Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/choosing-our-words-with-care/5022534/
My nephew Connor, like the children in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, was quite a bit above average. By age three, he could tell anyone the differences between Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, Tyrannosaurus Rex! At his tiny easel, he would talk to himself: “I want purple — hmmm . . . red and blue.” His speech was slightly ‘off’ though, when he was quite young. I remember a time when he was trying to tell me about the ocean and I thought he was saying onion. He tried three times. Finally, exasperated, he thrust his hands into the air and said “You know, Aunt Carol, the sea, like a river but bigger!”
Now he’s in his forties and the exuberant dad to three-year-old Katie. Like most of us, at that time in our lives, he’s been reflecting on his own childhood: the good, the bad, and the ugly. There is a particular memory, for him, of being picked up late at child care. After four decades there is still a painful look on his face when he retells the story. As a parent and grandparent I am aware of the relationship between this pained look and his love for his young daughter. Most parents readily ...