Hey kid, when someone tuts and screams at you, “That’s stupid! Common sense tells you not to do that!” You should comeback politely with, “Where did you learn that?”
We adults tend to forget that you have only been on this amazing planet a fraction of time we have. Your motor skills are as reliable as Australia’s train services. Your intuition spans only as far as knowing that grandparents are putty in your hands. You haven’t even spelled cataclysmic let alone experience it.
The definition of common sense is “sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts”. I believe it is honed by adequate knowledge and experience and hence we pack a different set of common sense from say Genghis Khan.
Try reading the following with mom and dad:
I cnnoat blveiee that I can aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I am rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rseearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt.
If you hadn’t even learned to read you wouldn’t be able to apply “sound and prudent judgment” to help you decipher this anti spelling message.
Now how about this:
Die Knasthälscferbnude um Wogfalng Bhlcratcei ist siet Oetbokr vliutreert – dcoh wieerte sieenr gshcteefäln Wkree kntönen scih wewtleit undeentckt in Mseuen und Saungemmln bdnfieen. Das mmaßutte ein Blierner LKA-Kisommsar bei eenir Fahctaugng im Bode-Msuuem.
Think how mom and dad would feel now if a child, who knows German, were to laugh at their inability to understand the above paragraph. Well, of course this is just one small way to decode common sense.
So kid, the next time you:
- Give your brother a flying kick to the head
- Touch a hot iron cos you can’t see why not
- Pierce with your knife and saw with your fork
- Jump onto a chair that has castors
- Put a cup dribbled with Milo on a piece of paper mom just printed stuff on
Try to remember with all your might what your parents are gonna tell you after that. Cos what they are trying to teach you is – if it looks like shit and smells like shit, it’s not the sense of taste you should use to confirm that it is shit.
Moments of Mom 