This post was originally published October 13, 2014
This summer I had the pleasure of spending hours upon hours with my six-year-old cousin because I offered to babysit him and my other cousins after school for a few days so I could make a little bit of money. Gunther is notoriously hard to control, talk to, discipline, teach, etc. But at the same time, he's unknowingly hilarious. Not because he's trying to be funny or because he's "that goofy kid!" or anything light like that. No, Gunther is pretty much the devil, which we think is funny.
For instance, one time he innocently asked his sister if she would play mancala with him, and she kindly declined, stating, "Gunther, you always cry when you lose and that isn't fun." He then snapped his head towards her in a Exorcist kind of a way and strongly bellowed "SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH" as if he really meant it.
It looked EXACTLY like this but without the smile.
We're not sure if he does mean it when he bursts out like this, but he's not my kid so I'm not gonna investigate too hard.
Because of his reputation, I approached hanging out with the little guy like I would if I ever were ever forced to hang out with someone who I knew hated me. I'd avoid eye contact, not speak to him, and try to stay as far away as possible. If he decided to interact with me, I'd try to use as little words as possible, and just go along with whatever he says until I run out the clock and his Mom comes home.
Perhaps because I was speaking so little, Gunther started to fill the silence with the sound of his own voice. At first, I figured this was what we'd call "a conversation," since that's what two humans do when one talks to the other. I learned quickly that this was not what Gunther had in mind.
As it turns out, six-year-olds actually don't really have the mental capacity for the kind of conversations I believed we could be having. What sounded like a story to me was actually just a stringing of words and phrases he may have picked up, spoken aloud for the sake of listening to his own voice. So, when he'd tell me something and I'd ask him a question, he'd get upset that I'd throw off his flow. Instead of just ignoring my question or answering it with another nonsensical stringing of words, Gunther turned to the only tactic that's ever worked for him: insult.
Gunther: At my school, my grade is the only grade that gets out later. All the other grades get out early!
Me: Oh, what time do they get out?
Gunther: [Thinks, realizes that he doesn't know the answer to my question, turns hostile] Why do you ask so many dumb questions?
I'd simply ask a clarifying question, which humans do in conversations to show that they are listening and invested in your story. I thought Gunther would like this because I figured it would make him feel important; show him that I'm listening and care about what he's saying. But alas, I had overestimated this six-year-old demon. Here I am, psycho-analyzing what I can do and say to keep this beast docile, and my clever tactics come back to bite me.
But did I just brush this off like a proper adult? Oh no. I let him get to me.
Having been working on my conversational skills since I reached college (and realized that I have to actually talk to other people), it's become engrained in me to ask clarifying questions, or make noises to show I'm listening. This is how you earn respect in conversations and come across as a good listener. These tactics have never failed me, and it's hard to turn them off once they're on.
So because of this, I continued to humor Gunther's nonsensical babbling throughout the week by asking clarifying questions, and again and again he'd accuse me of asking "dumb" questions.
By the last day of babysitting, I had had enough. He was in the backseat of my car, and I was driving to pick up my sister after picking him up from soccer practice. I asked a clarifying question, and he asked me why I asked dumb questions.
So, like a 21-year-old idiot with too much pride who tries to argue with six-year-olds, I gave him a piece of my mind. Careful not to yell at him, I gave a strongly worded speech.
Me: You know what? These are not dumb questions. These are actually very smart questions that I'm asking you.
[It's at this point that I realized that I was giving a speech to a six-year-old but I was too far in I couldn't stop.]
Me: If you don't know the answer to my question, you don't have to answer it. You can just ignore me. But you can't tell me that my questions are dumb, because I am smarter than you, and I'm smarter than a whole lot of other people!
[I just barely stopped myself from saying "I'm smarter than your Mom AND your Dad" because I envisioned him going home and telling his Mom "Megan said she's smarter than you and Dad!"]
Me: I went to college and I'm 21-years-old.
[Why was I trying to pepper in rhetorical ethos? It's not like a six year old is gonna hear that and be like, "Oh, wow, I've forgotten that she's older and wiser, glad she reminded me! Now I really believe her argument!"]
Did it feel good to school that little booger?
Yeah. For like two seconds.
Then I realized that I was trying to use logic and reason to argue with a six-year-old. If he didn't understand my question about what time his school gets out, then he's definitely not going to understand my impassioned speech about why I'm smarter than him. This was confirmed to me when I simply couldn't resist doing it again the next day at soccer practice. I tried to angrily explain to him why it's not okay to hit his sister, and he just mimicked everything I said in a whiney voice.
Gunther's outbursts had once been the subject of funny banter between me and my family. But, in true demonic fashion, he had turned me into the fool. It's my outbursts we're laughing at now.