My 9 year old son and I were sitting on the couch, last night. I was explaining that he needs to do his homework, and that there's no good reason for him to keep geting all these "late assignment" notes he brings home, and he said "Wait,what are you talking about?"

I told him he needs to monitor his own homework assignments, and that although his dad and I were checking the assignment sheet he brings home, he really needs to be responsible for following through on it. We shouldn't have to double check his progress.

He answered, confidently, and not exactly in his own voice, "WE decided? MY best interests? How do you know what MY best interest is?"

I explained that I'm older and more experienced than he is. I've been alive for 44 years and he's only been alive for 9.

"What are you trying to say? I'M crazy?" He spoke loudly, but he was smiling.

"No!" I was panicing, where did this calm, cool rage come from? And the unusual vocabulary words?

"When I went to YOUR schools, I went to YOUR churches, I went to YOUR "stitchel" learning facilities?"

My heart went from breaking, that my son's own experience was so genuinely negative, to asking him outright where he'd learned the lyrics to the Suicidal Tendancies' song "Institutionalized". And it's "institutional learning facilities", not "stitchel!"

Thank you, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. I'm so (not) glad we got a Nintendo Wii.