The Honesty of Children

I love the purity in a child's thought process and how they see the world. It lends to them the ability to say things without a filter. It makes me believe that as we grow older and "wiser" we build that "filter" into our own lives which leads to fake realities and masks we put on for the world, so no one will know what we are really thinking. Our "filters" are our "candy-coating" of speech and actions, so everything is nice and neat and we dont offend anybody and everybody gets along. But at a price. Because we end up speaking through our masks to other people's masks and we never get past that "filter" into true relationship and honesty with one another.
But children dont have those so called filters or masks. They are so honest and at times brutally honest. Two examples of this happened tonight with our oldest Zachary. He is 5 years old and we visited a friends house tonight. I had to wash his hands because of course he was playing with their dog food (why not?) and we went to their kitchen. Now to me I am thinking, "ok their kitchen is a little messy. There are some dishes in the sink, some plates and pots on the counters, some trash here and there, plus its an older apartment and they both work so no big deal." My filter says dont say what you're thinking, keep it to yourself. But as I am washing Zachary's hands, he looks around and loud enough for everyone to hear, "Man, this kitchen is old and rusty!"
And then later tonight, we are putting him in his car seat to head home and my wife and mother-in-law are talking about wedding colors and my wife says, "Her colors are going to be red and black with a damask patten." And Zachary looks up at her at her with wide eyes and says, "Oh no. Is that bad?"
We can learn so much from children. I think we could all benefit from a little less filter in our lives like they live it everyday. Lets not try to silence them to "Be nice" but praise them for "being real." And try it ourselves sometime.