Questions are to be encouraged. Children have a natural curiosity. This is a good thing. My post this week about children’s questions during school visits, and the top class comments left, had me chortling for HOURS.
I’ve heard questions that are hard to answer (‘what are ants? WHY are ants?’).
And questions at inopportune moments (just as you have your hand on the bedroom door and you’ve said goodnight – ‘what is god? what is government? will I die? will YOU die? what if there was a biscuit as big as a planet?’).
Nothing quite as strange as a small boy who was following his mum around the supermarket the other day. I kept bumping into them, and he kept this up throughout their visit:
‘Mum Mum are badgers human Mum are badgers human are badgers human Mum Mum are badgers human Mum are badgers human are badgers human Mum Mum…’
So, what is the oddest funniest most challenging question YOU’VE been asked? Do add a comment and share, I would really love to hear!
Eddie asked me yesterday; “What colour is God?” then (helpful elucidation) “Y’know- Jesus’s Dad…”
That is a most excellent question. The helpful elucidation is the strawberry on the top.
And your answer was…?
The only answer any parent ever needs of course- “What do YOU think Eddie?”
HIS answer started promisingly with “Purple.” but then got more predictable “…and long white hair and a long white beard and blue eyes and pink skin.” Says I (provocative I know) “Maybe God is a LADY Eddie?” cue *hysterical* laughter. “Don’t be SILLY Mum- of COURSE God’s NOT a Lady.”…
I’m with Eddie there – what a hysterically silly suggestion! How can all of those Renaissance popes be wrong??
Even the addition of purple is a trifle risqué…
My second daughter, then age 4 or 5, once asked if aliens put thoughts in our heads!
Tee hee! A scene in a film – not sure which film – has popped into my head, in which a child wears a homemade kitchen foil hat, to prevent exactly that from happening. Thanks again, great stuff…
Mollie’s latest and most consistent question has been “Do crabs have tongues? Because what I’m worried about is if they snip their tongues with their snippers.”
Thankfully, and I know you’re all worried and holding your own tongues well away from your teeth, crabs do not have tongues. Phew.
“Mum. How do crabs taste things if they haven’t got tongues?”
Erm…..?
What a very interesting question! And shows much sensitivity and thoughtfulness towards crabs. I bet not many other people even CARE.
I love the follow on question too – how on earth did you answer that??
I remember that scene in a film, too. Now I will be trying to think of it for the rest of the weekend.
My teenagers have really enjoyed your blog and the comments and are very offended that I can’t remember any of their toddler questions at the moment. They say (triumphantly) that it is proof I never listen to them. HOWEVER – I do remember Michael’s definition of a pants = a bag you carry your bottom in…
WOO HOO – a bag to carry your bottom in!!!!! That called for an unprecedented breaking of the Only One Exclamation Mark Rule.
I know of course that you listen to your children intently, too busy answering to rush away chortling in search of a notebook…
H’s latest one seems to be ‘when can I leave home?’ (at almost three and three quarters) – she’s already decided she’ll live in a house and eat toast, while bringing up her three children (two girls, one boy). I have NO idea where this comes from!!!
(she also thinks she’s leaving home next year, but I put that down to her lack of understanding of time than the fact she really does want to!!)
Somehow I missed this at the weekend, but I’ve just thought of another one that I forgot about on Twitter: when Child3 was aged about two he used to lie in bed having monologues which could sometimes last for an hour or more after the lights were turned out. One of them involved a long (one-sided) debate about what colour toilet god had. I think Child3 decided it must be white, before going on to describe the rest of god’s bathroom suite.
Elli, I think that just about take the biscuit… what a remarkable brain that young chap has!
Do you think that anyone EVER has asked that question before?