this is a sign

Check it out.
Good and evil have united to help me write my novel!

dude! out of the mouths...

My children use the word dude to address adults. I'm not sure how it happened, but it has.

A few weeks ago we were hiking in the woods of NC when we came across a woman walking her dog. My 4-year-old must have been impressed. A few minutes later we came across a man and a woman, sans dog. My son says, "Lady and dude, where's your dog?"

My 5-year-old is no better. Tonight as we're walking on the sidewalk of a strip mall, a motorcycle pulls up and parks right in front of us. The boys are ecstatic! They say things like, "Whoa! I've never seen a motorcycle park before!"

The driver, you can tell, is grinning at having an audience. The grin didn't last long. The biker dismounts, and we continue on our way. But just on the other side of a van we see another motorcycle--a little more chrome, a little more oomph. My 5-year-old turns back to the biker and yells, "Hey dude! This bike's bigger than yours!"

No amount of arm pulling and teeth gritting can stop that from happening. Whatever happened to children being seen and not heard? I'm fairly certain that maxim was invented for people like my kids. And yet... I kind of don't care.

So, they call adults dudes... In the grand scheme of things it could be much worse. My kids are happy and healthy and we have a good time when we're out together. This is one of those things that prompts my mother to observe, "If your grandmother was here, she'd have a stroke!"

It's not just the dude thing, it's a lot of things. I'm raising my kids a lot differently than I was raised. I would never on my life have called an adult dude. I would probably have been punished. Maybe that's why I don't do it to my kids? Maybe I don't want to overreact and so I'm under-reacting? I say to them, Instead of dude to get someone's attention, you might say excuse me.

But they know, and I know, that excuse me doesn't pack the same wallop as Dude!

dear visitor from edinburgh

Hi! I'm writing a story set partly in Scotland, so it would be great if you would follow me either here or at twitter.

Thanks!