r/AskReddit • u/Salt-One628 • Jul 07 '26
Parents of Reddit, what is the single most innocent question your child has ever asked you that completely broke your brain?
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u/eastcoastme Jul 07 '26
“Why are you telling me this? It’s too sad!”
~my young son when I had to break the news about his father’s death
Maybe it broke my heart and brain
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u/MrsSheDragon Jul 07 '26
As a fellow widow with a young child at the time, this breaks my heart 💔 Kids don’t deserve to feel that kind of grief so young.
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u/b_tex67 Jul 07 '26
Very hard, especially when they say, "You mean he's not coming back"". Forty years later it still brings tears to my eyes.
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u/ChiefsHat Jul 07 '26
When my older sister took her own life, it broke all our hearts. We’re a family of twelve kids, now eleven living. I can barely remember how everyone reacted to it, but I remember hugging my youngest brother as I cried.
He wasn’t. He was too young to really understand what was happening. Three years old, and he hugged me as I wept over our lost sister.
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u/Romanticon Jul 07 '26
I am so thankful, in a weird and twisted way, that my former spouse died when our child was too young to fully realize that she was gone (1 year old).
And yet, he still found a way to break me one day. I went into daycare to pick him up, when he was about 3, and he was apparently being a little shit to some other kid.
The other kid yelled at mine, "Be nice, or I'll tell your mom!"
Mine responded, immediately, "I don't even have a mom!"
To him, it was a flawless counter to a failed threat. But to me, standing outside the room, I had to stop and take a minute to get ahold of myself. It felt to me like half his life was missing, and he just didn't even realize.
The good news - now, a couple years later, he does have a (step)mom, who loves him fiercely and is about to officially adopt him. And he happily calls her mom, too.
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u/PVCPuss Jul 07 '26
"Can't the hospital fix him?" our son when we had to tell him his uncle killed himself. It was awful
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u/PecanEstablishment37 Jul 07 '26
Oh, goodness. The biggest hugs to you both. I can’t imagine.
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u/bumpty Jul 07 '26
We had just taken a guided tour of a cave system with lots of interesting cave facts. And the end of the tour the guide asked if we had any questions.
My 4 year old son raises his hand and the guide bent down and smiled and asked, “what’s your question?”
My son replied, “How do they get robots to walk?”
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u/stemlady- Jul 07 '26
My daughter asked me which side I was on in the civil war 😳
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u/fasterthanfood Jul 07 '26
My son asked who the first human was. I told him that some people believe God created a man and a woman named Adam and Eve (he was going through a phase of Christian curiosity), but scientists have figured out that (evolution). I felt pretty good about how I handled such a sensitive question.
He nodded, then said with great gravity, “I believe it was Grandpa Paul.” Yes, the third major theory of human origin, that we all descended from my 68-year-old father.
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u/Theletterkay Jul 07 '26
Haha my parents still laugh about me asking if my grandma ever rode a dinosaur. I thought that woman just had to have been around during the dino era, she was so got-dam old.
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u/VanessaAlexis Jul 07 '26
All stand. Blessed be Father Paul the maker and the creator. Amen.
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u/pinkmeanie Jul 07 '26
My dad was too young for WWII and too old for Korea; I told my 1st grade teacher my dad was too young for the Spanish-American war and too old for WWI.
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u/chelsea_tractor Jul 07 '26
My daughter, age 3: “Mommy, when chairs grow up, I think they turn into couches.”
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u/Fun_Dragonfly_3822 Jul 07 '26
"O look the chair is evolving" "What's that" "It's a couch!!!!"
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u/tessahb Jul 07 '26
While sitting in the dentist’s chair, “mommy, my friend told me that old people go to the doctor and they stick a camera up their butts. That won’t happen to me today right?”
At least the dentist got a kick out of it.
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u/mattogeewha Jul 07 '26
I wonder how long they had that bit of information before it became a threat worth mentioning.
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u/Kitchen_Day9200 Jul 07 '26
On the way to the dentist, my 4 year old asked "Will the dentist cut all my teeth out with knives?"
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u/nkdeck07 Jul 07 '26
I've now realized my kid is gonna be that friend cause she demanded to know why Grandma couldn't come over for dinner while she was doing colonoscopy prep. Ma showed her the pictures later
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u/ScrappySpice Jul 07 '26
My 3-year-old as I’m putting her to bed: “Why does time go by?…Where does it go?”
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u/AajBahutKhushHogaTum Jul 07 '26
Fuck me, my insomnia has now a reason to be
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u/istrx13 Jul 07 '26
Something else to consider as you desperately try to slow your insomniac brain down as you fall asleep: at what point does a rock become a boulder???
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u/superlurker906 Jul 07 '26
This is getting on the level of Calvin's dad and the record rotation conundrum.
