Let me lay it down for you, real easy like.

Children should be seen and not heard.

That’s an old adage that is probably older in practice than we realize.

And it is complete bull-shit.

Here’s why:

Children generally have no filter. They have no concept, in the beginning, of behaviors and attitudes that we as adults tend employ with each other on a minute by minute basis, depending on our audience.

They can only speak truths, and stop doing that when they learn the trick of deceit from us, you dig?

They are a mirror to our own twisted and misdirected pathway from innocence to guilt. And we don’t like it.

We REALLY don’t like it. We never have. Hence the saying.

How dare a child call us out, and hoist us up on our own petard?

Because they can, and they should. We need to be reminded every once in awhile that, as adults or as parents, we aren’t always right. We aren’t always correct. And we don’t always know what we are talking about.

It’s also ok to be wrong. And for our children to see us accepting the fact that we can be wrong.

If they never see it, they’ll never believe it.

Until it happens. In a big way. And their whole world changes in the blink of an eye.

All because, apparently, they should have been seen and not heard.

The correct version of that old adage is of course the obvious:

Children SHOULD be seen, AND heard.

But also:

Parents should watch, and listen.

Stop, Look and Listen, Baby. That’s MY philosophy.

Alright, so Elvis isn’t exactly synonymous with jazz, but you can pick up what I’m laying down, right?

Solid.