Want to know how much you don’t know? Answer a question from a child

5 hours ago 3

Opinion

November 8, 2025 — 5.30am

The young mind is a wonder to behold. One young chap, to whom I’m closely related, believes my iPad has only one thing on it: a video of some opera singer performing the Queen of the Night aria. When he sees the device in my hand, he requests the tune. I duly comply. His parents are OK with that, but god knows what happens when he discovers you can also watch Bluey on the thing or, more to the point, Ms Rachel.

Talking of Bluey, another grandchild is surprised that Bluey is available on the TV set at our place. He assumes, it seems, that the characters are imprisoned in the TV that resides in his living room, just waiting to be summoned to perform their tricks. How they can be inside his TV first thing this morning and yet inside ours, three suburbs away, by the time he arrives is something he finds quite impossible to understand.

How does Bluey get in the TV? Effed if I know, kid.

I try to explain the basics of film and television, in both broadcast and streaming modes, but discover after two sentences that I don’t understand it myself. “It’s, um, radio waves, which are all around us, and digital data. Yes, digital data.” I wave my arm airily, as if that explains it.

He looks unconvinced by my explanation and, frankly, so am I. Maybe he’s right, and the characters do just live inside the TV.

Children are keen to understand the world. It’s a lovely thing. The problem is that each “why” question reveals your own ignorance. “Why is the sky blue?” “What do ants eat?” “Why do dogs wag their tails?” I find I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. Do you?

More questions fly in by the minute. “Why do stars twinkle?” “Why can’t Clancy talk?” “Why are giraffes so tall?”

Oh, bliss. I know the answer to that last one. “Giraffes are tall so they can eat the new leaves off the top of the tall trees.” I lean back beaming, as if I’m David Bloody Attenborough.

It’s not a good score, though, one right from six questions. If this were the Good Weekend quiz I’d be morose for a week. I also assume this same child, in a year or two, will work himself up to the doozy: “If the planet really is spinning, then why don’t we all fall off?”

Oh, I know the answer is gravity, but how does that work? “Well, it’s like we’ve got magnets in our shoes! And so have all the cars. And all the giraffes. Plus, of course, all the sandwiches, they have magnets in them too, otherwise they’d just spin off into space …” God knows what I studied at school for all those years because this is the best I can do.

Sometimes the questions are even tougher. I take Pip, now four, to the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney so he can indulge his fascination for Ancient Egypt, particularly the process of mummification.

One problem: one of the mummies in the museum’s collection is a child. The label describes him as: “A five- or six-year-old boy, most probably from Thebes”.

Pip looks at the mummy and then looks up at me. “But children don’t die.”

I blather on unconvincingly about the improvements in medicine since the time of the ancient Egyptians before falling into an awkward silence. “Well, how about a lovely ice-cream at the cafe?” Then, in the cafe, there’s a long discussion about things that are real (mummies and dinosaurs) and things that are not real (dragons and cartoon characters). But he’s seen a poster for a film in which there are dinosaurs but also real humans, so why do people say they were never on Earth at the same time?

Yeah, well, thanks for nothing, Sam Neill. Could you please pop over and help explain?

I remember these conversations from when my own children were this age. We’d be watching a video at home:

Three-year-old: Who’s that man?

Me: It’s Robin Hood.

Three-year-old: But it’s a lady.

Me: Well, it’s a lady there now. But it was Robin Hood just a second ago.

Three-year-old: Why can’t I see him?

Me: Because the camera isn’t pointing at him, that’s why.

Three-year-old: Where’s the camera?

Me: Well, you can’t see that, either.

Three-year-old: But I want to see the camera!

Me: Well, you can’t. But he’ll be back soon.