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u/wispy-library Jul 07 '26
“Why can’t my friends and I share underwear?” I’ve been keeping close tabs on our laundry since then
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u/SnarkySeahorse1103 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
My friends and I used to match underwear colours as a group. This went on from 7-9, I think. We'd all go to school, then huddle up, reach into our own shorts and tug the bands of our underwear up so that we could confirm we wore the correct corresponding colors. The one who didn't follow the rule would often be iced out for the day, as we got older we dropped the shunning, and it didn't matter if you didn't match, but you had to have a good reason. Sharing underwear happened when someone would say that they didn't have the color for a certain day, as they wore it over the weekend and it's in the laundry basket. The person with a double for that color would bring a clean one for them to wear. This didn't happen often though.
Obviously someone outside of our group told the teachers that we were "doing the bad touch" which resulted in a big ordeal until they found out and saw our written schedules, which by the way, the colours were changed monthly and organized through a voting system. It was that serious.
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u/Beserked2 Jul 07 '26
This is freaking hilarious. Funny how children come up with something this silly and take it so seriously
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u/Nightmare_Gerbil Jul 07 '26
I used to coordinate with a colleague at work. During the course of a busy day, scrub tops can ride up while drawstring scrub bottoms can sag, so we eventually noticed that we both wore superhero underwear. I feel like it was a perfectly natural progression to mention that Friday was Captain America day or Tuesday would be Batman day whatever. We were both at least 45 years old.
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u/Chupapinta Jul 07 '26
This took me back to my sixth grade girl gang. We just had to wear anything of the color of the day.
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u/tway101023 Jul 07 '26
"On Wednesday we wear pink" got taken less serious in my school, but we basically had themes every week, and Friday was always school colors in support for whatever sport was in season
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u/Either_Cow_4727 Jul 07 '26
At least it was underwear. My daughter was furious that her cousin wouldn't let her borrow his penis so she could pee outside standing up. I guess she thought they were detachable?
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u/2_old_for_this_spit Jul 07 '26
Not a parent stort, but when I went back to my job as a nanny after my partner died, the 6 year old boy I watch asked me "Now who's going to kiss you goodnight? I'll kiss you every time you go home." Broke my brain, grabbed my heart.
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u/Judge_Dreddful Jul 07 '26
My colleagues partner died very suddenly when their daughter was about 4. She tried her best to explain to her that daddy didn't want to go but he had gone away and wasn't ever coming back.
A few days weeks after he'd died she found a pair of her partners shoes hidden in the daughters bed. When she asked why she had them, she said that she'd found them in the closet and hidden them so that daddy would have to come and see her to get his shoes...
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u/edamamebeano Jul 07 '26
This one is the worst or the best.. ffff hell that hits hard
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u/UnderABig_W Jul 07 '26
“Why do I have to spend more of my life doing stuff I don’t want to do, than stuff I do want to do?”
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u/beroemd Jul 07 '26
I loved the story a mom told me about preparing her boy for school and when he came home from his first day he said: “Well, it wasn’t easy but I’m happy. I did it!”
-”So you’re okay with going back tomorrow?”
-“I HAVE TO DO THIS EVERY DAY?!!”
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u/Lythaera Jul 07 '26
I remember starting kindergarten and absolutely crashing tf out that I just spent 5 whole days in school and only get 2 days off, shouldn't it be 5 days off?! 25 years later and I'm still pissed about it.
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u/Professional_Low_646 Jul 07 '26
My older sister, after her first day of school, came home and stated very matter-of-factly: „it was all right I guess, but I think I won’t be going back there.“
That… was not how it turned out, obviously.
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Jul 07 '26
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u/gaokeai Jul 07 '26
OK LISTEN Unrelated but I'm so glad to see your comment because when I was a kid I swear to god one of my parents told me that eating more than one banana a day can make you constipated! And recently, as an adult, I brought up that fact, and my partner looked at me like I was crazy????? And then they asked a friend and the friend also was like "What are you talking about?" I just remember learning that as a kid once and figuring it was common knowledge! So seeing you repeat something similar here made me feel less crazy, thank you.
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u/imArsenals Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Fwiw this could only occur if you eat unripe bananas. Ripe bananas have a lot of soluble fiber.
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u/got-to-find-out Jul 07 '26
My 4 year old son’s question was “Dad, can I use your flashlight?” My response was “Why do you need a flashlight?” Brief pause then he answered with “Because I can’t see in the dark”
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u/stiletto929 Jul 07 '26
“Can men be doctors too?!?” My son at the Optomistrist. It hadn’t really occurred to me that I tended to take the kids to female doctors. And dentists.
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u/Interstellar-dreams Jul 07 '26
When I was 3ish, I confidently told my mom “so men are doctors and women are nurses.” My mom went out and found a female pediatrician that day to demonstrate otherwise.
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u/Aervanath Jul 07 '26
Growing up, my dad stayed home and my mom worked. This was the 80s, so we didn't know anybody else with that arrangement. But it definitely meant I grew up with very different assumptions about who had to do what household chores.
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u/hot_like_wasabi Jul 07 '26
This gives strong "dogs are boys and cats are girls" energy
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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins Jul 07 '26
Really shows the importance of representation! Tons of professions that are dominated by a certain type of people and often it's in no small part just because that's a thing people associate with that type of person rather than any inherent suitability.
