When My 13-Year-Old Daughter Fact-Checked Me: A Lesson in New Age Parenting

When I was a kid, talking back to your parents was like writing a diss track about Kendrick Lamar, you could try it, but it might end your career and your life .

But parenting these days is different .

Last week, I’m driving my daughter to swim practice.

She’s talking and says “peripheral” wrong.

So I casually say, “It’s puh-RIFF-er-uhl.”

Easy enough, right?

A minute later, she’s typing away on her phone, then out of nowhere, I hear Google say, “Peripheral.”

She looks at me, like she just dropped a mic, and says, “Daddy, I was fact-checking you.”

Fact-checking?

Her little ass on the 8th grade debate team, now she fact checking me?

My grandma would’ve smacked all the taste out of my mouth.

Twice.

Our parent’s word was gospel.

But I respect it.

If she got the nerve to fact check Daddy at thirteen imagine what’ll be possible when she’s thirty.

But I need her to keep the same energy when it’s time to fact check the damn dishes.