Last night, while we were stuffing ourselves with what remains of the Halloween candy, one of the boys said he wanted to ask his music teacher how many M&Ms she could eat in one sitting. I said “absolutely not!”, thinking that his motivation for the question was that this teacher is tremendously overweight, and I was right. I explained that that it would be unkind to ask because it might make her feel bad about her size. His brother chimed in to ask if HE could ask his homeroom teacher how many M&Ms she thought SHE could eat.
Whereupon I completely dropped the ball on the teaching moment and said “Sure.” It was my gut reaction — his homeroom teacher is a slim and trim 30-something woman, and, if she can eat 100 M&M at one sitting, she’s probably proud of it…goes MY train of thought. For my size, I eat more than anyone expects me to, and it’s always been kind of a joke among my friends and family.
Evan’s reponse?”So, I can’t ask a fat lady how much she eats, but I can ask a skinny one?”
I stepped back, and said that it really isn’t polite to ask anyone how much they eat, but I’m not sure that it made an impression on them.
Your thoughts?
squirrel circus 
Maybe frame it more in a “You don’t ask a teacher that kind of question.” way? When I was a kid (when dinosaurs roamed the Earth according to my boyfriend), I would not have considered that the kind of question you asked a teacher. Maybe kids these days are more casual? Maybe everyone is? Random work people say the most *inappropriate* things! (“Why don’t you wear makeup?” , “When are you going to have kids?”, “When are you marrying your boyfriend?” SERIOUSLY?!?)
I don’t know, Squirrel, I’m stumped. That’s why I have cats, not kids.
You make a good point — although I hate to say “kids these days” — because it makes ME feel old, too – Ha Ha. Part of the issue, I think, is that my kids’ teachers willingly share SO much of their life with the kids–they tell the kids everything about their family, their favorite foods, their pregnancies, whether they’re taking a yoga class and why, etc. So much so, that they’ve eroded the “professional” teacher-student dialogue a bit.
In that vein, one of my 5th grade students asked me today why I “always” wear the same lipstick. Personal, yes, but I just laughed and said I’d try to mix it up more in the future! 🙂
I think I’d just tell my kids it’s kind of a personal question. And with my 9 year old, I’d explain why.
Exactly — I think I’m most regretting that my OWN viewpoint got in the way of treating everybody the same — with respect. Thanks for stopping by!
I always have told my kids that we don’t make comments about what people are eating, so I guess along that vein I would tell them not to ask questions about how much a person could eat either. Of course, I have a history with disordered eating (just extreme overeating, thus being fat), as do many in my family and my husband’s family, so I guess we are overly sensitive to possibly giving offense to somebody regarding their eating habits. Kids will say or ask the most uninhibited things, though, and I don’t think adults should take offense at it as it is generally done with innocent intent.
I know! I have my own baggage, and that definitely influenced my response. Ah well. Besides, my life would be so dull if the kids weren’t saying whatever was on their mind 🙂