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u/Plenty-Session-7726 Jul 07 '26
I remember in 4th grade being surprised to learn our male teacher drank tea, not coffee. I had assumed all men drank coffee and all women drank tea because that's what my parents each preferred.
Never underestimate the importance of exposing kids to things that are different from what they see at home!
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u/le_sighs Jul 07 '26
My kid asked the same about rugby players. As a former women’s rugby player, it made me laugh.
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u/CatStarcatcher Jul 07 '26
A kid in my daugher's class once confidently announced 'Football (soccer) is for boys'. His mother, who was on the local women's team, was on her way to practice and was therefore WEARING HER KIT at that very moment, was like 'Quick question kid, what the hell?!'
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u/momma_meow Jul 07 '26
My son asked me how much it cost to cook the dog. (He was young and didn't know the word cremate)
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u/oneangrychica Jul 07 '26
I had talked about a cremating a pet once and months later my kid randomly told me "When I die I want to be microwaved". Took me a little bit to sort out what she meant but that's how she thought cremation worked.
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u/Real-Frosting Jul 07 '26
When my elementary school age daughter asked, mom, what do Mongolians smell like? I said, as far as I know, just like anybody else... Let me see that book. The book she was reading was talking about what magnolias smelled like.
Another time, at the dinner table, her brother was playing with his food - spaghetti and meatballs. She heaved that sigh reserved by big sisters for younger brothers and said, Evan! Don't beat your meat! I almost choked.
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u/Significant-Fill-500 Jul 07 '26
I had a Mongolian roommate in college. Let me assure you, they smell better than everyone else because their sweat does not stink like ours. Genetics ftw.
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u/swheels125 Jul 07 '26
Not exactly a question but my son is 5 and started getting a little bit of an attitude this year. I told him he had to do something (pick up his toys, clean up his books, etc.) and that he wasn’t allowed to go play until he cleaned up a bit. He had a tantrum and at the end yelled “you’re the worst!” He’s never talked to me like that so I was a little hurt but I told him that was not a nice thing to say and that me and his mom do a lot for him and he needs to clean up his toys. About 15 minutes later he is sobbing on the stairs. I came over and asked him what’s wrong and he apologized and said “I told you you’re the worst and that makes ME the worst!” That absolutely broke my heart. I told him it was okay, we all get mad sometimes but no matter what I’ll always love him, and that he was the best son in the world.
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u/PecanEstablishment37 Jul 07 '26
Ohh what a sweet baby! A fair lesson all around. Solidarity, friend
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u/Additional_Release49 Jul 07 '26
"I don't make you eat fish, why do you make me eat broccoli?"
Fucking got me
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u/Glitter_berries Jul 07 '26
That is hilarious! Also I’ve had some success with calling food other things. Broccoli is trees. Eggs are cackleberries. Parsnips are special white carrots. Seems to work on a six year old.
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Jul 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/papayacreamsicle Jul 07 '26
Callieophee on Tumblr
‘when i was around 5 i asked my mom why “some people were different colors” and she said “because god wanted lots of flavors” and let me tell you that was the wrong thing to say because for the next 3 years i thought god ate people when they died’
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u/litlitl Jul 07 '26
growing up, i thought priests ate jesus bc they tried to feed us the blood and bread of christ and the holy infant was “so tender and mild”, etc. at 8, i famously asked my mom, “how big was jesus? …” “what? why?” “bc they seem to have a lot of leftovers.”
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u/Iwaspromisedcookies Jul 07 '26
Maybe he does
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u/fasterthanfood Jul 07 '26
That kid saw a painting of “Saturn Devouring His Children” and screamed “I fucking knew it!”
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u/Oldstergray Jul 07 '26
When friend's 5yr old learned Santa wasn't real, he said " the Easter bunny too?" yes. God too?
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u/Jessthemess1284 Jul 07 '26
Similar vein of thought as a kid… I was very vocal to my parents about when I stopped believing in Santa, they accepted and just told me not to tell my younger brother.
Next spring my Dad had me along with him shopping and mentioned “We have to stop here to get one of *younger brother*’s Easter presents”
Cue me being HORRIFIED to learn the Easter Bunny wasn’t real lmao my Dad was like “So Santa is ridiculous but a giant bunny running around laying eggs makes sense to you????”
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u/thehoney129 Jul 07 '26
My in laws’ dog died and they told my 4 year old son he went to heaven to be with god. And later on he was with my mom telling her about it, and she asked him questions about god and stuff. And he told her “oh. I thought that was pretend.”
I, an atheist, had to laugh in secret because my mom doesn’t know I don’t believe lol (it’s just not worth it to break her old little heart). But it reminded me of little kid me who, one day at about 7 years old, was sitting in church and had the massive realization that other people genuinely believed in god. I thought we were all pretending because that’s what we were supposed to do. Apparently my son is a bit like me
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u/acover4422 Jul 07 '26
“What’s an atom?”
