How kids see relationships

Some people spend many a happy hour delving into the devious minds of serial criminals. Others devote lifetimes to trying to discover what makes successful businessmen tick. A few people have even tried to fathom the mind of politicians; but there is no recorded evidence that any of them got past square one before being institutionalised.

The latest craze is analysing the minds of sports coaches and administrators. It’s by no means easy because in order to analyse a mind, the subject needs to have one in the first place.

Personally, I can spend hours whiling away the time watching my grandchildren and trying to fathom what is going on in their tiny, mysterious and enormously creative minds. And as I do so, I am ever aware of the wisdom of Ogden Nash who said:“O, what a tangled web do parents weave, when they think that their children are naïve.”

Frankly, the study of what makes a child tick is far more entertaining than trying to unravel what goes on in the heads of businessmen, criminals and sporting heroes. Sometimes, though, I have to admit that it seems to me that the success of sporting heroes is directly relative to how little actually goes on in their heads. For example, my father always insisted that too much imagination was the ruin of a golfer.

But back to children, all of whom have a quite astounding amount of activity going on in their heads at any given time. They’re extremely observant too, when it comes to the meaning of life. Just look how some of these kids answered the question:

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHOM TO MARRY?
“You have to find somebody who likes the same stuff. If you like sport, she should like it that you like sport and she should keep the chips and dip coming.”  —  Alan, age 10

“No person really decides before they grow up whom they’re going to marry. God decides it all way before and you get to find out later who you’re stuck with…”  —  Kristen, 10

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?
“Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then.”  —  Camille, 10

HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?
“You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids.”  —  Derrick, 8

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?
“Both don’t want any more kids.”  —  Lori, 8

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?
“Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough…”  —  Lynnette, 8

“On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date.”  —  Martin, age 10

WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON A FIRST DATE THAT WAS TURNING SOUR?
“I’d run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns.”  —  Craig, 9

WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?
“When they’re rich.”  —  Pam, 7

“The law says you have to be 18, so I wouldn’t want to mess with that.”  —  Curt, 7

“The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them…It’s the right thing to do.”  —  Howard, 8

IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED ?
“It’s better for girls to be single, but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them.”  —  Anita, 9

HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN’T GET MARRIED?
“There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn’t there?”  —  Kelvin, 8

And my absolute favourite: HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?
“Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck.”  —  Ricky, 10

Something that I have not been able to come close to fathoming, however, is the raison d’être for adolescence. Is this, I wonder, some sort of test for teenagers or a test for their parents?

Mark Twain sums it up perfectly: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”

Or, as Lord Asquith said in 1923: “Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.”