The remark uses irony to question the assumption that adulthood necessarily brings greater rationality. Children are presented as unfinished and therefore still capable of developing sound judgement, while adults who regard themselves as rational are treated with scepticism. The humour comes from reversing the usual expectation that adults are reasonable and children are not.

The quotation also reflects a broader concern with self-examination. Calling oneself rational does not guarantee that one’s beliefs or behaviour are reasonable, and maturity can bring habits, conventions and fixed opinions as well as experience. The contrast between children and adults therefore concerns openness as much as age. Children represent possibility and development, whereas settled adulthood can suggest intellectual complacency. Read in this way, the line is less a literal preference for speaking with children than a satirical criticism of people who assume that maturity has placed their thinking beyond question.