Whenever I tell my father a cute or amusing story that exemplifies the glorious weirdness of my kids, he always replies with, “Well, you made them like that.” As if that’s an appropriate response. His tone is never complimentary and it implies that there’s something wrong with them. I become protective and also feel frustrated because he should know — as a parent to me — that we don’t often have control of how our children turn out. After 15 years, I’m used to this shtick, still annoyed but recently it’s given me pause: Is what he says true?

Did we — not I, because they have a father too — ‘make them like this?’ Can a parent fashion their children like a potter molds a ball of clay into something useful or pretty? Surely they were just born this way, right?
Maybe. Or maybe not.

The Offending Incident

On the very first day of public school, the first day of distance learning due to COVID, The Storyteller, almost 13-years old, was sent to the principal’s office. During COVID-schooling that means the parent gets a phone call from the Authority Figure. The Offending Incident, that landed The Storyteller there, was a culmination of the following: the interplay of nature and nurture; homeschooling; and horror movies.

Driving to our local ice cream parlor, a celebration of a First-Day-of-School-Ever, Job Well Done, I pop a confetti gun full of questions aimed at The Storyteller.

“Which classes do you like?”

“Science.”

“Oh, yeah. Why?”

“The teacher seems fun.”

“In what way?”

I continue with a calculated series of questions that drill down to the heart of the matter which reveal that the Science teacher was actually friendly and engaging, even enthusiastic. These are important characteristics for any teacher, but made critical for success in a time of online schooling.
The Storyteller then offers up something more before I can ask another question.

“But I don’t think my math teacher likes me.”

The fire of my maternal protectiveness whooshes to life and a million thoughts pass through my mind in a tenth of a second, the most assumptive one being how horrible this teacher must be to give my precious child this impression on the first day!

So I ask — for evidence — as the fire grows bigger, “Why do you think that?”

“He didn’t like what I said in class.”

Knowing my kid as I do, I feel a small cup of water pour over my fire, making it sizzle and smoke, but it burns on. The Sensei and The Musician are on alert now, previously only vaguely listening in, probably hoping my confetti gun doesn’t get pointed in their direction. I’m sure the three of us simultaneously sigh inward; in a way, we know what’s coming.

“Why? What did you say?” I’m sure my voice sounded accusatory.
I hold my breath while the fire takes another dousing.

“He asked us to share one thing that was interesting about ourselves. I said that I am an aspiring serial killer.”

The Sensei, The Musician, and I all let out various, but true-to-ourselves utterances. The Musician begins his lecture proceedings: “Don’t you know about first impressions? You’re going to have to work with this person for the rest of the year.”

After relaying several reasons why you can’t say these things in school, the lecture ends. We eat ice cream, the coolness of it sliding down my throat, dousing the maternal fire within, sending it back to its dormant state.

On the way home, my phone rings. The Storyteller’s new school is calling! The voice on the line seems polite, friendly. As soon as the caller identifies himself as the Authority Figure, I know what this is about. Thankful that I was aware of the Offending Incident ahead of time, I pat myself on the back for being such a good mom, one who asks questions.

I feel relieved when the Authority Figure asks to speak to my kid. Maybe a lecture from an adult who isn’t his parent might mean more to the rule-following Storyteller? I hand the phone back. Only hearing one side of the conversation, it seems like he’s taking the situation seriously.

Then I hear his short, amused laugh, quickly followed by, “I’m not really going to grow up to be a serial killer.”

A short beat of silence.

Then, “Well, I probably won’t.”

A burst of incredulous laughter escapes my mouth. To save face, I’ll say that I’m sure The Sensei and The Musician do the same. My hand clasps over my mouth to hide the inappropriate, but truthful laughter and I realize the Offending Incident is probably my fault.

Which is where those three seemingly independent events that led us here — nature versus nurture, homeschooling, and horror movies — come into play.

Nature v. Nurture

Remember that old debate from your Psych 101 class? Well, it’s pretty much been solved. Spoiler alert: it’s both. Unfortunately, since I both nurtured him and gave him his genes, it doesn’t matter which of these led to the Offending Incident. The Storyteller and I share a lot of traits that might be genetic: attention to detail, an assured nature, an ability to make people laugh.

But I don’t think an interest in the macabre is genetic.

Because that’s ultimately how this is my fault: I am the one who was obsessed with serial killers and true crime as a kid and young adult. I’m the one who likes scary movies and introduced The Storyteller to the genre.
And, I am the one with the “forensics background,” which is, embarrassingly, what I told the Authority Figure by way of defending my kid: “I have a background in forensics and we don’t shy away from that in our house.”

Seriously. I’m probably on their parental watch list now.

When I was a teen and young adult, I wanted to grow up to be either a forensic scientist, a medical examiner, or an FBI profiler. On a winter break from college I shadowed a medical examiner. On summer break, I interned with a semi-famous forensic scientist, the result of that being a paper titled, “Serial Murder: A Review and Application.” (Stop worrying! I just applied the research to the internship.) I taught a homeschooling class on forensic science and on our bookshelf sits The book on blood stain science. And my kid knows all of this.

Before you run to my defense and remind me that half of his genes and half of his nurturing come from The Sensei, let me tell you that while The Sensei is plenty weird, he is: a) far more normal than me, b) not a fan of the macabre, and c) a very good nurturer. In fact, I’m certain it’s this balance in our family that’s the reason why I confidently told the Authority Figure that, no, I did think our kid needed counseling.

