It may come as a complete and utter surprise or an exclaimation that is unbelievable (especially to children!) but…I am going to put this out there that grown ups don’t know everything!
Yes, I see the frown on your face ( you stopped reading for a second and wondered whether you had a frown didn’t you?)
We like to pretend we know everything and we can’t have our children thinking that there are things we don’t know because, well, they just might use that snippet of knowledgelessness to gain an advantage over us parents. (I’ll ask Oxford to add it to their list of new words in their next edition) .
A friend of ours’ child, recently enlightened me with a story I hadn’t heard before. It was about an American Indian folklore of sorts where the story is about the 2 wolves inside you. One is a bad wolf (think of the usual suspects that come to mind like greed, jealousy etc) and the other a good wolf (kindness, love etc). It’s a great tale and the moral of the story is about feeding the good wolf rather than the bad one.
The other bit of enlightment that I also watched was the children at our school singing a beautiful song called ‘As One’ which is about listening to each other, getting on and basically learning from each other.
There have been a few others that have made me stop and think. These two examples are generally aimed at children and in so many ways should be aimed at their parents or the grown ups around them. I so often see children that are spoken at rather than with. My heart swells at times when I hear the message the children have to give. I just wish, grown ups would open their ears and listen to them!
When the boys were smaller, I used to tell them that ‘Mums know everything’ and they would nod and agree. As time went by, our youngest son started to test this theory out. Could I see what he was doing under the table or he would ask a question that I had no idea the answer was and then very proudly point out ‘ See! Mom’s don’t know everything!’
Now, I give the answer ‘I don’t know’ and the boys ask ‘Why don’t you know?’ My answer is because grown ups don’t know everything and that grown ups don’t always do the right thing either.
Clever clogs then piped up ‘Yes, because they are also learning to be grown ups just like we are learning to be children’.
I don’t need to say anymore now do I?
