Riding in the car over the weekend, my 21-year-old stepdaughter launched into a description of a serial killer she’d been reading about.
“Shhhh,” I said quickly, nodding at our 5-year-old Bruiser and 8-year-old Punky in the backseat.
I was too late.
“Mommy?” my 8-year-old asked. “What’s a serial killer?”
“Uh… It’s someone who eats so much cereal, there’s none left for anyone else,” I said quickly.
“Oh.” Punky paused, thinking.
“I think Bruiser is a cereal killer,” she said darkly.
Image via musicfanatic29/Flickr
Love it!!! Good job thinking on your feet!
At least until she tries to use the term at a friend’s house or at school! 😀
That’s cute, but I think you should have told her the truth in an age-appropriate way, even if it’s vague: “A serial killer is a really bad person.” Kids hear about so much at school, from the media, and from older siblings that it’s impossible to keep them entirely ignorant of such stuff.
I can’t see any benefit to her knowing the definition of a serial killer right now. If she were ten, maybe, and more interested in popular media, I’d tell her the truth, but right now her exposure is very limited and she’s not yet clamoring for more.
Besides, if I told her the truth, what would I blog about? 😉
Hahahaha.
(I’m the cereal killer in our house. Man, I love me some cereal.)
Funny… I always suspected you were a cereal killer… 😉
Twenty three years ago my son (then 5, now 28) was listening to the radio with me in the car one day when there was a short blurb about a serial killer. My son immediately started tearing up and became agitated. When I asked him what was wrong, he replied “Does this mean there will be no more cereal?” It took me a minute to realize how his brain was processing the news. Must be a five year old boy thing.
That’s hilarious!
I’m taking an anatomy class and my 11 year old son gets out of school and walks 100 yards to the college and waits for me in a study area outside the classroom. The teacher is really a loud talker.
After class one day my son asked why the teacher was talking about a racist monkey. Of course he was talking about blood and explaining Rh factor and the rhesus monkey.