The Best Kept Secret Blog - (Apparently) I Know Nothing

This evening I got a lecture on how to load the dishwasher.

No, the Maytag repairman was not here. My pre-teen daughter was the orator. Suddenly, she thinks she knows everything and, in the immortal words of Schultz from Hogan's Heroes, I know nothing.

It was bad enough when we lost our figures, our eyesight and our memories. Now it seems we are losing our minds.

Oh, I had heard about the "eye-rolling" stage from friends who were just a little higher up the parenting ladder. And to her credit, I haven't gotten much in the way of unadulterated disgust.

But we do seem to be in the "parent's are so simple" stage.

Sometimes I wonder if it's partly my fault. She learned how to work the stereo when she was five. (We had to show her. How many times can a grown woman start a Rafi CD without losing her mind?)

The next logical step was programming the VCR and when we got the PVR, I just relinquished all control to her.

So now, on the rare occasion I get to hold the clicker and have trouble finding the Mute button, she thinks I'm really stupid. (She just doesn't understand that I can't focus on things close up anymore. I simply can't see the Mute button - or any button for that matter.)

In some ways I wish she was more insolent - that way I could fight back.

But she's not being mean as much as tolerant. It's like her father and I are the poor innocents and she, in her benevolent way, will bestow her ultimate wisdom upon us.

You should have heard her laugh at me the other day when she posed the question, "Why do we have seasons?" It was a trick question. She knew the answer but everyone in her class had been told to ask their parents to see if they knew.

Well, I misunderstood the question. I took it in an existentialist/evolutionary kind of way and answered in kind. She just thought it was wildly funny that I didn't give the correct, scientific response. (If any parent from Ms. Gatt's class is reading this, it has to do with the earth's axis. Here's to solidarity sisters!)

By all counts, I reckon this stage will last until she's a parent - roughly 10 to 20 years from now. In the meantime, I fear that I will be so worn down by her constant belittling that I will become the doddering fool she sees me to be.

I think my only defence is to play along and let her think that she really does know more than I do. Next week I'm going to suddenly go blank on how to load the washing machine and work the vacuum cleaner. I'm hoping that in her benevolence, she will show me how. Every Monday and Friday.