The other day, I had what I thought would be a normal conversation with my 11-year-old son, we’ll call him Liam. Spoiler alert: it was not.
He came into the kitchen, plopped down on a chair, and said,
“Mom, lowkey, today was mad rizzless. Like, I tried to pull some W energy at lunch, but my drip wasn’t bussin’, so it was kinda an L.”
I blinked. Twice.
“…Are you speaking English, or did I accidentally sit on the remote and turn on subtitles for another dimension?”
He rolled his eyes. “Mom. I’m just saying school was mid.”
“Mid? As in middle? Like you were average height today?”
He sighed the sigh of a boy burdened by an out-of-touch parent. “Nooo, Mom. It means it was mid. Not bad, not good. Just mid.”
“Ah. Like my cooking when I forget the salt.”
He grinned. “Exactly. You’re catching on, kinda.”
Encouraged, I asked, “So what’s a ‘rizz’? You said you had none.”
He snorted. “Rizz is like… charisma. Game. Y’know, when you’re smooth.”
“Ohhh, like your father trying to flirt by quoting dad jokes at dinner?”
“Ew. No. That’s anti-rizz. Negative rizz.”
At this point, I felt both insulted and deeply curious.
“So if I said I had… major mom rizz because I got you to clean your room yesterday, would that be correct?”
He almost choked on his juice. “Mom, please. You’re giving NPC energy right now.”
“I’m giving what now? Is that a vitamin deficiency?”
He laughed so hard he fell off the chair. “No, Mom! NPC—like, you’re acting like a background character. No main character vibes.”
I sipped my coffee with dramatic flair. “Sweetheart, I’ve been the main character since 1986. You’re just a side quest.”
He stopped laughing. “Okay, that was actually kinda savage.”
“Thank you,” I said proudly. “Or as you would say… that was a W?”
He nodded solemnly. “Yeah, Mom. Big W.”
And just like that, for one shining moment, the generational gap closed.
Until he added, “But don’t ever say that in public again.”
Moral of the story:
If you’re a parent of a Gen Alpha kid, consider investing in a translator—or at least a TikTok dictionary. Because when your child says something is bussin’, they might not be talking about public transportation.
Hope you have a puntastic day!
The Laugh Loft