How's that again?

My wife and I were working the CTS at a swim meet recently, and had an interesting conversation with one of the other parents about our son. She is the mother of one of the female swimmers on our children's team. She was going on and on about how polite our boy was:

I saw your son at practice the other day. I asked him were his parents were because I needed to talk to one of you. He said that neither of you were here, and that he drove himself and his sister to practice.

Now at this point, she paused and commented how surprised she was that we trusted him to not only drive himself to practice, but to drive his sister too - Since he had just received his license.

We explained that we had good reason to be comfortable with him driving his sister because he's been driving at least one of us around for more than nine months, and we were very comfortable with his skill at this point. (See The Absence of Unease)

She must have been satisfied with our explanation, as she continued:

Well, anyway he was so polite about getting his license. I've seen so many new drivers waving their new licenses under their younger friend's noses, and bragging about being able to go where they want to by themselves, but not your son. He really didn't treat it like it was a big deal.

Oh, and he's so good looking too! I keep telling my daughter that she should get to know him, cause he's so nice and so handsome!

Well, I had to make a conscious effort not to burst out laughing in this poor woman's face! I was certain she was talking about someone else's kid at this point. But I soon realized that there probably was some truth in what she said. Hadn't we spent 16 whole years of our lives trying to teach him to be polite, to not brag, to be humble? So why wouldn't I believe that time had been well spent?

Why? Well, I'll tell you. He lives with us. . .