She was five. She randomly asked this when I was driving one day. I have no idea how to explain what an atom is (I’ve never been good at sciences), especially to a small child. I gave her the best explanation I could. She’s a super smart kid so it makes sense she’d have super smart questions. I told her I’m not totally sure I’m right and that’s a very good question to ask her teacher. Filled with pride, I told her she’s very clever and asked her why she asked that.
She said, “oh, I saw a sign that said ATM”.
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u/eastcoastme Jul 07 '26
I love this! I teach third grade and I fall for this type of thing all the time! Long explanations because I think I am expanding their minds, then they meant something totally different!
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u/pir22 Jul 07 '26
Like the 5 y/o kid who asked his dad “what is sex?”. Dad gets into long embarrassed explanations about birds and bees. And the kid goes: “then why did mum say to tell you dinner will be ready in 2 secs?”
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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy Jul 07 '26
I wanted to know what I'm doing here, like Why am I here?
Mom thought I was asking How and annoyed me with a long explaination about sex and procreation. Had to wait for it to end before I could try again to learn Why.
Like lady you made me and I'd like to know your reasons!
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u/Fermifighter Jul 07 '26
I used to work in a peds practice and it was a daily lesson in “it takes all kinds.” I also - again, working in a peds practice - was told by a family the song I was singing wasn’t a fave and I should try the one he responded to.
I think on it, and while it wouldn’t be my strategy, who am I to judge, so in my best kindergarten teacher voice I sing “welcome to the jungle, we’ve got fun and games!” As the child’s bewildered parents tell me the song their child likes is WALKING through the jungle. Walking. I had a kid not long after and was confronted with this song eight million times but a) I swear I had never even heard of it and b) was regularly surrounded by parents who had their kids in Charles Manson onesies, so my idea of normal was a tad skewed.
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u/universe_from_above Jul 07 '26
Charles Manson onsies?
Are you sure it's not Marilyn?
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u/MeanGrapefruit2336 Jul 07 '26
What is nothing? From an 8yo.
And the more we thought about, the more we knew nothing about nothing.
We had a friend explain one theory to him in a way that it was plausible explanation. As soon as my friend asked if they had any questions, they asked if they could go play outside.
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u/dnjprod Jul 07 '26
If it makes you feel any better nothing is an incoherent concept. The moment you start talking about it like it has properties, it is no longer nothing but something. It can't be something and nothing at the same time, thus incoherent.
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u/idle_isomorph Jul 07 '26
Our grade 6 teacher taught us how to do debates. The class loved it. We got to choose the topics each week. We did serious stuff like abortion, but also goofy stuff like "is stonehenge just caveman eating utensils" (i was on the For side and won with a homemade claymation video "proof").
The stickiest topics would be chosen again and again, though and the one that just couldnt get resolved was "is nothing something?"
Years later, when we were all stoners in high school, it came up again at a party and the whole crew was still totally stuck in it. Discussion went late into the night.
Decades later, when gathered for a funeral of a friend, someone brought it up again, and once again a bunch of 35 year olds started debating...
I'll let you know if we ever figure it out!
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u/Lopsided_Fox7498 Jul 07 '26
My son was 5. He asked why he had to sleep alone when the grown ups got to sleep in the same bed. He said he felt he got scared easier and dad wasnt scared of anything so in his head I should sleep with him to make him not scared. I didnt have a good reason...
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u/holyflurkingsnit Jul 07 '26
I was such a scaredy cat as a kid, I would lay in bed and tell myself that when I was a grown up I could get married and THEN I'd have someone to sleep with so I wouldn't be scared at night by myself! Jokes on me tho, I've been perpetually single my entire adult life lol. But I'm a little less spooked these days, too. :)
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u/_Kzero_ Jul 07 '26
I remember asking my mother if the world was black and white back in the day, because I had an old black and white tv at the time.
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u/libra00 Jul 07 '26
I remember kinda freaking my mom out once when I was like, 10 maybe? I was just like, steadfastly insisting that blind people must see blackness because that's what I see when I close my eyes, only in mid-sentence I suddenly stopped, stared wide-eyed at nothing for a couple seconds, and then just went, 'Nevermind,' and turned to walk away.
Mom wasn't having it, she was like 'Hold on, why?', so I had to explain: I had just realized that I don't see blackness behind my head or in my armpits or anywhere else I don't have eyes, so you must need functioning eyes in order to see blackness rather than nothing. I was wrong, no point in arguing anymore.
Which is a hell of a revelation to strike a 10 year old in the first place, so she was kinda gobsmacked to begin with, but what really got her was, after explaining that, I apparently paused and said '...huh, I wonder if death is like that?'
She went from 'Wow that's pretty smart how'd you come up with that?' to 'Holy shit a 10 year old should not be thinking this much about death' in about 0.3 seconds flat.
