I think it’s a factor of both her age and personality, but Big Sis asks lots of questions. Generally, these range from the biological to the metaphysical. Here is a sample from the last 24 hours:
- What do muscles look like?
- Where does the wind come from?
- What is skin for?
- Where were all the people when there were dinosaurs?
- Is my brain round?
- What happens if you mix purple and green?
- What makes you grow old?
- What’s this bone called (holding a random part of the body)?
- Why do babies come out of bottoms?
- What is your elbow for?
- What does Friday look like?
- Will we live forever?
The last one in particular gets asked about 10 times every day. It appears that I’m not giving her the answer she is looking for - and she keeps trying, looking for a discrepancy.
My answer goes along these lines :
“(Begins with an inward sigh) - Well honey, we will all die one day. But, probably not until we are really, really old which is a long time away - so you don’t have to worry about it now!”
She goes quiet and mulls this over, only to raise it again a few hours later.
Today it was somewhat different. Big Sis, out of the blue, stated quite clearly that:
“We will live forever, Daddy said so!”
I immediately called DSO at work and he confirmed that upon the 5th asking last Sunday, when he had been trying to get something done (put up some shelves I think - please see post about jobs list), he had responded in exasperation, with:
“Yes, Yes honey - whatever!”
I went back to Big Sis and explained that Daddy was rethinking his position and that they would discuss it further tonight. She immediately came back with her own solution:
“Okay Mummy, this is what happens - we live forever and ever and ever, and then, after that, we die!”
conversation with kids, kids questions
July 31st, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Actually, I don’t have a problem with the contentious position “that we will live forever”. I don’t empirically know it to be true or false and, my leaning towards the optimistic side of life means that it is, in fact, my preferred position. (NB: an inbuilt assumption is that it is not an eternity of suffering - I’m no Buddhist when it comes down to it).
In any event, eternal life is a common theme of most belief systems (excluding, of course, aetheism, to the extent that that is a belief system). So, even on a probability basis, I can’t be too far off the truth.
Anyway, I’d like Big Sis to live forever and ever and ever in happiness before she even approaches mortality.
July 31st, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Next time I see Big Sis, I’d like her to test my anatomical knowledge by randomly quizzing me about names of bones. When Miss M was little, she stunned a gathering of personal trainers by correctly locating (and pronouncing) the gastrocnemius (part of the calf) muscle, just because she kept asking “what is this, what is that?”, so I gave her the hardest one I could think of, which of course she remembered perfectly.
DSO, my Buddhist yoga teacher gives hope to those of us worrying about eternal suffering … apparently if we can divest ourselves of any kind of desire (and not just the one that first pops into my mind), it’s all okay. Hmm, but then is it really worth it?
August 1st, 2007 at 3:23 am
That’s funny! I actually just read a good book about answering all your kids’ questions…. 801 Questions Kids Ask About God (and living forever, etc.!) I’m actually mentioning it in a post tomorrow.
August 6th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Oh, the questions they ask… For the longest time my son would ask whether things were real or pretend. “Is wind real or pretend?” “Are cartoons real or pretend?” He wasn’t too happy when I told him Jesus was real and Spiderman was pretend. In fact, I think he stopped that line of questioning abuot then…
August 6th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Yes - Big Sis is into asking about the “real”/”pretend” distinction too! She like to emphasise requests with it as well - so she’ll say, I want “a lolly, a real one!” I guess just in case I agree and give her a “pretend one”, whatever that would be??