Sometimes two toes plus four toes makes four toes －ときどき足の指2本＋足の指4本は、足の指５本になります－

 “You are a slow learner, Winston.”

“How can I help it?  How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes?  Two and two are four.”

“Sometimes, Winston.  Sometimes they are five.  Sometimes they are three.  Sometimes they are all of them at once.  You must try harder.  It is not easy to become sane.”

From “1984” by George Orwell

I have been trying to teach my two-year old son to count from one to ten in English.

The other day I said to him, “Let’s count Daddy’s toes!  How many toes does Daddy have?”

He grasped my foot eagerly and started counting my toes one by one.  “One, two, three, four, five!”

So far so good.  He let go of my left foot and moved onto my right foot.  “Four.”  He paused, a little confused.

I tried to help him.  “No, no, son.  It’s not four.  It’s six.  One, two, three, four, five, six!”

He became furious.  He pointed at my sixth toe angrily.  “Four!”

“Trust me.  I wouldn’t lie to you,” I said.  “It’s six.  This is Daddy’s sixth toe!”

“Four!” he screamed.

“Be reasonable!  One, two, three, four, five, four would be a very confusing way to count.  It would cause all sorts of problems.  Just trust Daddy.  It’s six.”

“Four!  Four!  Four!”

He is a very stubborn little boy.  His insistence that he was right, or at least his refusal to accept that he was wrong, reminded me of a scene from the book, ”1984”.  In order to exert complete control over the main character’s mind, a government interrogator forces him to accept that two and two do not always make four.  The main character resists for a while, but in the end accepts that two and two make five if the interrogator says so.  This gives me hope that I can one day convince my son that two and four do not make four, but six.  And that biting people is not a good way to make friends and become popular.  And that hiding food you don’t like under your t-shirt causes more problems than it solves.

Vocabulary:

sane – not mad; having a healthy mind

to grasp something – to take something quickly and hold it firmly

furious – extremely angry

an interrogator – a person who questions someone closely or forcefully