Milestones and The Blue Whale

The other day, my wife and I took our eldest grandson, who will be twelve in a few days, and the eldest of our visiting California granddaughters, who will be eight in a few months, to the American Museum of Natural History. Our grandson planned an agenda that he hoped would appeal to our granddaughter, who had not visited the museum before: first the Hall of African Animals, then the Hall of Biodiversity, and finally the Hall of Ocean Life. As far as our granddaughter was concerned, these were excellent choices, for she found the exhibits compelling (as did her grandparents, even though we had seen them many times before). It was in the last of these halls, with its great blue whale hanging over an enormous exhibit space, that I received an unwelcome truth.

Our grandson referred to the whale as model. "A model?" I asked. "You mean it's not a stuffed animal?" "No," he said, "it's a model. It's not real." For years I had thrilled to the sight of this creature, the largest mammal in the world. I would imagine it swimming up from the tropical regions in which it was born to the remote icy waters in which it had spent most of each year gorging on krill. I would picture its death agonies as it was harpooned and slaughtered. "Not real?" "No," said my grandson, "not real."

But when I thought about it, I could see that it was unlikely that the beautiful, graceful, huge blue mass - the length of three city buses and, if it were real, originally weighing 400,000 pounds - had been transported, preserved, and mounted for our edification at the American Museum of Natural History. I began to wonder what other unexamined assumptions I hold that are untrue. It was like being told that the moon is not, as I had supposed, made of green cheese. Of course, not, I would tell myself, as soon as the idiocy of the assumption was pointed out to me, but only then.

I'm accustomed to asking my children for expert advice, but not my grandchildren. But now that I think about it, this was not the first time that my grandson has proved a useful source of information. As far back as two years ago, he showed me how to operate my new digital camera, and if I ever need help with a new digital device, it will be to him that I'll turn. Shortly before we entered the Hall of Ocean Life, he had pointed out, in the Hall of Biodiversity, figures otherwise invisible to me, and in the Hall of African Animals, he had indicated details, such as small birds removing insects from the flanks of herbivores, that I would never have noticed alone.

Unlike the revelation about the blue whale, which was unwelcome, the sudden knowledge that for some time my grandson has been mature enough to teach me about my surroundings was welcome. I was happy to acknowledge this milestone in his development, which he had passed some time ago. It had also been a milestone for me, and like many other milestones, this too was unnoticed at the time.