My son is a trolling ratfink

Recently, Ollie has begun developing a more advanced sense of humour. Admittedly it is still rudimentary, however he’s branching out and is attempting to add sophisticated flourishes to his repertoire.

One of these ‘flourishes’ can be seen in the fact that he has started doing extremely unflattering impressions of people at his nursery. This level of being a horrid little troll should not have developed yet – he’s only just three! I’m not sure if he knows they are unflattering or genuinely believes that he’s just pretending to be other people.

Honestly, one of his impressions is on the level you’d expect in a particularly un-pc 90’s teen comedy. One where the popular jocks/mean girls are doing an impression of the poor unfortunates at a generic high school. I think what makes it all worse, is that I’m pretty sure he’s done some of them to the people at nursery as part of a game. On reflection, I don’t know if this makes things better or not? He doesn’t really have subtlety in his locker as it were – so he could legitimately be attempting some toddler level slapstick.

He doesn’t have any teachers yet to blame his behaviour on – so I think it’s almost certainly got to be exposure to the seedy underbelly of children’s entertainment known as ‘Hey Dugee’. Those squirrels have always been a bit too perfect in my opinion. Maybe there’s a ‘Being a mildly objectionable troll badge’ episode knocking about. It would explain why Olliebob is mocking at a 15/16 year old level. Alternatively, it could be those untrustworthy ‘Tombliboos’, from the equally insidious ‘In the Night Garden’. Who knows what their monotonous matter is doing to his young mind! Not a chance it’s down to parental influence.

Potentially, the worst part of the whole thing is that I find them hillarious, as any self respecting and mature father would. My reaction also serves to create the added bonus that through laughing at his apings, I am totally giving him the impression that it’s not just okay to do them but is encouraged. After all, he’s making Daddy happy! I know I’m just helping cement being a bit of a ratfink into my son’s nature, but I can’t help it!

Suffice to say, Rosie is not amused with either of us at the moment. It’s fair enough – we’re both being mildly reprehensible and one of us knows better.