One of the things that constantly fascinates me about having a child is being able to watch them and sort of see how they learn things. Children progress at a very fast rate. It is as if their only job is learning (they’re not consumers yet). Recently our son has been learning about everything: fans, batteries, computers, door handles, toilets, light switches, toasters, real glass glasses, keyboards, guitars, and a whole host of other items. In watching him learn how these things worked I never quite expected (and this was short-sighted of me) for him to eventually have such a grasp of how the did work that he’d instantly recognize when they didn’t. It turns out he’s created a catch all word for this situation: “It’s broken.”
“It’s broken.” This simple little phrase says quite a bit. It also fills in for other, perhaps more accurate phrases, from time to time. Whatever we think of the simplicity of the phrase we have to realize that it is useful. My son being able to first know that something should work and then identify that it isn’t is sort of amazing.”It’s broken” can work for anything: a glass that breaks, an unplugged keyboard, a toy with dead batteries, headphones that don’t have music coming out of them, or even a locked door. “It’s broken” is sort of a catch all for “this isn’t as I expected.” Since our son has learned it we’ve been hearing more and more about it with increasing frequency. To say that I’m proud to know that our son is aware of the expected behavior of a great many things is an understatement. Each and every day we learn more about what and how he learns.