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How to Listen to Children Who Aren’t Yours
An artist brought me to tears with the way she treated my son.
My family strolled down the streets of the town where I grew up. Our youngest in the stroller and her older brother was kicking rocks ahead of us. We spotted the outline of a mural on a facade and moved in to get a closer look. The artist was there, completing the outline for a community mural project.
The concept was that the artist outlined the mural and indicated colors in a paint-by-number manner. During the town festival, people get a cup of paint and add their touches to the wall. The result would be a mural painted by the entire town.
My son was delighted with the hummingbird fluttering in the middle of the mural. Being a bird-aficionado, he sauntered up to the artist, Tracie Davis, and complimented her on the detail she’d added to make the flat-billed hummingbird so lifelike.
Their conversation droned on, and Ms. Davis told my son that she meant to capture many species of plants and animals native to Michigan as a celebration of the state.
The know-it-all
Garret looked at her, tilted his head, and in the way of a know-it-all, nine-year-old said, “actually, the flat-billed hummingbird doesn’t live anywhere East of the…
