#this is all veering so deep into headcanon territory i have no canon basis for a single bit of this

[irlwakko]

OMGGG YEAH I LOVE WHEN KIDS JUST INEXPLICABLY GET ATTACHED TO MAL MORE

i think mal is actually good with kids and is less of a jerk with them solely because of how angry he is about the way he himself was treated as a child

what mal and mike dont want you to know is that the former is in fact BETTER at handling kids without even trying

omg yeah this is my exact headcanon too I feel so understood…….. anon you get me

Mal’s not good with kids in the traditional/stereotypical “good with kids” sense, and I think he’d be reluctant to accept the description “good with kids” (partly because he doesn’t think he is, partly for his Image) but kids like him because he kind of just. never comes off like he’s being patronizing or talking down to them. besides trying not to swear quite as much, he doesn’t really filter himself. so of course also all the kids think he’s SO COOL

and he’s definitely not as much of a jerk to kids but he’s also not like…….. NICE nice. idk. like if both of them came across a kid who didn’t want to brush their teeth or something, Mike would explain the importance of it and set up a sticker chart or something whereas Mal would be like “huh. okay. did you know that if you keep doing that ALL YOUR TEETH ARE GONNA FALL OUT ALL AT ONCE >:) so that’ll be a shame. but do whatever you want it’s your life. and your teeth :)”

but also if a kid hands him a toy phone he’s gonna answer it and have a very spirited nonsense argument with the person on the other side, to the kid’s delight

among the kids Mike works with, Mal’s particularly popular with Really Weird Little Girls and preteens/teens going through their “nobody understands me” phase (which. To get meta for a second I feel like those were the two types of kids who made up his fan base in 2013 fhdksbfkf. i was a Really Weird Little Girl)