Thursday, April 23, 2009

Philosophy from a Five-Year-Old

Belle and I just had a fascinating conversation.

She asked me, "Back when there was no one in the world, how did people get born?" I just sat there with my mouth hanging open as she theorized about the sun growing people, a ghost getting married to a person and having a baby, or that people rained down from the sky.

Am I wrong to be completely flummoxed by this?

And, incidentally, my answer was to basically stutter out, "Uh, that's a really good question, baby."

How does one answer what might possibly be the ultimate question to a kid who hasn't started kindergarten yet? More importantly, what does it say about this child's thought process that she came up with this?

And if anyone has a good answer that I can offer Belle, that'd be much appreciated as well.

4 comments:

  1. Ha ha ha, I have no answer for you, but I feel your pain/confusion. My soon-to-be 5 year old asks some interesting questions from time to time.

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  2. No answers, but I love the question! My 3 year old son asked me if I wanted some privacy while I went to the bathroom this morning. Of course he then proceeded to close the door to the bathroom and pull up a stool right next to me. Classic.

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  3. Uh ummm...I've got nothing. Yikes! LOL

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  4. What would you say if an adult asked the same question? This is seriously keeping me up nights ... and it makes me very concerned about what's going on in Belle's mind and how I can nurture her beautiful mind to continue in this vein.

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