Dig if you will two pictures
Of me on stage facing abyss
The sweat of my floppage covers me
Can you my darling
Can you picture this?
Two crowds, faces rapt and skeptical. I stood before them to educate, armed with material I knew by heart. I also stood before them to take sledgehammer questions to the gut. Respectively:
“How can we make the determination whether a client considers the disclosure detrimental when the client is adjudged legally incapable?”
“Why didn't the baby bird just imprint on the kitten?”
70 lawyers in the first crowd, 20 first graders in the second. Tougher crowd? The lawyers. But - tougher question? No contest: the first graders.
First, when you strip off the highfalutin, the lawyer's question wasn't so tough. It was a dodge. Lawyers are risk-averse, and this lawyer wanted an easy out on a hardass judgment call. Sorry, no.
But the kid's question? Top notch. You don't need an advanced degree in birds to feel the suspension of disbelief shatter soon as the baby bird in “Are You My Mother?” asks the kitten that question. Ain't happenin! Imprinting! Bird sees kitten, kitten is mom, end of story.
More important, kids aren’t like lawyers: you can’t bullshit em. A recent essay about Calvin and Hobbes hit this on the nose. You have to be straight, for their sake and yours: kids now are better equipped to call bullshit on us than at any time in human history. Shine them on at your peril.
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Sorry, Prince.
The book I read to the first graders: Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman, 1960.
The Calvin and Hobbes essay: "Why I Don't Bullshit My Kid," Patrick A. Coleman, April 27, 2017, at fatherly.com.
