Kids really do say the darndest things.

Sharna Bremner
Outreach Blogger
2 June 2010

Those who know me will tell you that I’m not really a kid person. Sure, they can be cute, but I personally prefer teenagers or adults.  Kids are loud and they often have sticky hands for some reason. As for babies… Well, they make me nervous. They’re so tiny and delicate and you can’t tell what they’re thinking which, quite frankly, scares me a little bit.

Recently, however, I’ve discovered something a little worrying. It seems that maybe Whitney Houston was actually right. (That in itself is a scary thought.) Maybe children really are our future. Sometimes, kids just get it, no matter what it is.

When I tell people about Project TOTO and explain to them what we’ll be doing in Bangladesh, the standard response seems to be “why?” Sometimes, even after a brief explanation of the aims of the Project, it’s blank stare or a polite smile.

I have a six year old nephew, Bayley. As most kids his age do, he asks a lot of questions and, being a modern-day, tech-savvy kid if someone doesn’t know the answer he suggests that they “just Google it”. When I told him that I would be spending two weeks in Bangladesh, the conversation went something like this:

Me:  “Hey, Bayley. I’m going to Bangladesh.”

Bayley: “Oh. Where is that?”

Out comes the globe and there’s Bangladesh tucked in amongst Myanmar, Nepal and India.

Bayley: “What are you doing there?”

Uh-oh. Sure, with me as an aunty he’s pretty familiar with poverty and the concept of aid, but how do you explain something like blogging and Project TOTO to a six year old?

Me: “Well, I’ll be teaching kids how to use the internet.”

He’s a kid; I’d figured it best to go with an explanation of sheer simplicity. I mean, really, a six year old isn’t going to understand what Project TOTO is all about, right?

Bayley: “Oh. Why don’t they learn that at school?”

Me: “A lot of people in Bangladesh don’t have much money and sometimes they can’t afford to go to school.”

Still keeping it simple. Kids aren’t that smart, right?

Bayley: “Why do they need to use the internet?”

Me: “Well, I’ll be teaching them to write stories about their lives so they can tell people in Australia what it’s like to live in a poor country like Bangladesh.”

This answer was met with a thoughtful silence before he turned to me and said:

“So… Maybe people from Australia will read the stories the poor kids wrote and give them money if they know the kids Mum’s and Dad’s don’t have any money. Then they could go to school.”

Wow. I probably couldn’t have put it better myself. Have I just been outsmarted by a child?

Me: “Um… yeah. That’s exactly right.”

Bayley: “Oh… Come watch me play the Wii!”

Well, looks like I owe the children of the world an apology. It seems I’ve underestimated them.

Oh yeah, better apologise to Whitney too.

Damn you Houston. You’ve proven me wrong.