True conversation from Dinner tonight:
Celtling: Mom, Is chalk like doom?
Me: Huh?!? 
Celtling: Is chalk like doom?
Me: Chalk? Like you write on a chalkboard?
Celtling: Yes. Is chalk like doom?
Me: Doom?
Celtling: Yes.
Me: What do you mean doom? Spell it?
Celtling: D.O.O.M doom.
Me: Is chalk like doom?!?
Celtling: (harrumphing) Yes, you know, like when it’s really small! :rolleyes:
Me: I. Just. Ummm. I still don’t understand the question. . .
Celtling: (Giving up) NeverMIND Mom!
So, I ask you Dopers. Please help me out here. IS chalk like doom? And/or has your child ever asked you a question like this?
I sure hope someone can figure this one out! “When it’s really small” seems to be referring to a tiny piece of chalk, all worn down. But then? I got nothing.
I don’t know the answer, but I do remember having trouble with “doom” as a kid.
It’s used a lot in cartoons (“Bwhahaha, and now He-Man will meet his doom!”), but if you think about it, it’s a really abstract and non-intuitive thing to be talking about, especially if you haven’t been raised with a lot of talk about heaven and hell (or other permanent, terrible fates.)
Yes, defintiely holding her thumb and forefinger very close together and repeating, “You know, really, really small piece of chalk.”
Tell the Celt-Spawn: “The answer to your question is five”.
When he asks what that means, tell him : “Think about it.”
You shouldn’t hear from him for a day or two.
You can thank me in small bills, please.
Is it possible he was thinking of dust when he said doom?
I have no opinion on the doominess or otherwise of chalk (spellcheck keeps trying to change that to “roominess” - hmmm) but here’s one I got from my Taller Girl, aged four at the time, coming home in the car one day.
Her: “Mummy, how much is for children?”
Me :“Sorry?”
Her: :“How much is for children?”
Me :“How much what is for children?”
Her: :“No! How MUCH is for CHILDREN?”
Me :“How much…grass? Air? Lollies? What do you mean?”
Her: :screwing up her eyes and beating her chair with her fist “I MEAN HOW MUCH IS FOR CHILDREN!!!”
After a few more rounds of this, with the Taller Girl getting ever more frustrated and I ever more confused, finally we reached home. At which point she raced into her room, flung herself onto her bed and sobbed hysterically for twenty minutes.
Once she had calmed down some, and I had done some thinking, we then had this conversation.
Me :"Um…when you wanted to know ‘how much is for children’, is that like ‘four as in one, two, three…?’ "
Her: :“YES!”
Me :“Oh. Well, if it’s children in a kinder class that’s not very many, but if it’s all in the same family it’s quite a lot.”
Her: :“Oh. OK.” runs off to play
Anyway. In your situation, I would recommend “I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of doom. Can you tell me what it is?” 
This may be far too existential for a child, but in a weird metaphorical way, a really tiny piece of chalk could sort of symbolize doom – in that it’s quickly nearing its permanent end as it gets used more and more.
I remember having a surreal conversation with my son back in the day; he mentioned that the houses we were driving past weren’t real houses. It took me a while but I tracked it down to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which we had just seen… he had gotten the impression that real houses had faces and eyes, and they moved and talked, but all the houses we were driving past were all fake.
Anyone seen my head?
Doom, the first person shooter that revolutionized the genre and much of popular video gaming, is not much like a piece of chalk at all.
So you can confidently answer “no, Doom is nothing like chalk. Why do you ask?”
I’m laughing just reading this thread.
I’m afraid I can’t help much with the “Is chalk like doom?” question, other than to suggest asking her later to explain what “doom” means. When I first started reading the OP I thought perhaps she meant “Is chalk like Dawn?” as in the dishwashing detergent, but I think Dawn only comes in liquid form and not the vaguely chalk-like white powder form. I guess she could be mixed up about brand names as well as the spelling/pronunciation of “Dawn”, but the more I think about it the more of a reach it seems.
As even sven suggested, it may be that she does mean “doom” (and not some other word that sounds like it) but is a little confused about the definition and thinks it means, I dunno, “something that disappears”.
Wow! This has to be it. Chalk is probably the most visible thing kids have to seeing something get smaller and smaller and eventually into nothing.
The only way I can figure it is a police chalk-outline of a corpse.
And the concept of “doom” gets even more complicated when you realize that a doom can be good or bad.
But it’s only like doom when it’s really, really small.
At bedtime.
Me: Giggling.
Celtling: What?
Me: I’m still trying to figure out the chalk question.
Celtling: I just pictured it in my head, Squidward was holding a tiny piece of chalk,and there were lightening bolts coming out of it, and it was like, the chalk of doom.
We use the word doom a lot around here. Like our dog is this cute little 20 pound ball of curly black fluff, with the sweetest little face you ever saw: until he yawns, and you see the gaping maw of doom open before you. That cute short little snoot just opens up into the most enormous maw of razor canine teeth imaginable. He goes from this to this in a nanosecond.
Seriously though, I think jragon nailed it. She was trying to picture what “doom” means.
My daughter, having found out that the earth rotates, once asked “so when we’re driving, could we be staying still while the world turns underneath us?”.
I forget how old she was - maybe 8 or so, and the answer to her question is obviously ‘no’, but I was immensely proud she asked it.
This was exactly my first thought. You can just see it disappearing into nothing, the inevitable negative end.
For those of you who don’t get it…go get stoned.
Come back. (Bring pie, we’re going to need it!)
Read again.
Profit!
This sounds like a job for the Doom Patrol.
Now I feel bad for the chalk, I’d give my chalk a hug, but it would leave marks all over my clothes, and hasten it’s demise!