Listen Like a Child

This past weekend, I went to Washington DC, home to clean public transportation, Greco-Roman-inspired monuments, and some guy named Barack. I love the place like The Count of Monte Cristo loved Haydee, should anything happen to my dear Mercedes (a.k.a. NYC). I did a fair amount of education-related stuff there, first visiting the Jefferson Memorial, and then the FDR Memorial. Enthralled by it all, it got me to thinking a little more about how children learn and the difference between different types of parents.

For instance, as I washed my hands in the lavatory, a father took his daughter to the bathroom:

She said, “Daddy, is that where boys go pee-pee?”
Daddy:  “Yes, honey.”
Daughter: “It looks like a waterfall.”
Daddy: “Yes.”
Daughter: “Like a pee-pee waterfall.”
Daddy: “That’s yucky.”
Daughter: “Look, it’s a pee-pee waterfall!”

As I giggled at her premature jokes, I also noticed that, in proof, that was a rather astute observation. How often do we take that which is presented to us and make it mundane? Isn’t it also interesting how we take things that we find in nature and replicate them into something compact and portable? Isn’t it also interesting that the people most keen on looking at these seemingly ordinary things happen to be the people least exposed to everything i.e. children?

Lesson learned: listen and encourage more than filtering and discouraging. Even if it is about a pee pee waterfall.

Jose, who loves breaks like this …