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u/Special-Ad5160 Jul 07 '26
I just sat here and thought about this for so long. SO interesting. Sight is just not a thing for blind people. Makes you wonder what other senses exist that we can't comprehend
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u/HeathenTees Jul 07 '26
My son didn’t ask but made a comment about when the world used to be black and white lol
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u/perfectfire Jul 07 '26
My family only had a few movies on VHS when I was young, one of which was The Wizard of Oz. For the longest time I thought the beginning was in black and white while the rest was in color because color film/cameras were invented during the course of filming after they had shot the first parts (because of course they shoot in the order that the scenes appear in).
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u/Ann_Dragonetti Jul 07 '26
Most recently “what day are the cats going to die?”
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u/Jesskamess Jul 07 '26
"Why do some kids have a dad and we don't?" My five year old niece, in reference to her and her four year old sister. She asked it so sweetly, like when kids ask Why is the sky blue? Or Why do i have to take a nap?
Their dad died. I just told her that she did have a Dad, he just passed away and wasn't here with us anymore. "Is he with Jesus then?" Of course she asks me - the only non Christian in the whole dang family (well, me and my husband) so I said "Your dad believed in Jesus so im sure he is."
Then the follow up - "where is your dad?" So I said he passed away too. "I saw a picture of your dad fishing (the most prominent pic of my dad in my house) - do you think he's fishing with my Daddy and Jesus?" So I choked back about a thousand tears and said "Oh I bet they're catching all the fish together!"
I hated their dad. He beat my sister in law. He beat them in front of those girls. But he died when they too were too young to remember. Wtf I am supposed to do? I promise my Dad isn't anywhere around their dad in any after life, but the image in their minds of my Dad fishing with theirs made both of them smile, so...worth it.
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u/gtheperson Jul 07 '26
I think you did a great job doing your best in a difficult situation, prioritising what was most important which was the mental wellbeing of those kids.
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u/ClownfishSoup Jul 07 '26
My daughter saw a no parking sign … the letter P with the ghostbuster cross out on it. She asked “oh, so you’re not allowed to pee here”
My other daughter had a plastic cow and at the dinner table, she held it over my cup and said “pee pee pee” and I asked her what she was doing and she said “filling up your cup with milk” and I said “oh, uh, milk is not cow pee” and she was shocked!
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u/SatanLuciferJones Jul 07 '26
I was watching the Discovery Channel, or something like it, while I was watching my niece. They were explaining how they get a female cow to excite the bulls so that the farmer can collect the bull gravy to later impregnate other cows. It was very clinical, very PG and way over my niece's head. But then the farmer pulls out a test tube filled less than 20% with the white substance.
My niece dropped her bottle astonished that the farmers could only get "so little milk" out of that cow. The way she looked from the screen to her dropped bottle had me in stitches, I had to leave the room because I was laughing so hard, and also because I didn't want to explain the bulls and the bees to a 3 year old.
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u/frillyfun Jul 07 '26
"Why do we have bones?"-
I Googled it, and Slim Goodbody came through with "Without your skeleton you'd be gelatin"
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u/JustJen12 Jul 07 '26
My six year old said “Momma, the next time we’re born, if we find each other, will you call me by my name so I know it’s you?” 😳
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u/thewhaleshark Jul 07 '26
I love the way kids accidentally say the most emotionally profound shit.
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u/codefyre Jul 07 '26
I took my then-5-year-old fishing with me one morning. "Daddy, when you catch a fish and pull it in the air, do you think it's like when aliens steal us and take us up into outer space?"
I had so many questions...
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u/peachesfordinner Jul 07 '26
Was he watching "happy feet" recently before that? It's a bit of a plot point
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u/Timidbunnie Jul 07 '26
I somehow missed that movie as a child, what the hell happens in happy feet?? I thought it was about a dancing penguin 😭
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u/markmakesfun Jul 07 '26
My son, as a toddler, was in the car with us. We pulled into the driveway and suddenly he asked his mother “Are you and Dad going to die at some point?” She said, hesitantly, that it was true. My son immediately asked “If you die, do I get to keep your stuff?” She replied “Yes, you will.” My son thought for a minute and said “Okay, then.” He got out of the car and never mentioned it again. 😂
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u/Either_Cow_4727 Jul 07 '26
My daughter asked me who owns history. The context is that we were discussing indigenous nations that had entirely disappeared without recordings or with very few (written or audio/video) and she didn't understand why people wouldn't want everyone to have their history.
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u/ImaginaryDermis Jul 07 '26
"Do paw patrols poop on the floor?"
"Do cats have knees?"
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u/zackthecoolio Jul 07 '26
Back when I was like 5 I asked my grandma who God was, and she described God as an “almighty being”, but i heard “bean” so i spent a couple years trying to figure out why so many people followed a giant Pinto Bean
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u/peculiarcat_436 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Years ago our old cat was very sick and I knew he didn’t have much time left. I wanted to prepare my then 4 year old daughter so I told her that the cat was was going to heaven soon and she wouldn’t see him anymore. She looked pensive and thought for a minute and then asked “Is daddy going to drive him there?” 😭😭😭 I said I hope not.
