Use Your Child to Get Out of the Conversation
Children – especially young ones – are usually uncomfortable in most situations. I don’t blame them for this, I’m just saying that a person does not understand how easy it is to do something as simple as, for example, to go out the front door until he has small children whom they can carry. It is harder and slower and fuller of things when children are involved.
However, they can be useful too. Last year, during the Week of Evil , I suggested several ways to use kids as an excuse to get rid of things you don’t want to do. This year, let’s talk about how our kids can help us get out of boring, annoying, stressful, or otherwise unwanted (read: political) conversations. If you have young children, when you feel stuck, they can save you with this idea, courtesy of Jennifer of the Offspring Facebook group :
Every time I want to end a conversation, I stand in front of my child, then turn around and pretend to listen carefully, and then quickly ask where the bathroom is. Then hurry up.
Maybe you won’t get into too many situations at the moment where you get stuck for too long talking to random people and / or you have any desire to find yourself in a situation in which you will need to use a public toilet. This is fine! Those days (I think) will return someday. Until then, you can use your kids to avoid all those phone calls and video chats you have.
You just say a short “Oh wait a second” and pause for dramatic effect by tilting your ear to one side if your camera is on. Then quickly say, “Oh, I hear Jimmy cry, I need to run!” Later write a message that says it’s okay, Jimmy fell but he was really more scared than injured, and then you got dragged into other things, but hey, it was great to catch up!
In fact, there is nothing wrong with this, because it is a well-known fact that children most love to be helpful.