Kids like to ask questions. Not as much as they like to order people around, but it's still up there.
There are three kinds of questions:
1. Tough questions. These are the questions that you had hoped to somehow get away with never answering, whether because you don't know the answer or had just hoped your child's mind was far too worry-free to be thinking about such things or both.
The most famous is "how did the baby get inside you?" That one's not actually so hard to deal with. You just have to use a natural power that all parents, without exception, have somewhere inside - the ability to bore the daylights out of your child.
"That's an excellent question!" you tell them. "I'll tell you right now! But first, we're going to need to learn some anatomy. Do you know what anatomy is? OK, I'll explain. It was originally a Greek word... "
By the time you start explaining the concept of DNA, they should be long gone. And if not - well, the human body is complex. Complex enough to fill months of lessons, or even years.
The toughest question I have been asked by one of my kids, to date:
I'm still not sure how to answer that one.
2. Repetitive questions. These are the questions you hear over and over and over and.... For obvious reasons, about 99% of the questions you hear will be repetitive questions.
The most famous is "are we there yet?"
Repetitive questions are caused by a simple biological fact: the question-asking mechanism in a young child's brain has a runtime error. Somehow, a really obvious infinite loop got through quality control.
"Are we there yet" is one of the most annoying examples of this, because it's usually asked while you're sitting in traffic, or waiting for the bus, and don't want to hear anything but the whoosh of air past the window of a quickly-moving vehicle.
But it's not the worst, because wherever "there" is, in today's world you'll probably be there within a day.
No, the worst is when a small person with frosting smudges on their face and shiny new still-unbroken toys waiting for them in the living room asks you:
The only answer that will break the loop is "tomorrow." Enjoy the wait.
3. Embarrassing questions. Not questions that embarrass the child, of course. From around age 11 anything and everything - but mostly you - is humiliating, but until then, very little embarrasses them. Certainly not their own questions, no matter how inappropriate, inadvertently suggestive, or unknowingly racist they may be.
The more embarrassing the question, the more people will be around when it is asked, and the louder your child will say it.
Yes, one of mine really asked that. The person she was talking to was - what else? - a teenage girl. Exactly the age and gender best suited to hearing unintentional criticism of their weight....
I remember that back when I was a teenage babysitter, a three-year-old with a pregnant mother once asked me, "Is there a baby in your tummy, too?" I told him no, and smiled at the cute question.
He followed it with "So why is your tummy so big, then?"
Maybe there's an endless chain of embarrassing questions, working its way through the generations, making sure everyone gets insulted by a child at least once in their lifetimes, and every parent has a cheek-burningly awkward moment to live through.
****
Some of you may be thinking, "But you're forgetting something! What about questions asked out of a genuine thirst for knowledge?" I didn't include those because, other than the way they make you feel like a moron because you can't remember the answers to even fourth-grade science questions like "how does a windmill work," dealing with them is pretty straightforward.
There are three kinds of questions:
1. Tough questions. These are the questions that you had hoped to somehow get away with never answering, whether because you don't know the answer or had just hoped your child's mind was far too worry-free to be thinking about such things or both.
The most famous is "how did the baby get inside you?" That one's not actually so hard to deal with. You just have to use a natural power that all parents, without exception, have somewhere inside - the ability to bore the daylights out of your child.
"That's an excellent question!" you tell them. "I'll tell you right now! But first, we're going to need to learn some anatomy. Do you know what anatomy is? OK, I'll explain. It was originally a Greek word... "
By the time you start explaining the concept of DNA, they should be long gone. And if not - well, the human body is complex. Complex enough to fill months of lessons, or even years.
The toughest question I have been asked by one of my kids, to date:
2. Repetitive questions. These are the questions you hear over and over and over and.... For obvious reasons, about 99% of the questions you hear will be repetitive questions.
The most famous is "are we there yet?"
Repetitive questions are caused by a simple biological fact: the question-asking mechanism in a young child's brain has a runtime error. Somehow, a really obvious infinite loop got through quality control.
But it's not the worst, because wherever "there" is, in today's world you'll probably be there within a day.
No, the worst is when a small person with frosting smudges on their face and shiny new still-unbroken toys waiting for them in the living room asks you:
The only answer that will break the loop is "tomorrow." Enjoy the wait.
3. Embarrassing questions. Not questions that embarrass the child, of course. From around age 11 anything and everything - but mostly you - is humiliating, but until then, very little embarrasses them. Certainly not their own questions, no matter how inappropriate, inadvertently suggestive, or unknowingly racist they may be.
The more embarrassing the question, the more people will be around when it is asked, and the louder your child will say it.
I remember that back when I was a teenage babysitter, a three-year-old with a pregnant mother once asked me, "Is there a baby in your tummy, too?" I told him no, and smiled at the cute question.
He followed it with "So why is your tummy so big, then?"
Maybe there's an endless chain of embarrassing questions, working its way through the generations, making sure everyone gets insulted by a child at least once in their lifetimes, and every parent has a cheek-burningly awkward moment to live through.
****
Some of you may be thinking, "But you're forgetting something! What about questions asked out of a genuine thirst for knowledge?" I didn't include those because, other than the way they make you feel like a moron because you can't remember the answers to even fourth-grade science questions like "how does a windmill work," dealing with them is pretty straightforward.
My favorite question from a child (who was lying awake in bed late at night): "How can I be sure you're really my father and not an evil shape-changer pretending to be my father." I'm still not sure how best to answer that.
ReplyDeleteThis posting reminded me of the time when my 5 year old niece (who is now Tevvy's age and newly engaged) asked her Dad where babies came from. Without missing a beat my brother-in-law said, "I don't know...ask your mother"!
ReplyDelete