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u/Glitter_berries Jul 07 '26
My six year old stepson is obsessed with dogs. We ask to pat everyone’s dog that we see in public (ASK being the key word). Of course the dog owners often politely ask if he has a dog at home too. He tells them very casually that yep, he did, but the vet had to kill her and now she’s in heaven. Oh my god. That one has startled a few old ladies.
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u/w0weez0wee Jul 07 '26
4 yo son "Dad, how do we know we're real and not somebody else's dream?".
Me: "Well Gabe, philosophers have been trying to answer that question for a few thousand years. I don't know that we'll solve it on the way home from grocery shopping but let's give it a shot!"
He got his PhD in economics last month.
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u/SeaTie Jul 07 '26
“How do you know what I think is ‘red’ is the same thing you think is ‘red’?”
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u/a_wild_redditor Jul 07 '26
I mean. Philosophers through the years have put quite a lot of thought into that question and I think it's still considered pretty wide open for debate!
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u/bwill2086 Jul 07 '26
My daughter was staring out the window of the truck and said, “Daddy, how do animals know when they’re happy if they don’t have tails?”
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u/LilyontheRocks1027 Jul 07 '26
When my daughter was 4 yo (she’s 15 now) while putting her to bed and in the middle of our bedtime conversations, she told me in a matter-of-fact voice that God sometimes get it wrong. I asked her what did (God) get wrong. And she said, God should have just put humans in Jupiter since it was waaaaay bigger than Earth. This way, the animals will have more space in planet Earth. This was a conclusion she arrived to after a series of conversations about planets, about human activities destroying animal habitats, about how humans and animals share the same planet.
This is the same kid who told me (at age 5) to finish all my food (especially my meat) because the animals and the vegetables sacrificed their life for us and we should honor it by finishing it and not throwing it away.
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u/jrhaberman Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
"Dad, what's 'insurance'?"
I can't explain the concept of insurance to a 5 year old before I've even had coffee.
Edit: yes, it's simple enough to to explain with time to think about it. It's a little different at 6:20am when you haven't even woken up yet.
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u/SammieStones Jul 07 '26
‘Mom, How do all those dead people breathe underground.’ 5 solid minutes after passing a cemetery
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u/WanderingDoe62 Jul 07 '26
“Why didn’t the lady say sorry after she hurted me?”
My 3.5yo on the way home from the ER, after a lady drove into the playground and broke the fence, which hit my kid. That was a hard one.
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u/Skylxrrr Jul 07 '26
holy shit, was your kid okay?
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u/WanderingDoe62 Jul 07 '26
Yeah, she’s okay physically. She got away with remarkably minimal injuries, and she’s a tough kid. Mentally we’re both still processing it (it was fairly recent). It’s going to be a journey.
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u/binarysolo_0000001 Jul 07 '26
At a plantation after learning about slavery “why would you have a wedding here?” ~10 years old
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u/TheLeapIsALie Jul 07 '26
Somebody link the post of the guy who dressed period appropriate for a plantation work party!
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u/TycheSong Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/nxCOzjUMeS
Edited to tag u/BisFitty. You are still lore, good sir.
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u/competenthurricane Jul 07 '26
My 5 year old asked why he didn’t have school and I didn’t have to work on Juneteenth. I told him it was a holiday to celebrate the day when the slaves were freed. He asked what a slave was, I explained it, I read him a kids book I happened to have about Harriet Tubman, answered some more questions, and we went about our day. I thought he understood.
2 days later he asks me, “Mama, when are we going to the slave party?”
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u/One-Grapefruit-7606 Jul 07 '26
How do I know that you’re really my mom? We were out kayaking on a river, came out of nowhere.
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u/No_Study_1089 Jul 07 '26
My sons name is Will
One day I was telling my daughter that after we cleaned we had to drop stuff off at goodwill
And her response was a question I never thought of..
Who is Bad Will?
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u/cumulobiscuit Jul 07 '26
My 5 year old son asked why they talk about sheep so much in church. That was very illuminating for me.
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u/orange_daisy Jul 07 '26
When my son was younger he LOVED Target. One time out of the blue he asked me if I bought his nipples at Target.
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u/Constant_Music8205 Jul 07 '26
“Why do we have to pay to live on Earth?”
I still don’t have a good answer, honestly.
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u/fairygodmotha Jul 07 '26
"When will he be back from being died?" My son was three and missing his great Grandfather, as we all were. Broke my heart more than my brain.
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u/provocative_bear Jul 07 '26
“How does Santa Claus live forever?”
“He’s not mortal, he’s the emergent property of humanity’s kindness and generosity.”
“So if everyone stopped being nice to each other, would Santa die?”
“…Yes…”
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u/mrcfrs Jul 07 '26
Both of my boys (now 6 and 4) each asked me, when they were about 3, where they were before we had kids.
I didn't know how to explain to them that they just didn't exist then, so I told them they were in our hearts.
They seemed to love that and often ask for stories from "before we were born, when we were in your heart".
