When I was early in elementary school, let’s say age 8, I became interested in knots. I asked my mother to show me how to tie a square knot. “Oh, that’s just over and under, under and over” she said. What in the world does that mean? I asked again if she would show me. “I’m busy right now. Ask your dad.”
The next time my father was home, I asked him to show me how to tie a square knot. “That’s just over and under, under and over” he said. I asked him what he meant by that, and he said “over and under, under and over.” I asked him if he would show me but, you guessed it, he was too busy.
I felt really stupid. The words “over and under, under and over” meant nothing to me. Yet neither of my parents would demonstrate or say anything other than “over and under, under and over.”
This went on for a while. Eventually, when I was at the library, I asked the librarian about square knots and she found me this really cute little illustrated book in which a small boy learns to tie a square knot. It took me seconds to learn, after spending far more time trying to puzzle out what “over and under, under and over” was supposed to mean. Once I knew what I was doing, I could kind of see how “over and under, under and over” fit, but it still didn’t make sense as directions for tying a knot.
It was one of those things that really stuck with me. When I was an adult with children of my own, I thought of it often. A good lesson by negative example. I continued to wonder why my parents had so stubbornly refused to do anything to help me except repeat “over and under, under and over” ad nauseum.
Then, in a flash, I figured it out. They didn’t know how to tie a square knot, but neither of them were willing to admit it. Instead, they remembered someone once telling them that a square knot goes “over and under, under and over.” So they just repeated the dogma that had been passed down to them, rather than admit their ignorance.
I suspect that happens a lot.
—2p