When I was
five years old, I asked my mother, “Where did the first carrot come from?” My
mother, not really understanding the question, replied “Carrots come from seeds
that we plant.”
“But where
did the first seed come from?”
I asked again. My mother, starting to sense the profoundness of the question,
tried to explain that a long time ago, the world had no people and God made all
the plants and animals. Unsatisfied, I pressed on – “But where did those carrots come from? Where did the first seed or carrot come from?” My
mother, unable to come up with any other explanation, simply said, “God made
the first seed,” and promptly changed
the subject.
This was
very unsatisfactory to me even as a five year old, but I got the sense my
mother just didn’t know the answer, so I put the question in the back of my mind.
A few nights ago, I was babysitting and toweling off a four year old and her two year old sister
after their baths. She was asking me about the bath water and where it came from.
I have explained to her about pipes and plumbing in the past, so I was
surprised she was asking again. As I started to remind her, she interrupted me
and said “No, where did the first water
come from?”
I was
caught off guard. I asked her to clarify.
“How did the water get made? How did it come to the dinosaurs’ bathtubs?” I
laughed and told her that dinosaurs didn’t have bathtubs, and that a long, long
time ago there were no bathtubs or streets or cities in the world and dinosaurs
got their water from oceans, rivers and lakes. But she pressed on. “But who
made the world?”
I realized
that if she was anything like my five year old self, the answer “God made it”
would not be satisfactory (and I try to let parents do the religious explanations if they're at all religiously inclined; it's not really my place).
I said, “That’s complicated to explain. Let me think
about it for a minute.” (Meanwhile, I’m in the middle of putting a diaper on a
wriggly two year old, looking around for her pajamas and trying to respond to her deepest query of the night – “where
is my dolly?” all while trying to figure out how I’m going to explain evolution
to a four year old!) This is the explanation I came up with:
“A long,
long time ago, there was no world. There was only tiny pieces of rocks, dust and
diamonds floating in outer space. One day, they all stuck together and made the
world. Then, slowly, oceans and trees started to appear. (“Like magic?” she
interrupted.) Kind of like magic, but different. It’s a magic called science.
They started to grow very slowly, First the world only had fish and bugs. Then
one day, a fish came out of the ocean to see if he could live on the sand. And
he started to change a little bit – he started to grow legs. And more fish came
out and little by little they changed into different things like turtles and
lizards. (“And hippos?” she asked.) Yes, hippos too. Then one day, some of the
lizards decided to walk into the forest and see if they could live there. And
they started to change a little bit. Some of them started to grow wings and
become birds, others started to grow fur and become rabbits, squirrels, lions
and monkeys.
Then one
day, some of the monkeys decided to come out of the trees and see if they could
live on the ground. They started to stand up straighter and walk, and their fur
went away. And they turned into people. And the people started to walk all over
the world, and make houses and cities and bathtubs.”
She
listened intently to every word, and there were no more questions. I hope my explanation made some sense to her; it's hard to explain eons of time to a toddler who can't even grasp the meaning of an hour yet.
I’ve
essentially given the same explanation to six year olds, but I’m able to add in
the concept of heredity since they have a better grasp of time (i.e. One day a
monkey had a baby that looked a tiny bit different, and then when that baby
monkey grew up it had a another baby that looked a little bit more different,
and in thousands and thousands of years, they had changed to people.) A
four year old can barely grasp the meaning of a year or numbers above twenty,
so my approach had to be different.
Sometimes I
wonder if religion was invented for the purpose of answering our children’s
questions. In the absence of scientific knowledge, our ancestors had to come up
with something to quiet young minds.
(I don’t
think evolution necessarily interferes with anyone’s religion either, as the
same child later exemplified in a conversation about dead people: “So when
we’re dead we can play with Terry Fox and baby Jesus?”)
I’m
interested to know how other people have explained the universe to their young
children. I wonder if anyone’s written a book on evolution for toddlers?
[edit: I just googled it and wow, yes they have! I'll have to check some of them out.]