Dear Steve and Shirley,
I'm 37 and married. My husband and I have an eight-year-old son and a five-year-old daughter. Our children are with me 24/7, and it makes my husband jealous. The kids have my bubbly personality, and we do TikToks and other fun videos together, which my husband hates. My son wants to be an entertainer, so he took an acting class over the summer, and he's been acting out ever since. He’s become the class clown, and my husband had to sign a note from the school because our son was being a jokester in class. He's also been showing out at home; for example, he insulted his aunt after she got a bad haircut, and my husband had to pop him on his backside to make him stop laughing about it.
Lately, my son has been joking about places I take him and his sister and about things I buy for them. When his dad asked where he’d been, he told him we went grocery shopping and then visited "Mom’s boyfriend." Another time, my husband asked him about a new pair of shoes, and my son said, “Mom’s boyfriend helped me pick them out.” The same thing happened with a new jersey I ordered for him after my husband said he didn’t need it—my son told his dad that “Mom’s boyfriend got it for me since you wouldn’t buy it.” My husband doesn’t get mad at our son; he keeps getting mad at me, like I would really take our children around another man. He’s even asked our five-year-old daughter if she’s ever met a man when she’s with Mommy. Of course, she said yes!
My husband knows our son is out of control and needs discipline, but he's more focused on what I’m supposedly doing.
Why would my son joke like that?