hardlogic

Illustration for riddle: My sister has two children. I had two children. My brother has two children. My cousin has two child — Can you figure out this riddle?

My sister has two children. I had two children. My brother has two children. My cousin has two children. Wow, that's a lot of children! How many children are there in all?

There are six children. If you said eight children you are wrong! I had two children, refers to the past tense.

Why this works

This riddle plays with the concept of tense and how we interpret familial relationships. When it states, "I had two children," it implies that those children are no longer counted in the present context, leading us to exclude them from the current tally. Instead, we only consider the sister's two children, the brother's two children, and the cousin's two children, which totals six living children. This clever wordplay highlights how language and tense can change our understanding of a seemingly straightforward question!

Common Wrong Answers

“8”

This answer assumes that the speaker still has two children in the present, thus counting them as part of the total. However, the riddle indicates that the speaker's children are already accounted for in the past.

“4”

This guess incorrectly assumes that the speaker has no children, overlooking the fact that the speaker clearly stated they had two children, in addition to the others.

“10”

This answer mistakenly adds extra children, possibly misinterpreting the relationships mentioned in the riddle. Each person mentioned has only two children, leading to a total of six.

More logic riddles →More hard riddles →Browse all riddles →