"He's reading at a fourth-grade level even though he's only in third," a dad tells me. We're at an indoor soccer class where Crabkid is meant to be dribbling and trapping the ball along with her fellow four-year-olds but she's lying on the floor instead. She's bored. Me too. Because I'm trapped with Bragdaddy.
A bit of background: I know this dad slightly, but not well. He's talking about his older kid. We are engaged in what is idle chitchat. He's probably not meaning to brag, but I'm sorry! He's reading at a fourth-grade level. That line just drives me bonkers!
Related: Mommas need to know how to accept compliments without being smug.
That line drives me bonkers because I've heard it before, and I'm sure I'm not alone in finding it smug and annoying. Why is it that acquaintances and strangers seem to think others will find the reading level of their child to be fascinating news? I realize said child's intellectual performance is staggering to his dad but it really isn't to me because I'm not his parent.
Yep, if there's one thing guaranteed to bug the Crabmommy it's a braggy dad or mom. As mom to an intellectual and athletic genius myself I can certainly sympathize with the desire to shout one's offspring's achievements to the rooftops. But hard as it is, I hold my tongue. Because I know that what is marvelous to me, isn't meaningful to someone else. Really, it's all relative, in the most literal sense of the word. Or okay, boast to your closest friends if you want them to know that six-year-old Copernicus can read the word "thought" and spell his own name, but don't tell that stranger on the airplane in the seat next to you. She doesn't want to know.
Anyone else gag at a brag lately? Or are you a bragger and righteously unashamed?
Related: Braggy moms and photo-sharing etiquette.
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