Things Kids Say

Kids say the darnedest things.

Like the other day when I went to breakfast with one of my best friends and her four year old son.  We’re waiting for a table and her son walks over to the hostess and says, “I’m taller than you.”  Everyone smiled and the hostess, blushing a little, graciously replied, “Yes you are.”

My friend retrieved her son and walked him back towards where we were standing, “What do you say to that?” she whispered to me.  The hostess was, in fact, a “little person.”

They say there are two honest people in the world:  drunks and kids.  And it’s true, things kids say provides comic relief. It helps us as adults see the world through more innocent, honest eyes.

I remember a rare trip I took with Scott to the Philippines.  Rare because I hardly ever travel with him because he’s working.  But this time we were there to volunteer at an orphanage. We taught the kids dance classes, fixed up buildings, and did neighborhood cleanups.  Scott and I were sponsoring a child there at the time and it was amazing to actually be able to meet him.

One afternoon while at the family’s hut some of the kids surprised me by asking, “Are you a gay?”

I don’t speak Tagalog but I sensed the parents politely telling the kids that wasn’t polite to blurt out these questions.  In the States I might have felt more embarrassed.  But because I was far away from home, I just laughed and replied with a smile, “Yes, I am.”

It was a milestone for me but I also feel it was a milestone for a country deeply rooted in Catholicism.  Especially seeing as how we were on a very rural island in the middle of nowhere.  Just the fact that these kids would even ask me such a question is proof of some kind of worldly progress.  When a child learns something, a barrier is broken.  We can all learn a little something when a child breaks the social barriers we put up. There is always the hope of change in the eyes of a child. And they really do say the darnedest things.