What it means to be brave when you are a mom:
At the grocery store check out counter.
The clerk said, “Hello.”
I said, “Hello.”
She asked “How are you?”
My thirty-four-year-old, hard-to-understand, son said, “Fine.”
I said, “He said ‘fine’.”
She nodded.
The bagger said, “He likes to get out of the house, huh?”
Feeling a little irked, I did what I often do in this circumstance, I said, “He likes to do a lot of things.” Then I spoke to my son. “Do you like to get out of the house Dar?”
My son said, “Yes.” and looked at the ground.
In that moment I had a quick internal dialogue meant to muster courage. “Come on Brain Broad! You can do better than that. Raise the bar!” I looked at the bagger and smiled.
Then feeling nervous (yes even The Brain Broad feels nervous when she offers unasked for advice) I said in my most loving, while also most grounded and absolute tone, “I know you are trying to be kind but please don’t speak about him in third person.” She looked confused so I explained the term ‘third person’. “Ask him, not me. Speak ‘to’ him. Not ‘about’ him.”
She said, “Oh! I can speak to him? I didn’t know.”
My son said, “Yes.”
And we walked away happy, knowing that what had started out as ‘unasked for advice’ had ended up as ‘information.’
After we left the store I asked Dar if it was okay that I had talked to her about him and he put his arm around my shoulder. Then he turned me so that I would look in his eyes and said ‘Yes.’
He is a man of few words but he gets his point across.
Please if you see us. Talk to him, not just me.
