gravity

Yesterday Moomin made some innocuous remarks that led to a great discussion. It reminded me how what sounds childish can be profound & thoughtful. Kids are often having insights that they find it difficult to express.

Moomin: You know, my eyes are above my nose. Isn't that funny?
Me: (driving, thinking about feminist literary recanonization) Mmmm-hmmm. Yup.
Moomin: And my nose is above my mouth. Right? Right? Right?
Me: Mmm-hmmm. It sure is. *I'm thinking, Thank you, Captain Obvious.*
Moomin: And my MOUTH is above my CHIN.  Isn't that FUNNY?
Me: Hmmm. Sure is!   (?????)
Moomin: And my chin is above my neck and my neck is above my body and my body is above my feet. Right? Mom, my body is above my feet.
Me:  Yes, absolutely. Your body is above your feet. Yup. YAAAAAAWWWN. Didn't we cover this concept 4 years ago while watching Elmo videos? Above and below. Prepositions 101. Please, god, give me patience and let it not show that I am bored senseless.
Moomin: So everything is above and below something else. Because my feet are above the EARTH. And my head is also above the Earth. And the sky is above my head. And SPACE is above the Earth. Mom, is space above the solar sister? Or is the solar sister above space? Mom, how did the solar sister begin?
Me:  OH!!!!!! 
Me: Oh. Oh. Hmm.  I get it.  Um.  Maybe the universe is above space. But then what's above the universe?  Er, ahahaha.  The solar system probably began as a sort of cloud of interstellar dust. And blah blah blah. Dust. Coalescing. Er, elements. Particles. Gravity.
Moomin: *considers this a while*   Mom, if gravity made the Solar System begin, what made gravity begin?  How could there be no gravity, and then, gravity?
Me:  *I start to cry a little out of happiness and complex feelings of inadequacy*

I will spare you my lame explanation of the Big Bang and how I ended up saying "Go ask your dad, the physicist" to many further questions. And of, like, creation myths and stuff.

So, this reminder to myself and to y'all to listen and wait, because you can't always see the questions and thoughts behind the words -- of anyone -- not just kids -- it's  not like 5 year olds normally bust out with, "Mom, I was pondering some questions of deep philosophical and scientific importance. Could we discuss how everything exists in relation to everything else, and also, infinity and the end of time?"

Comments

[Denise]

Ya know, I wish you (and Moomin) had been around a few years ago when the boy child started talking about some ridiculous singing in a bomb thing. It made absolutely no sense, it still makes no sense. I wouldn't mind if we got to the bigger question but around here, the bigger question never seems to come. It gets lost in the ridiculousness.

Want to trade boy children? I'll take moomin who gets to the big question and you can have J who gets stuck singing inside of a bomb. Please.

[TW]

Ok, I know I must have said this before, but I will say it again, Moomin is eerily like my children. I would, if I were another sort of mother, or my children were another sort of children, take this as a sign that all of these children are just reassuringly average and not at all unusual.

[TW]

Geez, I was going to mention singing in a bomb. But, then I figured I wouldn't. Besides, despite the fact that singing in a bomb has achieved cult status in our house, RJ is really more apt to start these sorts of conversations.

[badgerbag]

I think it's smart of course but it's also something that pretty much everyone must realize around that age. Who remembers the time before they grasped the concept of infinity?

I used to lie in bed just trying to picture my body spinning around as the earth was and the earth going around the sun and the whole solar system kind of whooshing around in the spiralling galaxy, etc.... It's funny to think that I was a tiny kid and it never occurred to me to mention that kind of imagining to anyone. There wasn't much context to talk about that, somehow. There were books, in which people had those kinds of thoughts. And then there was actual life, where that wasn't... conversational material. How sad! but also, since that's the case for a lot of people, no wonder we turn to writing.

[e]

in grad school one of those ideas you have i had: collect everybody's first philosophical thoughts. turns out nearly all of us had them (we were a philosophy dept, so watch out!) i had two: how do i know that when I taste milk and you taste milk, it doesn't taste to you like orange juice does to me?; and how do i know i really woke up this morning and i won't just wake up sometime later and this will have been a dream? my major professor had just one: why is there something rather than nothing? so i was epistemological from the get-go and he was ontological, and we were mostly all around 5 or so at the time of having. and we all had these major deja vu epiphanies when first we re-encountered them in Leibniz or somewhere. never did do that collection. interestingly, I was chagrinned at how stupid i was that i had thought this thing that already had been thought before, while he was all i-must-be-a-genius....

[badgerbag]

Oh my god that is FASCINATING. That would be a fabulous collection and would make a great web site, with commentary by Real Live Philosophers explaining what philosophical concept the kid-epiphanies illustrate. It would be a neat teaching tool, and would also make people realize how smart they really are without knowing it.

[minnie]

i distinctly remember having the milk vs orange juice question with A.E. as a kid.