Secrets
If you have small children in your household then you don’t need to be told that you have no secrets within the family. The imaginations of most 4-year-old kids are running in high gear. They are often unable to determine the difference between fantasy and reality.
Anything that could cause you or a family member embarrassment can become the topic of general conversation in the public with neighbors, friends, shoppers at the store, once a 4-year-old picks it up for broadcasting.
In our household, we have our share of such incidents. One involves our oldest daughter, who at the age of 3 apparently wanted a new pair of red shoes.
She announced, much to the surprise of her mother, that, “Daddy’s girlfriend is going to buy me a new pair of red shoes.”
A friendly, but thorough, interrogation of the child by mother then followed. When I arrived home from work, the interrogation shifted over to me. I, of course, then attempted to find out why the tyke was making such a statement. No one had ever mentioned red shoes. There had been no discussion about a girlfriend.
Yet, the kid stuck to her story. I remember it well, even now 30 years later, seeing her fold her arms in front of her, in that look of defiance, and that bottom lip curl over into a cute pout as she clenched her teeth, to proclaim that my girlfriend had promised her a pair of red shoes.
Today, she doesn’t recall saying anything like that. But she did. And now she has a 4-year-old of her own. As all grandparents know, it’s payback time. All of those childhood tortures we endured are methodically being revisited upon their parents.
While we take no (well, maybe a small amount) satisfaction in watching a temper tantrum being inflicted upon our adult children as parents, when the parents complain to us about their children we usually just casually mention that we have seen this type of behavior before.
The adults, of course, express disbelief when we tell them their children are only doing to them what they did to us. “I was never that bad,” is the usual response. Right. You were an angel.
You never made up stories about daddy’s girlfriend, red shoes, imaginary friends who ate candy bars and neatly disposed of the wrappers.
Small children can be brutally honest in their observations. If you are fat, bald, have bad breath, a kid will let you know without hesitation. This mixture of frankness and off-the-wall fantasy keeps parents off balance, and usually embarrassed most of the time.
But that’s one advantage of being a grandparent. We get to enjoy some of these wild stories from the kids about their parents. And, watching mom or dad’s eyes widen in disbelief when the stories are repeated in front of them is amusing.
For all the young parents who are in shock over some of the things their kids say, be aware that there is no such thing as a private family matter to a 3-year-old.
As for me, I’m still trying to get my daughter, 35 years later, to give me the name of my girlfriend with the new red shoes. Whenever I ask, she just folds her arms, sticks out that lower lip in a pout, and walks away.
Mike Ellis is the editor of the Herald-Standard. His e-mail address is: mellis@heraldstandard.com.