The priest at our church was talking to the children of the congregation about peer pressure. He told them that at school they could be pressured into becoming bullies, or how they might be dared to steal something in a shop. Then he asked, “What other pressures might you have?”

One little girl responded quickly, “Blood pressure!”

Florence Carrier

My sister-in-law Jeannie was busy preparing lunch and picked up the phone.

“Who are you calling, Mum?” her six-year-old son, Joe, asked.

“I have to call Grandma,” Jeannie said. “I don’t know how to stuff the cavity in the chicken.”

Eyes wide with amazement, Joe asked, “Mum, is Grandma a dentist?

Katherine Wall

Determined to answer our daughter’s questions about sex in a factual way, my wife and I were as good as our word when seven-year-old Sally asked where babies come from. She understood the anatomical differences between girls and boys, so we explained conception, pregnancy and birth with no reference to birds,bees or storks.

I thought we’d done a good job until finally Sally, who had listened intently and without interruption throughout, dismissed the entire explanation by stating emphatically, “That’s silly!”

            Richard Marman, Parrearra, Qld

After school one day, my six-year-old son was explaining the intricacies of a game he had played during recess. “Jenny was on one side of the line,” he said, “and Maxine was on the other. And I was the referendum.”                     

Barbara Joannides