Knowledge

The boy (7) asked recently about where water came from. I talked about hydrogen and oxygen combining, which led to where did they come from. I said billions of years ago when the parts that made the earth combined—he interrupted with, “Oh, you mean after the Big Bang.” Now, he does read a lot of planet stuff, and I'm sure he doesn't have a complete understanding of the Big Bang (heck, I know I don't completely understand it); but still, when I was 7, I'm pretty sure that phrase wasn't in my vocabulary.

It's always been fascinating how my kids learn things that I didn't teach them. Naturally they learn a certain amount of information this way when you send them off to school, but you expect that what they pick up in the early grades is pretty basic stuff. I frequently quiz them--”Where did you learn that?!”--and the answer usually is, “In a book I read.” And they usually remember what book.

I shouldn't be surprised. I remember oceans of stuff I learned at a relatively young age just from . . . reading.

Hey, at least he doesn't believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago.