Humor Children's questions, most feared by British parents

[Jarvitä]

Because it's water? :uhh:

People dread these questions because they dread their children (who often rely on them for information about the world) asking them a question they cannot answer. I think it's more an issue of failing to perform as a parent more than anything else.

Not everyone needs to know things like the mass of the Earth offhand.

Most of the other questions should be pretty easy to answer in simple terms though, even if the explanation given by most would be highly simplistic...

Not knowing the mass of the Earth doesn't mean you fail as a parent. Being unwilling to look it up, or being afraid of your children's healthy curiosity means you fail as a parent.

 

[orb]

Not knowing the mass of the Earth doesn't mean you fail as a parent. Being unwilling to look it up, or being afraid of your children's healthy curiosity means you fail as a parent.

Children don't need to know the mass of Earth in kilograms as it's defined in physical tables. Telling them it's a mass of x times of mass of (average) elephant, buckets of water, or other object they can compare (double decker bus for example :lol, would tell them much more than plain kilograms put in the description of physical properties.

 

[NovaSilisko]

"How much does the earth weigh?"
"Nothing, weight is relative!"

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Best child's question I have ever heard was just before the holidays. when my niece was making Christmas cards. She looked up at her mother and said, "Mom, how do you make love?"

After a somewhat shocked pause, her mother answered "L-O-V-E", which my niece dutifully wrote on the card. Good situational awareness pushed the answer to the harder form of that question to a more appropriate time.:lol:

 

[Jarvitä]

Children don't need to know the mass of Earth in kilograms as it's defined in physical tables. Telling them it's a mass of x times of mass of (average) elephant, buckets of water, or other object they can compare (double decker bus for example :lol, would tell them much more than plain kilograms put in the description of physical properties.

Yes, because "747 Exaelephants" is so much easier to imagine than "5.97 Yottakilogrammes".

 

[orb]

Yes, because "747 Exaelephants" is so much easier to imagine than "5.97 Yottakilogrammes".

Why SI prefixes? Can't it be thousands of thousands of thousands of ...? Much more descriptive.

 

[Jarvitä]

Why SI prefixes? Can't it be thousands of thousands of thousands of ...? Much more descriptive.

Because "Thousands of thousands of thousands of thousands of thousands of thousands of elephants" sounds like a mouthful, and still isn't any easier to imagine.

Let's face it, the human mind just can't deal with astronomical numbers intuitively. Any attempt to simplify it is pointless. If you want to understand it, on the level of reason, not intuition, you just have to know some physics and mathematics.

 

[orb]

Remember that we're talking about kids and not mathematicians or physicists asking for the exact number.

Kid's question: what is that yottakilogram?

 

[T.Neo]

Not knowing the mass of the Earth doesn't mean you fail as a parent. Being unwilling to look it up, or being afraid of your children's healthy curiosity means you fail as a parent.

Nobody said anything about being unwilling to look things up or being afraid of children's curiosity.

Because "Thousands of thousands of thousands of thousands of thousands of thousands of elephants" sounds like a mouthful, and still isn't any easier to imagine.

It can convey the sense of scale quite well. Granted, so could yottakilograms, but if you don't know what a "yotta" even is, it makes no sense.

Let's face it, the human mind just can't deal with astronomical numbers intuitively.

That's nonsense. I deal with such numbers just fine, it's all a matter of scale. Understand these numbers in relative terms, use prefixes or suitable magnitudes of measurement, and there is no trouble at all.

 

[Keatah]

This is all basic science. Sure as heck says a lot about the ignorance of the parents though.

 

[Linguofreak]

#4 is the only one I couldn't give a concrete answer to offhand. I always look it up on Wikipedia when I need it, and if my hypothetical kid asked me about it, my response would simply be "GIYF".

#6 is simply semantics. Water is wet because it's a liquid and "wet" means "covered in or infused with a liquid". It's hard to get much more infused with a liquid than *being* a liquid.

 

[n72.75]

5. How do airplanes stay in the air?

Just the other day I was explaining potential flow theory to my mother.

 

[dnt462]

When I read number #6 the first thought that came to mind was, What is "wet"?

 

[Radu094]

Best child's question I have ever heard was just before the holidays. when my niece was making Christmas cards. She looked up at her mother and said, "Mom, how do you make love?"

After a somewhat shocked pause, her mother answered "L-O-V-E", which my niece dutifully wrote on the card. Good situational awareness pushed the answer to the harder form of that question to a more appropriate time.:lol:

LOL! Well, somebody had to post this:

A bit long, but well worth it..

 

[FADEC]

LOL! Well, somebody had to post this: What's Virgin Mean? - YouTube

A bit long, but well worth it..

lol :rofl:

And what a nice MIL... eh mum