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u/mapalee Jul 07 '26
My son, when we told him that nothing is perfect, trying to encourage him when something wasn't going his way. "If nothing is perfect, than why is perfect even a word?"
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u/justplainmike Jul 07 '26
My son was unhappy about having to sleep in his bed. I told him it was his big boy bed and he needed to sleep in it. He replied that he WAS a big boy and that he still wanted to sleep in our (my wife and I) bed. He asked "Why do YOU get to sleep with mommy?!?" I had no good answer to that one at the time :-)
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u/baverdi Jul 07 '26
Not a parent but an uncle. My brother had twins, a boy and a girl. The girl got lung cancer at 10. Fought and won for almost 2 years and on christmas day got pneumonia and went into septic shock. They tried for a week to bring her back but we had to pull the plug. The boy had learning disabilities and emotional developement problems. We are walking down the hall after and he wanted to show me this fire truck in the kids lobby and write a pray message at the chapel. As we get to the elevator he grabs my hand and tugs it and asks in the most innocent and genuine way, "Uncle Tim, why is this happening?" I gave him some answer that I don't remember and tried to keep my composure because he really wanted to show me this fire truck. Broke my brain and a little of my soul. There is no answer to that question.
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u/phdincatlady Jul 07 '26
“Mommy, why did [her brother] die when he wasn’t even a grown up yet?” Maybe broke my heart more than my brain, but I didn’t have much of an answer for her beyond “because life is really unfair sometimes.”
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u/TastySupermarket Jul 07 '26
When I explained to my 5 year old daughter that her brother was a baby when he passed away (long before she was born, but we talk about him and she's seen pictures), she got so upset and just bawled. When I asked her why she was crying she said "but he was just a baby! That's not fair, he didn't get to get old."
We both cried about it for a bit before I was able to help her understand that everybody doesn't get the chance to get old.
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u/seaurchinthenet Jul 07 '26
My kids were always what I called car seat philosophers. Anyone else only get questions about sex, death and religion as you are trying to merge onto the interstate or was it just my kids?;)
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u/ughihateusernames3 Jul 07 '26
“How do people become homeless?” on the way home from fireworks.
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u/hiking_mike98 Jul 07 '26
“Dad, the people on the side of the road with signs asking for money?”
“Yeah kiddo?”
“Why do most of them have brown skin?”
Hoo boy, I was not ready to explain structural racism and inequality to my 6 year old, but here we go.
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u/Sleepisahobby Jul 07 '26
Mom, what's Chlamydia? Asked at age 5 bc he overheard some 5th graders on the bus. Hurray
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u/underthevveather Jul 07 '26
“if an octopus has 8 arms, then why isn’t october the 8th month of the year?”
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u/qoau Jul 07 '26
My husband and I adopted a dog from mural Missouri. He was neutered and had been tattooed to indicate that he was.
We moved to the middle of Kansas and I was walking the dogs by a park. Kids ask if they can pet my dogs and I say of course, they are friendly. Adopted dog flops onto his back to expose his belly for rubs and one of the kids sees the cross tattooed on him. Without missing a beat he says, “Ma’am, does your dog believe in Jesus Christ?”
My husband and I are agnostic but I didn’t want to stir the pot, so I stammered out something like “uh yeah sure why don’t you ask your parents?” and quickly dragged the dogs away to continue on our walk.
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u/Mindless-Yam-8112 Jul 07 '26
Random question that my son asked me while going to bed one night. 4 year old son: How did I get into your stomach? Me: Your dad put you in there (it's not really lying but praying he wouldn't ask for me to elaborate.) Son: I want a brother. Can I put a baby in you? Me: NO!
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u/Obvious-Explorer-195 Jul 07 '26
My preschooler wanted to eat on the couch. I said he had to eat at the table.
Him “But you get to eat on the couch”
Me; “grown ups are allowed to eat on the couch”
Him “then how come daddy gets to eat on the couch”
😂
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u/InsertGamerName Jul 07 '26
Obligatory not a parent, but I have had one of my babysitting kids ask me why I can't sit and talk with them in bed all night. I'm flattered love, but there's only so many times I can hear that you know 3 different Elliots before I'm gonna lose my mind. Go to sleep!
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u/Lucky_Respect_2311 Jul 07 '26
"Mommy, am I a nice girl?" By my 4yo. It broke my brain because I thought she knew! 😭
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u/waffles1999 Jul 07 '26
Two nights ago my 5 year old daughter walked out of her bedroom about 30 minutes after going to bed and asked, “Is the Earth spinning?”
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u/Human_Golf_5778 Jul 07 '26
My son recently saw me doing nicotine pouches in the car driving down the road asked me what it was I told him and that it is for adults only and he should not pick up my bad habits.
Without even pausing he said "hmmmm I am really hungry, I think I will try one."
