbeim had beards, all Tattys MUST be Rebbeim!

so we were walking to the store one day, and encountered a YOUNG tatty waiting by the curb for his child's bus to arrive. My 2 yo. pointed to him as we passed and said "Look! its a Rebbe!" I corrected her and said it was a Tatty. Upset that I did not see eye to eye with her, she walked right over to the man, pulled on his pant leg and said "Look! ITS A REBBE!" the man was rolling. embarrassed

↑ chocolate chips

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 9:05 pm

At a community Purim party one of my siblings, then really young, pointed to a family friend who had recently dyed her hair a reddish purple and said really loud "that lady is nuts she has weird colored hair!" to which my mother was mortified.
The lady came over and said so many kids say that to her and she always says if I didn't want people to look I wouldn't do it!!!

Another time, my sister, then 4 and pretty precocious went over to the librarian and said your boots are very pretty but they would look nicer with a skirt rather than trousers!

The same sister also told a friend that her painted nails look good painted but they are not so fancy and her grandmother is fancier because she has nail polish on her toes as well!

↑ FranticFrummie ↓

Sun, Jan 26 2014, 10:52 pm

DD used to think that Santa Clause and lawn gnomes were rabbis. She'd always get excited and yell "Look, it's a RABBI!" It was cute at first, but eventually I straightened her out.

One of the big name rabbis in our community is very short, has a long white beard, and is a total grump. The man has NO sense of humor whatsoever. You can only imagine his reaction when DD walked up to him at kiddush and said "See mommy? I told you he looked like a lawn gnome!"

Rolling Laughter

↑ rainbow dash

Mon, Jan 27 2014, 2:49 am

amother wrote:

My son started calling the stuff in his diaper Cholent. This was picked up from a boy in his Gan. We were by my mother for Shabbos and he did his business. I went to change him. He took the dirty diaper and goes to put it in the garbage. Instead he goes over to my mother who was serving cholent and says "Bubby here is Cholent". The entire table bursts out laughing so he is encouraged. He went into the kitchen and got a spoon. He sat down, opened the bag, opened the diaper, picked up a spoonful of "Cholent" and started offering it to my siblings!

anon because my siblings have spread this story all over

I haven't laughed so hard in ages.

↑ melbee

Mon, Jan 27 2014, 10:38 am

Remembered a few more:

My DH was making kiddush one Shabbos on wine, and DS (4 years old) yelled "Tati, why do you drink that ALL the time?"

Same DS was potty-training at 3 years old, and ran into the room where I was visiting with a friend, in just underpants, yelling "Mommy, Friend's Name, look! I have an elephant!" and pulled his pants down. I pulled them back up and reminded him it's not tznius to pull his pants down when not in the bathroom, and he says "Oh yea! Look!" and pulled the front of the underpants over to the side. My friend had to leave the room so not to break down laughing in front of him.

mandr

Mon, Jan 27 2014, 10:59 am

Rebbi (holding up a picture of Moshe bearing the luchos): Who can tell me who this is?
My brother: Statue of Liberty

Rebbi: Who knows where Hashem is?
Kid: In the toilet.
Rebbi: Why do you say that?
Kid: Whenever my Totty is in the bathroom, my mother yells, "Reboini Shel Oilam, kim shoin arois!" (come out already)