Homeschooling

On some level, when you homeschool, you follow your child’s interests. It might be that you unschool — following the child’s lead on everything — or maybe you only let them lead on certain topics, like when The Storyteller enjoyed watching Unbroken, so I let him do an entire history unit on World War II when we should have been in the Middle Ages. Or it can look like a method to get a kid interested in a subject that he professes to hate.

It might be a shock, given the nickname I’ve given him, that The Storyteller didn’t like to write. And homeschooling a kid who doesn’t like to write, requires you to find The Thing they are interested in and let them run with it, even if it’s a story called “The Torturous.” Writing about a protagonist whose purpose was to find new and interesting ways to torture people sparked something in The Storyteller; words were finally appearing on the page and he was having fun.

Was I surprised at all of the horribly bloody ways his main character tortured people? Was I shocked that my 10-year old came up with all of these methods? Yes. And no. Regardless, I knew that I could shove aside any shock I felt to benefit his learning.

Shortly after the Offending Incident, he told me that he turned in a writing project for English class. I asked him what he wrote about — admittedly a bit wary that I’d need to send more email apologies.

“It wasn’t what I wanted to write,” he said, his tone regretful and sad.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well . . .” He looked at me with a sly smile, “No one gets stabbed.”

Later when I read the assignment he had turned in, I could see some of The Storyteller in it because it was still a bit dark, but definitely toned down. I guess he did learn some lesson from the Offending Incident, even if it was only to hide your true self away.

He’ll be fine. We all have to learn in what context, which setting, and in front of whom it’s safe to be our true, gloriously weird selves.

Homeschooling also means that your child is being taught by his own parents or the parents of his friends — people who know him and all of his quirks. When the people who teach you ascribe to the philosophy stated above, or know you really well, they tend to deal with your shock value statements differently. They just ignore it — because they know you’re not actually going to kill people.

Horror Movies

This is my fault too. If not for introducing them, or using them to help him learn — he did a writing project on this, too — then for allowing me to be worn down by The Storyteller’s keen ability to eventually Get What He Wants. While the parenting decision-making is not solely my own, and The Sensei has some responsibility for letting our little weirdos watch violent action movies when they were young, I am certainly to blame for allowing the stabby kind, the kind where the violence has less action.
This whole issue started with Stephen King’s It. The Storyteller begged us to let him watch the movie. We said, “When you’re 14.”

He begged some more, he brought it up in the middle of dinner, he asked repeatedly, “Why do I have to be 14?”

“Fine. When you’re 13,” we said. And that was the top of the slippery slope that led to him wearing us down, finally agreeing to let him watch it at age 11. Now his life is filled with It licensed merchandise: shirts, posters, even the Clue board game, It version. He isn’t scared of a creepy, killer clown and loves jump-scares. And, he would gladly trick you into watching it if he thought you minded those things. Two years later, It and It 2 still featured prominently in The Storyteller’s interests, but he’d grown bored. This fall, just before he started public school, he began to wear us down again with a new horror show request.

After dinner on the evening of the Offending Incident, a question kept popping into my head: “Why does my child think he is an aspiring serial killer?” It took me too long to make the connections, but finally, I figured it out. Dexter.
At some point at the end of the summer, The Storyteller approached me. Just me, because he knows which parent to go to in order to get what he wants.

“Can I watch Dexter?”

I laughed and then paused for a moment reflecting on how much I had liked the show. Then several violent and bloody scenes came to me and I felt my stomach drop. I knew I had to draw a line somewhere. A good parent would not let their almost-13-year old watch a show that glorified a serial killer.

“No.” My head shook and my mouth turned down — a frown to imply, you should know better than to ask.

“I knew you’d say it wasn’t appropriate.” He moved on and didn’t whine or beg. I was relieved but I knew it wouldn’t last.

Later that day, in the middle of some conversation, he said, “Well, if you just let me watch Dexter . . .” The context of the conversation didn’t matter. It’s unsettling how skilled The Storyteller is at turning any conversation into a push to Get What He Wants. His nickname could also be The Lawyer. He continued on with his argument as to why we should let him watch the show and so began the relentless assault that quickly wore me down.
Back to the night after the Offending Incident, I stood at the threshold of The Storyteller’s bedroom and engaged in a conversation about anti-heroes. He understood that Dexter was not to be idolized. I asked The Storyteller if he thought he should stop watching the show. Of course he said no.

Anyone who knows my kid finds this story to be spot-on and amusing. They know him and they know deep down that he is a kind person, someone who would not actually act on the creative ways he’s thought of to kill someone. I hope the teacher and the Authority Figure smiled when they told their spouses about it that night. Could this really be the worst thing they’ve seen teaching middle school? But in case they didn’t, I sent an email thanking them for their extra work during these COVID-schooling days and apologizing for adding to their workload.

Maybe my dad is right after all (Shh! Don’t tell him I said that.) Even if it was without intention, did I make The Storyteller the way he is? Maybe. What I know for sure, is that if I am at fault, if I did something to make him the way he is, then I’m okay with that. Because I like who he is. And I can’t wait to see who he becomes. I’m sure it won’t actually be a serial killer.

Probably.