Interview with MacKenzie and Madison, Ages 7 and 4

Meet my niece MacKenzie, age seven.

And her sister Madison, age four.

I sat them down the other week and asked them some serious questions about life, love, and the pursuit of technology.

My first questions was this:

How do you like your age?

MacKenzie: I like it a lot. It makes me feel really grown up and old and stuff.

Madison: It’s pretty small and it’s really good and I love it a lot. I let MacKenzie read books with me and I snuggle with Kenzie a lot.

MacKenzie: She means in bed. At night she’ll say, “Kenzie, do you want to snuggle?”

What do you want to do when you grow up?

MacKenzie: Hmmm. Well, I thought of a lot of jobs pretty much my whole life and finally I came to the thing of I wanna be a missionary. Start a mission or something.

Madison: I want to do whatever Mom says for me to do. I want to go to bed when it’s bed time.

MacKenzie: I think she just mostly wants to live with Mom.

This brought us to fear:

Madison: One time Kenzie was scared of thunder.

MacKenzie: I wasn’t scared…just concerned I guess.

Madison: I was only scared a tiny, tiny bit.

And then to love:

MacKenzie: I think about it a lot. Dad actually said, “You can’t talk about getting married at your age.” We were going somewhere, and we went to a gas station, and Dad said that.

Madison, wiggling and hiding her face: Uhhh. I just want to skip this question.

MacKenzie: She’s not into getting married. I think she’s scared she’ll get married to a mean guy.

Madison: No, I’m not scared of that. But I’m still not gonna get married. I might change my mind when I’m six.

MacKenzie: She just wants to live with Dad and Mom or live with me and my family. She wants to help me out.

Madison: I really wanna live in Kenzie’s family, but I don’t wannna get married.

I asked about MacKenzie’s first kiss, a story which I had already heard. They gasped. Put their hands over their mouths. MacKenzie told me the story:

MacKenzie: I guess you could say I’m speechless. Well, if you wanna hear the story, we went to Georgia a long time ago, when I was five, and Dad was helping at the mission. That’s where I got the idea of I wanna be a missionary. There’s this little boy named Zachary, and I really like him. Mom was taking us to a little kids’ restaurant, and on the way there I was trying to kiss his nose a little bit, and instead I kissed his lips. And he smiled a little bit and laughed. I was hoping that mom didn’t see and then I realized she didn’t, because she didn’t say anything. I didn’t tell her for a long, long time.

We moved on to technology:

When do you plan to get a cell phone?

MacKenzie: Mom says she’ll get me one at age eleven or twelve or ten.

Madison: Probably we’ll get it the same age.

Do you think it’s a good idea for children to own cell phones?

MacKenzie: Well, children eventually turn into adults, so yeah. Plus it will help me not to worry. I can call Mom. I can take it anywhere and do whatever I want.

Madison: She can call Mom and Dad.

MacKenzie: Phones are so cool. Everybody had them. They’re awesome.

They were shocked to hear I hadn’t gotten my first phone until I was twenty-one.

Somehow this brought us to the subject of dolls:

Madison: Mom said she played with dolls until she was two…until she got married.

MacKenzie: Mom said we’re tomboys. We’re not interested into dolls at all. We play with worms and frogs.

I asked for further views on technology:

Madison: I really like computers so I can write stuff on them and do stuff on them.

MacKenzie: I really like all the electronics, too. I don’t know if I could live a year without my Kindle.

We discussed priorities:

What do you think is the most beautiful thing in the world?

Madison: Umm. Pretty butterflies, and they nice, and they fly around, and we find ’em and try to catch ’em.

MacKenzie: I really like flowers.

What is the most important thing in the world to you?

MacKenzie: Well, God’s supposed to be the most important thing. But sometimes I feel like I don’t even know God and like I love Dad and Mom more. I love them the most.

Madison: What I love the most is flowers. They smell and I pick ’em for my mom and stuff.

MacKenzie: Madison is super into flowers this year. She picks ’em almost every day and we have cans and cans of them.

What is something you want to do this summer?

Madison: I want to pick flowers for my mom.

MacKenzie: I want Dad to finish my clubhouse and me to be able to play in it this summer.

Madison: And now he’s painting it.

MacKenzie: He’s painting it the color of our house.

I asked them what they liked about their parents:

MacKenzie: It just seems like everybody looks up to Dad, and I like that about my dad. And my mom she’s fun, and I like it and she likes it when we can have some family time together. Sometimes she says, “I like to have family time with my girls.”

Madison: I think my dad is so cool because he can build the club house. He can build stuff. And I love mom because she likes to go with us sometimes without dad.

This brought us to a discussion of sisterhood:

MacKenzie: It feels so good to be Madison’s big sister because it feels like she looks up to me.

Madison: She’s just so nice and I want her carrying me on her back.

MacKenzie: She means piggy back rides. I started giving them to her and now she wants me to give her one every day, and it’s almost too much.

Madison: Sometimes I be mad at her when I cry because she hurts me.

What was the worst fight you ever got into?

MacKenzie: She was tickling me behind my back. And she finally got so mad ’cause I didn’t let her tickle me, and finally she just bit me.

We discussed preferences:

What sort of vehicle would you like to own?

MacKenzie: I like vans, and I also like little cars. We talked about it, Dad and Mom and Madison and me, and decided to get a little car.

Madison: Dad and everybody wanted a little car, but I didn’t want it. I wanted a van, and I was crying, and Dad said, “Okay, we can have a van,” and Kenzie said, “No!”