Hi Reader,

What's a child? I mean, what's the definition of the word child?

I was watching my son toddle around this morning and it occurred to me that I probably know more than him about just about everything. (The one exception being what it's like to be him.)

But I thought about that in the context of him learning and getting better at things, which is basically all he does. (Actually, maybe that's another exception: he's better than me at learning.)

On the one hand, that's not impressive. He has lots of people committed to helping him learn around the clock.

On the other hand, maybe that doesn't matter. I mean, sure, it seems like I'm responsible for my own learning in a way he isn't and couldn't be. I may not have people volunteering to be my teachers, but that doesn't mean I can't learn from other people. But there are lots of places in my life where I've given up. (For instance, I wrote that sentence while shoveling salad into my face in a way that's not significantly distinguishable from how my son ate his oatmeal this morning.)

Maybe being an adult—to get at the definition of child by contrast—is just about having gotten to "good enough" in most of the areas we could yet improve in.

At the same time, maybe I (and we adults by extension, though I don't want to cast too wide a net and inadvertently catch any of the people who have discovered that "the secret to life" has something to do with what I'm musing about here) have given up on improving in a few too many areas. ("A few too many" being most of them.)

Maybe I could take each opportunity as a chance to learn something new.

Is that what it's like to really be "grown up?"

(My salad eating skills are probably far down the list, though.)