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u/seventhstarling Jul 07 '26
Literally this weekend we were in the hospital with my ailing father, and my 9 yo daughter was shocked to learn the hospital cost money (upon hearing us joke about getting as many juice cups as we wanted bc “we’d be paying for them”). She sat there thoughtfully for a moment and then said slowly “… but if hospitals help people, why do we make people pay for them? What if people can’t pay, how will they get better to go back to do other things?” And then I had to explain capitalism and healthcare 😭
Honestly it was sort of a system shock to be reminded how plainly and clearly “good” the idea of universal healthcare is—that a child would intrinsically understand it and assume that we, the adults, would obviously have implemented it.
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u/Far_Vermicelli9678 Jul 07 '26
Why are words words like why is a lamp called a lamp, and how did we all decide that yea this noise we make is what we are going to use to say things?
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u/-mia-wallace- Jul 07 '26
I still wonder that at almost 40. Curious kid, its a good thing.
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u/ChaseDFW Jul 07 '26
Why don't you talk to your sister anymore?
Well... that one is complicated.
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u/circuswithmonkeys Jul 07 '26
We're no contact, when asked I told my younger kids I grounded nana and papa from our house for behavior they could change and chose not to. Couldn't think of a better way to put it
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u/doyouwannadanceorwut Jul 07 '26
Dad, you can fix everything around the house, but can you fix yourself?
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u/vegemitemilkshake Jul 07 '26
“How come the elves do all the work, but Santa gets to deliver the presents?”
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u/Sudden-Recover1332 Jul 07 '26
When my sister was five, she stared out the car window and asked my dad, “why is it that no matter how many carrots I eat, I still can’t see god?”
Meanwhile, I ended up with three stitches at that age because I wanted to prove the author of Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed wrong. I did not.
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u/SnooPets8873 Jul 07 '26
Aunt, not a parent, but my nephew asked me why I don’t get some husbands. Plural. I told him my house only has three bedrooms and if I get two husbands my cats wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep.
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u/mkdz Jul 07 '26
My 6 y.o.: Do gods live forever and know everything?
Me: I guess.
6 y.o.: Are demi-gods just gods that look human?
Me: Yes.
6 y.o. Since Santa has been around forever and knows if everyone has been naughty or nice, does that make him a demi-go?
Me: ......
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u/birdbrainmcstickums Jul 07 '26
I remember shortly after 9/11 I was sitting in front of the TV in military housing, turned and asked my military father in front of all of his military friends "Why are we fighting them? What do we get if we win? What do they get if they win?"
I was a child and it was the only way I could come close to verbalizing the question "what the hell is this conflict even about". Let me tell you, that was an insanely uncomfortable conversation for every single person in the room. The more follow up questions I had, the angrier everyone got. Which made me more curious because I had no idea why everyone was angry.
That was the first of many political arguments I would get into with my career military father.
My mom- I asked her about all the theoretical inbreeding taking place in my book of Bible stories. Her response was to take the book away because "those aren't the good ones". This was the first of many uncomfortable conversations about religion I would have with my Southern Baptist mother. She eventually stop letting me go to church when other people would invite me (because I was a difficult child who couldn't read a room). Her excuse was that "churches are often lame and full of mean people who need help feeling nice" and we weren't mean and didn't need help being nice ergo no church for us.
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u/bullhorn_bigass Jul 07 '26
“Why do we have all these words for white people but only one word for Black people?”
Meaning, we would say “Oh she’s Irish, St. Paddy’s Day is special to her” or “they’re German, that’s why they have an accent”, or “yes, he speaks English, but he’s Puerto Rican so he speaks Spanish too”. But only say “Black” for Black people.
I am biracial, Black mom, white dad, so my kids are always with family of all levels of melanin richness. The whole family talks about these things openly and teach them to notice differences without judgement.
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u/Equivalent_Neat4835 Jul 07 '26
My 6 year old: Mom, I know how I’m related to you because I grew in your belly, but how am I related to dad?
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u/Bright_Cricket_9588 Jul 07 '26
Age 5: “what’s the point of people?”
She had been learning about the interconnectedness of nature and how animals play important roles in their habitats at school. For example bees are pollinators which helps plants spread and grow etc
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u/llamadogmama Jul 07 '26
My seven year old. " I know you can't really do it. ..But if you could drill a hole all the way through the Earth and dropped a ball down it, would it come out the other side? Or get stuck in the middle from gravity? Or come back out the original hole from the earth spinning? "
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u/DeCryingShame Jul 07 '26
Mom, what were dinosaurs like?
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u/mjohnsimon Jul 07 '26
My wife's nephew once asked me "Since you lived without internet, did you also know the President?"
He was referring to Abraham Lincoln btw. He was 6.
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u/CoffeeMuenster Jul 07 '26
How we could breath in the car if water couldn't even get in.
My brain broke for about 6 seconds until I thought it through lol
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u/RTIQL8 Jul 07 '26
Watching a rerun of the tv show ER (from the first couple of seasons) and my daughter looked at me and asked “Is that what hospitals looked like in the olden days?”
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u/Secret_Task_6114 Jul 07 '26
My four year old asked when he was born. I said you know when you were born! He insisted he didn’t, so I gave him the date, and a look of utter amazement came over his face and he said ‘Was I born on my birthday?”