Irksome

Pasted Graphic 138

Irk is a great word. It’s even better if you combine it with poodle, as in: “The poodle is really irking me!” That sounds so much better than, “The dog is annoying.”

The poodle is not my point here though. T-shirts on children are my point. Some of them are very irksome. Like this message on a 5 year old girl’s shirt the other day:

I want it.
You pay for it.
Any questions?

Now there’s a great message to reinforce with your daughter. Put that shirt on her, have everyone laugh and tell her how cute she is and then wonder whey she has a meltdown at the store next time you tell her “no.” Good Grief. Then there are the shirt messages that slam siblings. Some examples:

“My brother did it.”
“Sister For Sale - 5 cents”
“I’m much cuter than my brother.”

Again, how do crack down on a behavior - sibling fighting - if you’ve just publicly encouraged it? Next are the happy bunny shirts. I have to say, that some of them

are

pretty funny. Reagan wore the shirt pictured above for most of last year. However, that’s self-deprecating humor. Some of the others are less amusing.

“It’s all about me. Deal with it.”

Kids are born believing this. It’s our job to convince them otherwise. Not reinforce it. (Although perhaps my parents didn’t do such a good job here because I still often believe it is all about me.)

“It’s cute how stupid you are.”

On an adult it’s kind of amusing but on a kid, it’s just mean.

“I’m not spoiled. I deserve all my stuff.”

See example #1.

There’s also a whole genre of “I hate school messages” but I have mixed feelings on those. Right now I kind of hate school too. :)