Hurt Feelings

Warning: May contain traces of self-pity

I'm hurting right now. Actually I'm trying not to think about how much I should/could be hurting so here I am blogging as a way to let off steam.

My son has hurt my feelings. He's seven. Do kids usually start doing that so young? I mean, here's me thinking we have a special bond; like I get him and all that. Here's me thinking he thinks his mum is the bees knees. I am innocently standing at the kitchen sink tidying up the dishes and he meanders past the door and BOUFF! hits me with a low blow.

"Mum is just way too FAT!" he says, laughing.
I am stunned.
"It's only cause you don't do any exercise!" he calls over his shoulder, as he walks away like it were nothing.
I stagger into the hallway and meet Mr G coming the other way. He gives me an affectionate squeeze and then sees the look on my face as I push past him and head for my bed.
"What's up??" he enquires. He's learnt.
I tell him what the Little Meanie said and lay down nursing my wound.

Mr G is outraged. He marches the Unmannered Brute into my room and lectures him on all the reasons why he should never speak like that to his mother...
"She carried you! She fed you! She changed your pooey bum! She got up in the night to you and this is how you speak to her???"
He demands a written apology from the culprit who slinks off to his room to write one.

I wallow. Mr G says, don't let it get to you, he's just a seven year old kid.
"But maybe he's right? I didn't realise I looked that bad?!" I moan.
Mr G is in a hurry to get to an evening appointment. He's trying to be understanding, supportive, but he's a bloke, and his best answer is, "Well then take the positive from it; do some walking and you can start at the gym when school goes back..."
Yeah, great.

Then Mr Meanie Pants sidles in clutching a handful of papers. There are several versions of his letter. It's meant to make me feel better...??!!

Here's a sample:
"Dear mum I love you a littl bit"
"Dear Mum I hat your steancking gates hahahaha..." (meant to be "stinking guts", a quote from Little Rascals)

Mr G snatches the papers from the unrepentant miscreant and orders him into his room. Do not come out until morning, is his command. Then Mr G exits Stage Right for work.
I continue to wallow.

A door creaks. It's The Unrepentant One, trying to sneak out. I firmly re-close his door and remind him of his orders. He slips yet another note beneath it: "Sorry for cooling you fat..." it reads, among other things.

Why does this hurt so bad? I know he's just a runty self-centred freckle-faced toe-rag of a boy who has made a series of throw-away comments to wind me up. So why does it feel like I am a failure as a mother all of a sudden?
Because my kid said he "hats" me? Because he called me fat?
Partly.
Mostly it's because it breaks my heart that my kid could be so mean. I hate meanness. I loathe it in my kids. It shames me, makes me want to crawl under a rock and hide; hang up a sign which reads: "I Am Only Distantly Related to that Meanie!"
Have I let my kid become selfish and casually cruel?

Am I reading too much into this? Am I alone out here on this "Failed Mother Island"?? Has anyone else ever been here? I could really do with some reassurance and kind wise words. I'm feeling pretty low right now. The Tide of Good Mothering seems Way Way Out tonight.
:(