These kids today...

"Kids aren't scared of anything anymore. My grandson is learning about the planets and he has no fear at all. None. He told me about the ice and the gasses and the distance from the sun and the time it takes for a day to pass. I asked him about Martians and Neptunians and he just looked at me. 'Grandpa, there aren't such things.' I asked him how did he know? What were the odds that there are 9 planets in our solar system and not another single one has life on it? Doesn't it make more sense that they are out there...waiting...watching.

He rolled his eyes at me and said, 'Actually there are only 8. Pluto isn't a planet.' And then I told him, well doesn't that scare you then? That at some point some one in a lab coat on some other planet could just decide that Earth no longer makes the planetary cut and we are deemed just a hunk of rock? What then?

He just shook his head, 'It doesn't work that way, Grandpa.'

So then I asked about life outside of our solar system. Didn't that scare him. He just shrugged his shoulders and said he hadn't really thought much about it. Hadn't thought much about it! What are they teaching these kids in school today? Why hadn't he thought about it? I told my daughter I wanted to talk to his science teacher and see what sort of explanation I could get. She just gave me that smile, you know the one? The one I used to give her when she was 6 and I just wanted her to be quiet for 10 minutes? I hate when she gives me that smile.

When we went to the beach this summer I tried to get him to talk about the possibilities of sea monsters and mermaids. He told me that 'most likely sailors mistook manatees for mermaids in a dehydrated delirium. And that the sea monsters were probably just the backs of whales breaching but since they hadn't seen such large animals before they imagined the worst.' I asked him about the Loch Ness monster! What was his explanation for good old Nessy? He didn't have one. But he wasn't about to believe in an ancient sea serpent based on a blurry photograph.

I asked him about magic and wizards and that boy he used to talk about all the time, that Potter kid. He told me, 'those are just books, Grandpa, they weren't real.' Ah ha! Now I had him, I told him to explain to me how they weren't real. So he did, he told me about how someone wrote the stories, they made them up. I said, like your history books right? Someone wrote those as well. He said, 'But those are real, Grandpa, that's history.' I asked him what he would do if I could show him two different history books talking about the same piece of history that had totally different stories. He told me, 'Well, of course, it depends on which side of a battle you are on if you view it one way or another, but that doesn't make it less real. It's all just point of view.' So then I told him so your point of view is that there are no monsters, no aliens, no magic? And my point of view is that there are?

Aha, then you could see the wheels turning, he was looking for the trap. He was sure he was right and I was wrong but what if I had something up my sleeve? What if I could prove to him that what I believed was real?

So then I walked out of the room with a wink and smile for the boy. These kids today with their logic and their reasoning and their 'pics or it didn't happen', what they need is a bigger dose of what if?"