The Things I Don’t Yet Know

Madeleine Thompson - 9 Jan 18

One of the things my four-year-old tells me often is that he knows everything in the world.  Being so little, it would seem impolite to correct him, so we have some interesting discussions about how fabulous it is that he knows all these things.  Of course, he is just exercising his right to curiosity and wanting to soak everything up like a small sponge, but he totally stumped me when he asked me recently if I knew everything in the world too.  For the tiniest of seconds, I contemplated answering that, yes, I did know everything.  But in the end, I was honest with him that I did not and there are lots of things I am still to learn.  It made me think, though, about how we view our grown-ups when we are small.

As a child, I viewed my parents as being fonts of all knowledge because it made perfect sense that being older meant knowing everything.  I never included any room in my thinking for the fact that there are so many things we might never know and things we carry on learning throughout our lives.    Even now, if I get into any difficulty and I need a grown-up and my other half is busy, I ring my parents!   I’m sure I’ve seen a meme somewhere about needing a more adultier adult on the days when we don’t feel like adulting.

I still find myself regularly flummoxed by situations that other grown-ups seem to be very much in-the-know about.  For example, I took my son to the Barber’s before he went back to nursery after Christmas.  I haven’t got a great track record with knowing Barbershop etiquette anyway and my conversations with the Barber usually begin and end with ‘Please tidy it up, it’s getting too long’.   My visits to the Barbers are like the hairdressing equivalent of me falling over in public and I try to make sure it is my other half who takes him and not me if I can help it.

This time, the Barber asked me if he should do a ‘number 2’.   Outwardly, my expression was a calm one but inside my mind was a frenzy of ‘wtf’-type thoughts as I had no comprehension of what a number 2 would mean and I was painfully aware of all the people around me.   As I searched myself for a grown-up answer, luckily an answer came from a grown-up who knew me, who was sitting in the next chair along.  He advised that I should pick a number 3 instead.  Crisis averted.

But I do find these situations creep up on me, even if I think I’ve got the lingo down and I know what I’m doing, Mother Universe comes along and pushes me over.

I wonder if I’m alone in this?  Does anybody else feel like they are still learning the things they need to know and do to pass as a grown-up?   And that we’re constantly trying to appear mature to our children even if we are not quite sure ourselves?

Perhaps it is no bad thing to say to our children that sometimes we just don’t know.  It makes us human, and it makes them see that nobody is perfect, that we all need to learn, and that they are not expected to know everything that would equip them to be a grown-up by the time they hit legal age.   And perhaps it is no bad thing to realise we can learn with them, and actually that there are a good few things our children can teach us too.

Madeleine Thompson

I am mum to my little chicks, Aisha, 6 and Abel, 4. Originally from Yorkshire, UK, I now live in a little town in the North West. By day, I work for myself as a freelance PA. By night, I indulge my passion for writing.

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