This classic family riddle has been completely stumping people online! It looks like a simple math question at first glance, but it is actually a clever test of how carefully you read.
The riddle asks: “A mother has 6 sons. Each son has the same sister. How many children does she have?”
What makes this puzzle so tricky is that our brains naturally want to do addition. When reading this quickly, many people assume that if there are six sons, and each one has a sister, they need to add six girls to the six boys. That would equal 12 children, which is the most common wrong answer!
But take a moment to think about how a family works.
All six boys are brothers in the same family. If there is just one girl in the family, she is the sister to every single one of her brothers. Therefore, each son shares the exact same sister.
To find the true solution, you simply add the six sons to their one shared sister.
Answer: 7.
