If you ask a modern child an old-fashioned question...

Have you heard this brain teaser before?

A son and his father get into a serious car accident. The boy is taken in one ambulance to a hospital, and the father is taken in another ambulance to a different hospital. Upon reaching the emergency room, the doctor looks at the boy and says, "I can't work on this patient. He is my son!"  

How is this possible?

I asked my kids this favorite puzzle from my own childhood on the way to school the other day.

My seven-year-old daughter Magpie, modern child that she is, thought for a few minutes and then exclaimed, "The doctor is the mom!"

While I'm busy congratulating Magpie on both her wisdom and her young feminist leanings, I notice that my five-year-old daughter Kay is looking totally confused.

I make a mental note that a child must need to be older to understand these sorts of logic puzzles, and suggested as much to her - apologizing she didn't really understand what the question was asking.

Her reply?

"Well, it could just be the other dad."

Yes, Kay, it certainly could.

Oh how I love modern kids.