The Day I Told My Son “I’m Going to Sell You on Ebay”

Some people have a natural filter that stops them from saying things that can come back to haunt them. I do not.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about inappropriate things or anything. I’m usually quite good at not saying bad things in front of kids. I’m talking about saying things that are amusing to adults, but not fully understood by the youngsters in the mix.

The incident I’m talking about now happened when my son was about 3 years old while we were enjoying our typical family dinner. We do try, as much as humanly possible, to have dinner together everyday as part of our time spent together.

Anyway, I don’t remember what J (my son) did. Probably took the last piece of chicken or something just as innocuous. And we were joking around like we normally do during this time, so I told him that because he did that “I’m going to sell you on ebay”.

We all had a bit of a laugh at that and carried on as normal.

What neither my wife or I realised at the time, is that even though he’d laughed as if he got the joke (think of humorous comment about not assuming), the wheels were turning (and probably rotating and grinding). And a few days later he came to his mummy (I spell it like that cause I use English English and not American English :-P) to ask if I was really going
to sell him on ebay.

Queue mother and son discussion about it being a joke and that we would never sell him, and a follow up discussion where the wife tells me what J said and to be more careful with what I say in the future, and everything seemed back to normal.

I’ll point out here that I did sit down with him and explain that it was a joke and that I would never do anything like that.

I’d like to finish this post by saying that I learnt my lesson and have never said anything like this ever again. I’d LIKE TO, but alas I haven’t and still occasionally say the wrong thing.

I can however mention a follow up that happened a few weeks later, once again sitting down for dinner, when J looked at me earnestly and with the greatest seriousness said “Daddy, I”m going to sell you on ebay”.