Last night my son casually asked if he could take today off from 11th grade as a mental health day. He gave a rundown of how uneventful each class would be today. He wasn’t particularly stressed or anything; rather, he indicated, it would simply be the reasonable thing to do.
“No, you have to go to school,” I stated matter-of-factly after his smooth pitch.
“Mom, it makes no sense. Literally nothing will be going on tomorrow.”
“You literally have to go to school.”
He was not happy. When he got home today, he was quite chilly with me. Later, when he asked if he could take the car to school tomorrow since I’d be holding conferences from home, I said I wasn’t sure. He was a pretty big jerk to me this afternoon.
“I was just tired and mad at my day, not at you.”
I have known this child for 17 years, and I am confident he served me up a plate of BS. I told him so. He held firm in his denial, passionately so, but I wasn’t buying it.
He hasn’t yet crumbled, but he’s shown me funny SNL clips, a piano piece he wants to learn, and a cat video starring a kitty that looks just like ours. I guess it’s his way of saying sorry. Maybe a car instead of a school bus is in his future tomorrow…
My Corner of the Village 