Sometimes casual conversations with our kids lead to pertinent discussions. Like the other day, a simple topic of ants led to an intellectual exploration of the concept  “it’s all relative”. You know the – ‘your yuck could be my yum’, ‘boring to you could be interesting to me’, ‘silly to you could be offensive to me’ – sort of talk.

But coming back to ants – We were all in the van headed out for breakfast. One thing led to another, and soon we were talking about these friendly six-legged insects. 

“Do you know a cool thing about ants,” my husband asked. “An ant can carry 10-50 times its weight. Some ants, even more.”

I wanted to put that in context. Explain how it would be considered super human if we could do the things an ant does. 

I expanded “So, if you think about it, an ant is not just strong, it is so much stronger than us. An ant can carry 50 ants on its head.  But I cannot carry 50 people on my head.”

Both kids were silent for a minute absorbing what I had said. The image of me carrying 50 people was probably a bit disturbing. 

My husband tried another time.”Imagine, if an ant went to school, as you do, it could carry its whole class, maybe more. Would you be able to carry your whole class? Think about it, Simon, Julia, Art, Arush, all on your head. Could you do it?”

“No,” they replied in unison and giggled. 

“So, who is stronger?” I asked.

“The ant,” said my seven-year-old.

But my five-year-old still seemed confused. He thought a bit more. Finally, his face lit up. 

“No,” he said confidently, “I am stronger.

An ant cannot carry my whole class, but I can carry an ant’s whole class.”