Children Say the Darndest Things

Carl C with Father Carl J summer of 1969

Our oldest son Carl taught me a number of lessons, some of them I followed and some were not as easy for me. We used to have a brick fence between our home and the one next door. The kids could see through the fence and talk to each other. This became evident as one day he was upset at something and yelled “THOMAS.” I was fine with him saying that when he was angry, at least I was until one day I was in the back yard, and I heard the boy next door yelling through the holes in the fence. He was yelling “Dumb Ass” at Carl and Carl was yelling “THOMAS” back at them. His mother worked with him on his language. He was only three at the time.
Carl’s mother was very good at making things to keep him interested and learning. One of the things she had was a car for him to walk around in. She took a banana box and painted a car on the side of the box and Carl could carry it around with him. One day after a very cold sub-zero temperature, I was walking out the door, and there was Carl with a screw driver and kicking the side of the banana box car that his mother had made and poking at it with the screw driver and yelling the damn thing won’t start again. It is a sad thing that we teach our children, things that will not help them, but we also teach many good things that will serve them well throughout their lives. One of my biggest regrets is that I was not a very patient father and was not aware of how to show love. Carl has taught me much of that throughout the years.
Stephen J Stubbs
Some years after Joy was walking with Stephen. Stephen was then and has continued to be an adventurous person. When they came to a corner and were needing to cross the street they stopped, and Joy was explaining how to look both ways before crossing the street. Stephen announced that you didn’t need to, that it was safe to cross any time that you wanted. With that he took off across the street, and the cars did come to a screeching stop to let him pass. When he got to the other side, he announced quite confidentially “SEE?”
I think that even as adults, we still often yell things across the backyard fence to others, yell at our cars, stoves, washers, and other inanimate objects, and we often think that all of the rules are made for everyone except ourselves. Hopefully we learn through time, experience, and practice how to live and be happy in our lives.
 


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