Children Walking the Walk without even Talking the Talk

My wife bought a little card in town yesterday, as reproduced on this blog, which amused us both and brought back some nostalgic family memories. Some years ago during the height of the Celtic Tiger time in Ireland my brother and I brought one each of our respective offspring to Rome for the 6 nation’s rugby international between Ireland and Italy. As my daughter and my nephew were clad from head to toe in Irish scarves, lime green shirts, tricolour flags and multicoloured hats of ‘questionable’ taste, my brother and I decided to walk ahead of them at a reasonable distance so that the stylish residents of Rome would not necessarily associate our presence with that our fond offspring. However, on looking back we noticed them pointing at us with heightened amusement. On asking why these young people portraying all the fashion sense of ‘green lounge lizards’ should find us so amusing, we were told that my brother and I were strolling along with our hands clasped firmly behind our backs in a studied pose which they said, we seemed to adopt regularly in a characteristic manner. We of course denied such an accusation and told them that this observation may have been distorted by the amount of green paint streaked across their foreheads and thus we suggested might have affected the clarity of their vision.

However, some years later when I was out walking with my little grandson, who was about 3 years old at the time, he proclaimed that he was going to walk like granddad and set off skipping along with his hands firmly clasped behind him. Both my wife and I were very amused by his pose as can be seen from the photo attached to this blog.

Thus, when my wife saw the little greeting card she instantly recalled granddad’s ‘studied’ walk. You may talk the talk to children in any manner you like but based upon their own observations, they will walk the walk themselves.

So the motto of this blog is never to underestimate the powers of observation of young children and for these fond nostalgic memories I would like to give a special thanks to baby Sean, for pointing out Granddad’s strange walking ways!