The Day My Son Called My Intelligence “Mid”
My son called my intelligence mid.
Not playful, not ironic — just blunt honesty from a 19-year-old who believes he sees things clearly. And in that moment, it stung more than I expected.
It didn’t happen right away. We had started with a political conversation — sharp but engaged. But as I pressed harder, my arguments got sharper too. What I didn’t notice was his bandwidth narrowing — that mental and emotional capacity we all have to stay open and choose freely. Frustrated, he finally walked out.
After a pause, I chose to reset. That’s when it came. In the second exchange — when things were already fragile — he looked at me and said it straight: “Mid.”
My bandwidth collapsed. I felt defensive, smaller than I wanted to admit — especially at the comical absurdity of the word itself. A silly, throwaway label somehow dropped me to silence.
In the past, that collapse would have gone unnoticed until it was too late. Guilt for pushing too hard, shame from his comment — the mix would have pulled me into defensiveness and anger. That’s the loop I continue to struggle with, but here the scaffolding held.
I caught it early — the first step of scaffolding, and the slipperiest. Just noticing the collapse gave me a sliver of choice. From there, the rest of the scaffolding was simple: create distance, disengage, and give myself space to reflect. That separation mattered. It let me sit with the feelings — guilt and shame — without letting them drive my thoughts. I could recognize them as signals, not truths.
And with that space, the deeper pattern emerged: “mid” touched more than intelligence. It hit the old scars of a lifetime— doubts about whether I was capable, whether I’d failed as a father, whether I measured up. Seeing that clearly gave me the awareness to address it instead of letting it control me.
So I went back. Not to argue — to repair. I told him: “When you called my intelligence mid, it hit a real insecurity. That’s why I shut down.”
Awkward. Raw. But real. And it opened space between us. A moment of honesty, vulnerability, and repair — one of the most grounding I’ve had as a parent.
A word like “mid” shouldn’t carry so much weight. But it did. Because behind it weren’t just my son’s eyes — they were all the old doubts I’ve carried about myself. The gift was that this time, I didn’t let my emotions answer for me. I let truth speak, and repair followed.