you are special

I took Ryan to get lab work done Tuesday.  Hopefully for the last time.  He goes to see Dr. J next week and as long as his numbers are still down, he will be stopping treatment.  We went to eat afterwards, because that's what we do.  Ryan doesn't really like his first period teacher,  so when he says "guess what Mr. H said/did today" I'm never sure what is coming... it could be funny, it could be something off the wall, it could be mean.  Today it was a little of all three.  Mr. H referenced a list of rules attributed to Mr. Bill Gates, (he in fact did not come up with the rules or ever speak them, but that's beside the point).  After reading them to the class Mr. H said, your parents may tell you,  you are special, but to the rest of the world you aren't special.  So then we had this rather lopsided conversation....
 me: well I understand the point he was trying to make, there are kids growing up being told over and over and over how perfect and wonderful and number one they are.  Without having to do anything to prove it.  Everybody cannot be the best at everything.  so when you have parents constantly telling kids they are the best, even when they aren't and lets face it, obviously sometimes they aren't, kids just believe it, and then think since they are all great and wonderful they deserve to have great and wonderful things, even without having to work for it.  so yep, maybe that's where he was going with that.
him: um, okay
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me: besides we don't need to be special to the whole world, we just need to be special to the people who are important to us.  Like our families and friends. 
him: true

and then later after I took him back to school, I texted him to tell him that Bill Gates never said any of that.  Not that I want him to think his teacher isn't special, just that sometimes fact checking makes you look smart.