Ricci Schwarzler - Quality

‘Darlin, just try a little harder.’

‘But I am Mummy, all I can do is try my hardest.’

Mummy hated being outsmarted by her 5yo.

‘But I just don’t think you are really trying that hard.’

‘Oh Mummy how could you say that. I ran around the field chasing that ball and all those other players kept getting in the way…and it’s really, really hot.’

‘Yes Darling, but you just didn’t seem to kick it very hard when you did get to it.’

‘Well, I didn’t want to hurt anyone, and I didn’t want to get hurt.’

‘Yes, but Baby you are just meant to kick the ball.’

‘Yes, but I could hurt the ball.’

With an immense loss of patience, Mummy said, ‘Oh don’t be so bloody stupid.’

With that Darling opened his mouth and howled. In between gulps and sobs he stammered, ‘Oh…Mummy… you said a rude word…I’m not stupid’

Guilt ridden Mummy tried to save the day.

‘Oh Darlin’ that’s not what I meant.’

‘But that’s what you said….whaaaaaaaaa’

‘I know but I was a bit frustrated, I just didn’t think you tried that hard. Its ok Baby, it’s not that important and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you think you tried.’

Mummy tried desperately to calm the situation. She was a cop for God’s sake. She’d talked gunman out of guns and people out of hostage situations. Why couldn’t she get this small human to calm down?

What she realised later after many, many minutes of discussion, reasoning, more discussion and just a lot of outright lying, was that all these small humans have more cunning than any gunman or any criminal, that she had come across. The people she talked out of situations had a problem. They were adults. They’d lost their ‘child cunning’ quality rating.

The small humans knew the power they held, and they knew the quality of their cunning was unsurpassed in the criminal field. They came out of their mother’s wombs with a degree in cunning and a complete Quality Management system to ensure that the standard of their cunning never dropped. They probably invented the ISO standards.

Baby was still sobbing, Mummy leant forward and grabbed Baby in her arms.

‘It’s ok Baby. I know you tried…and you did very, very well.’

Of course she didn’t think that, but who could not tell a whopping great lie to their 5yo, who was convinced they had done a great job? After all, that’s our job, to build them up with false hope and give them total confidence in their inabilities!

Not really, but sometimes it’s ok to do that.