When my son was about six years old and learning to read, we were huddled in bed, looking at a book. He pointed to a picture of a boat. “What’s that?” he said. “That’s a boat, Johnny.” “No, it’s not Mommy.” I squinted, looked again. Was I wrong? It looked like boat to me. “I can’t sit in that boat, mom.” He grabbed the book from my hands and tried to sit on it. “Will it float? Can I take it to the bathroom and put it in the tub? It’s not really a boat, is it mom?”

For years after that happened, I told people that my insight from this story was that boys were more literal than girls. Which could be true, but perhaps misses the point. I think a better insight might be this: Sometimes people just need to have one more piece of information than you are willing to give them.

After all, Johnny just wanted me to tell him it was a “picture of a boat.”