The day my children called a man ‘fat’... and other adventures in child-speak

Some time ago, I was riding the MRT train with my pre-schooler twins when they pointed to a man on their right.

“Mummy,” they declared matter-of-factly to me across the aisle. “This man is very fat.”

I shrank in my seat.

Perhaps I could pretend not to know them. The woman beside me looked like she could be a mother to children their age.

But the children, trying to ensure I heard them, repeated their statement louder.

“That is rude,” I said, staring daggers at them. Get the hint, kids.

“I’m sorry, I’m still teaching them manners,” I said to the man, sheepishly.

Fair save, I consoled myself. Next station, please.

But they had decided it was not over. I heard my daughter speak again.

“I am sorry,” she nodded earnestly, now in an apparent but not-so-truthful effort to comfort the heavyset man.

“You are not fat. You are thin, ok?”

Now it was his turn to shrink in his seat.

I was mortified. I was losing count of the number of times I had been flustered by my children’s innocent but embarrassing comments in public.

With young children who are curious, observant and have yet to develop a proper social filter, I am often caught bewildered in the wake of their cringeworthy comments.

Like the time I returned to a restaurant from the washroom, and my son announced deafeningly, “Yay! Mummy has pooped!” (For the record, I had only attended to small business.)

Or that moment at a social event when my daughter asked my very prim friend what “those dirty black dots” on her nose were (blackheads, of course).

To my friends and family whose self-esteem has taken a beating after outings with us, I am so sorry.

Take this with a huge dash of humour, friends say to me. It is likely a phase which they will grow out of with more exposure to social situations, and after you help them develop sensitivity to issues and people.

Try not to get upset when it happens, a friend with older children said. Most of the time, pre-schoolers are just expressing their observations - albeit without tact and empathy - and do not wilfully spout inappropriate comments to be nasty.

But if their comments hurt someone, as happened on the train, model the right behaviour by apologising, then wait till you are out of earshot of the offended party to explain how they could have better handled the situation.

I am conscientiously emphasising to my children that it is good manners not to talk about others’ appearances in public. Instead, I tell them, they can share their observations with me later, in private, so that I can process their statements with them.

“A person who looks different might not like the way he looks, and it might hurt his feelings to hear others talk about it,” I told my children gingerly.

I am also considering introducing a secret code - beyond staring daggers, which evidently is not enough - such as two squeezes of the hand, to halt inappropriate outbursts.

I am cognizant of the need to be careful with my own words as well, since even casual remarks make a world of difference to children.

On a deeper level, I realise these encounters are teachable moments about empathy, decency, compassion and respect for others.

After all, we are all created differently, with different shapes, colours and abilities; yet we are all unique and special in our own way.

This, to me, is the most precious takeaway, and I pray my children will soon learn it.

The other day, a man in a wheelchair entered the lift of my apartment block. Silence, then the inevitable question: “Mummy, why is he on a chair with wheels?”

This time, instead of shushing them - which I am inclined to do in such situations for fear of upsetting others - I decided to talk to the man, who had likely already heard the question anyway.

“Hi,” I said quite nervously, with a slightly apologetic smile. “They are curious about why you are in the wheelchair.”

To my relief, the man broke into a grin. “The wheelchair helps me get to places,” he told them kindly. We learnt later that he had been involved in a cycling accident a decade ago, which caused him to lose function of his legs.

It was a poignant encounter, because we overcame a potentially awkward situation to connect with another human who looked different on the surface, but was navigating life with courage and admirable strength. And there was so much to learn from that. I believe he also appreciated our short chat that day.

As I said later to the children, let us learn to talk to the person, not about him.

So I am now on a mission to turn potentially embarrassing moments into teachable ones.

“I’ve got this, I can do it,” I told my husband with newfound resolve and confidence that day.

Until a few days later, of course, when my son looked at an acquaintance I was speaking to and said in all seriousness, “your teeth are very yellow.”

The writer is a mother of three