The conversation of a middle-age man and his teenage son, with the father, STUMPED, by the inquiries, the answers his own teenage son gave him, translated…
Summer: Daddy, what are the three most frequently occurring things in life?
Me: Being awake?
Summer: No.
Me: Being asleep?
Summer: Nope.
Me: Then, WHAT is it?
Summer: it’s “choices”.
I: (silent for a few seconds) why?
Summer: because you just asked me, if I want to finish lunch first or do my English reading assignments first? I choose lunch with you.
I: oh, and what’s the second?
Summer: (lost in deep thought) I forgot!
I fell silent, and started feeling that annoyance rising up inside. Such important matters, and you, forgot?
Summer: but I remember what the third one was.
I: What is it then?
Summer: Failure.
(I fell into that state of shock, couldn’t speak then)
Summer: ahhhhh, I remember the second one now, it’s, “hardships”…………
It was on January third, of 2016, that Summer noted the three hardest things he’d encountered in his life, and they are, in order: choices, hardships, failures…………
For lunch that Sunday, we had it later. I’d made the pork satay stir-fried noodles, meat ball soup and cabbage. As I was cooking, Summer was working on his English assignment. I’d interrupted him, and asked, if he wanted lunch first then do the English assignments in a bit? He was overjoyed, because we’d made an agreement, that we will watch the “Assassins in the Classrooms” at lunch today.
As Summer clearly stated what he’d wanted, the most frequently occurring three things in his life, I flew into a panic, as I’d, gave him a bowl of the stir-fried noodle with satay pork.
And now, as I thought back, there would be a series of questions that surfaced: when do children come into abstract thinking modes? And how much older, would they come up with the abstract questions to ask, and hold a conversation on it with the adults? And, as adults, how do we, answer their, inquiries, and how do we, take advantage of these, hard-to-come by times when they have these, abstract questions to ask us?
I think, this series of questions, may occur at the various stages of maturation for every child, that keeps on looping around, and around, and around. From the understanding of the past education methods, on the abstract belief about conversation, it wasn’t, paid enough attention to. There were the elders in my life who’d communicated things to me at mealtime when I was growing up, to catch the abstractions of our thoughts. And even then, as the children tossed out that abstract question, most of the adults, were like me, flying into a panic, and shocked. And yet, mostly, the adults may, respond by: showing no reaction because they don’t know how to respond, and that attitude of “I can care-less about the matter”. I truly feel, that this is the adults, giving up on the precious times they are allowed, to connect, to communicate with their own, children.
I firmly believed, that playing Lego with my child, making a campfire together with him, and in a meal, discuss the matter of what “choices, hardships in life, and failures” are about, should be the necessities of our, lives. Because, for the lives under age ten, there wouldn’t be just, three………hardships of life. Oh yeah, on that day, as I’d, fallen silent to Summer’s questions staring at the pork, Summer immediately, told me, that there, was, a fourth item.
I was on edge, as I’d, asked him, what was it? He’d quickly answered, “it’s hesitation”. Then, I was hit by a mixture of, chaotic emotions—what would you, a little boy of not even ten yet, need to, feel, hesitant, about? Are you hesitant about if you want to eat the noodles I made first, or to drink your, meatball soup first?—back then, I’d, steadied my own voice, stated, no, there would be, a fifth then? Summer told me lightly, I hadn’t, thought about the fifth yet. Then, he took a bite out of the noodle I’d made, with that expression of surprise, gave me a high review. And to this very day, I still remembered, how my internal dialogue, asserted, and affirmed, that the FOUR most difficult things a child come across in life, is, way, way, way harder to handle than my own four hardest things that I may come across in life.
And so, this, is a WISE kid that’s, surprised, his own, father, with his, wise “cracks”, and that still just showed, how much there is to be learned, from your own young, that we adults, just think that we know it all, when the fact of the matter is that children know, a WHOLE lot more than, we do about life, and everything else we come into contact with on a daily, basis!