I read somewhere that we are all artists when we are kids (until someone says a negative critic against our art work). Likewise, we are all philosophers when we are kids… or maybe I’m wrong, and I just used to be a kid philosopher, and my two children turned out to be even better kid philosophers than me. I wonder if that amazement from questioning themselves and their surroundings, will still be there when they grow up. I hope so.
I think the best time for kids philosophy (an euphemism for when the kids start asking ‘why?’ to everything and apparently don’t what to ever stop) is between the ages of four and eight. My younger kid, a seven-year old, is at the peak at his best philosophy time. He came yesterday with these thoughts:
‘I’ve been thinking about people before they are alive. If everything was dark, how did colors appeared?’ The mom that is writing right now had to forget about the kitchen, and the ‘real’ world, to focus in the child and his question: ‘Do you mean, about people before they are born?’, I asked tentatively, ‘Yes’, he said, but I guessed that it was more than that, so I told him that at the beginning everything was dark, and that the whole universe was condensed in a huge ball. Then, a massive explosion occurred (called by scientists ‘the Big Bang’) and that all the debris from the explosion became stars, and planets. Suddenly I realized that I had left God out of the equation, so I added: ‘some people think that it was God who made that explosion’.
He frowns, thinking, and asks: ‘And where does God come from?’. Oh no; we were going so well. ‘Eeehhh… God doesn’t come from anywhere, he doesn’t have a beginning and doesn’t have an end, it’s infinite’. When he heard this, he laughed so hard (and so cute) saying: ‘Hahaha, but everything has a beginning’. I tried to say something else, but it was obvious that he was starting to lose faith at his mom’s responses. Oh well.
A few months ago, while we were praying, I switched to Spanish to talk to him about God, and he realized that in Spanish ‘Dios’ (God) is male. He told me, laughing out loud, because it sounded ridiculous to him: ‘but God is not a man, is a woman’. While smiling inside, I told him that ‘Dios’, or ‘Diosa’ (female Goddess) didn’t have sex, confusing him even more, I presume. But I also guess that he’s making his own conclusions and that his mind is picking up, developing on his own.
I love that. I want him to think by himself, and if something doesn’t make sense, even if it comes from his mom, he could argue it back. I already learned a while ago that I can control my kids’ actions, but I can’t control their minds. I can lead them in the way I think is better, I can do that. But their minds are theirs, and theirs only. The best I can do is teach by example, and from there, I hope they’ll have some ground to grow and develop their minds however they like. It’s an exciting future to look forward to.
