Monday
Jul122010
I don't know
Monday, July 12, 2010 
Dear Child,
I love your inquisitive nature. I want you to keep asking questions. I want you to keep seeking answers. I want to look for those answers with you. But sometimes, I just don't know.
I don't know why that woman is staring at you.
I don't know why that girl chose to go into the bathroom stall on the right instead of the one on the left.
I don't know why that man isn't wearing any shoes.
I don't know why that girl has short hair or why that woman has green hair.
I don't know why the dog did its business on the sidewalk or why the owner didn't clean it up.
I don't know why that child is crying.
I don't know why that boy dumped a bucket of sand on your head.
I don't know what those people are saying to each other.
I don't know why that man is drinking beer on the subway.
I don't know why that girl didn't answer your question.
I don't know why that woman is talking to herself.
I don't know if that is a woman or a man.
I don't know why those children won't share their toys.
I don't know why the bus driver isn't moving the bus.
I don't know where that man lives.
I know that "I don't know" and other similarly vague responses aren't very good answers. But I don't always have a better answer and asking over and over again at higher and higher decibels and thereby attracting the attention of the person you are asking about is not going to make me magically come up with the answer. Sometimes I do know the answer, or I think I do, and I may be willing to discuss it with you when the person you are asking about is not right in front of us.
People's motivations, tastes, interests, and idiosyncrasies are a thing of mystery and beauty, and sometimes frustration. I will never understand why some people do the things that they do. I will never understand why you do some of the things that you do. Some things should remain mysteries. Some things are none of your business. Some things just don't matter.
I know this is hard to understand, but I hope that I can show you that there are some questions you should never stop looking for the answers to and that there are other questions you just shouldn't ask. I'm sure you will, with time.
Love,
Mommy
Image credit: Oberazzi on flickr
Reader Comments (32)
Love it. I live this every day with my three curious little ones. My dad used to always tell me and my sister, "I don't know why don't you ask him, her, them?" That was a bad tactic to take with my oldest, because unlike me, he would... now he sometimes just has to do with, "I don't know."
Brenna:
I have done that (i.e. saying "I don’t know why don’t you ask him, her, them?") in instances where I think that asking the other person would be appropriate. There are other instances though where they will have to learn to respect other people's privacy, so I try not to encourage them to ask in those situations.
My son has only recently started asking questions about the things around him. But his questions tend to be focused on everything but other people (e.g. machinery, animals, weather). Occasionally I will ask him what he thinks instead of just having me answer his question. Of course, this tactic wouldn't necessarily work that well if you're trying to avoid having someone overhear your conversation about them.
Marilyn:
I love the questions about things around them! I think it is great to ask what they think in those instances or to say "Let's find out together". My kids have tons of questions at the zoo, for example, and I love that we can go and read the information on the animals together or ask the zoo keeper or look it up on the Internet when we get home. Those types of questions are great! Even better when I hear them repeating the information to someone else.
I should also mention that my 3 year old often says: "But Mommy, why don't you go and ask him?" after I've told her that "I don't know".
Mine's close to 9 and I still have to answe about a kajillion questions a day. One of my standard responses is now "I don't know why *they* did that. It's a question you'd have to ask them"
I also gave him a notebook so he can write down his questions and we can google them when we get home. Because his mom's so stupid and stuff.
I love this. I have answered all those same questions (almost) the same way. We now have a game where we speculate on answer possibilities together, or, like you, if it's a matter of finding out a fact, we do look it up together.
So, "I don't know why that man is drinking beer on the subway" might become, "Maybe he was thirsty and that is all he had in his fridge, or maybe someone just handed it to him and he didn't want to waste it, or maybe..." and then my son will say something like "or maybe he is going to a party and he wanted to pre-drink beforehand so he would be funnier" - no, he wouldn't say that since he's only 4, but he might come up with another possibility.
It's actually a good game for long car rides.
Among my favorite questions ever: "Why are those people wearing so much makeup that they don't look like real humans?"
I think it's okay, depending on the age and temperament of the child, to let them ask some of those things, including, "why are you staring at me?" and "Why didn't you pick up your dog's poop?"
Mary:
I agree that sometimes it is okay to let them ask and sometimes okay to encourage them to do so. A lot depends on the scenario for those types of things and whether the person looks like they would be open to that type of thing.
I often ask, "What do you think?". I'm more often surprised at the thought process and love the glimpse into ds' internal process and contemplations!
Pat
An inquisitive child is a wonderful thing to be. I encourage my kids to ask questions about everything.
"It's a mystery!" often works for me. Sometimes I make up wild and crazy stories in order to hone my son's BS detector, but since he occasionally believes me I've tried to tone that down. I do, after all, want him to believe me when I'm telling the truth.
You know, one of the things I like best about teaching is answering students' questions. I don't mean academic questions, just what they would call "silly questions." They always seem surprised when I tell them that I genuinely don't know the answer. But I think it's good to be honest and show them that what makes a person smart isn't knowing all of the answers, it's caring enough to look them up.
I wonder, though, how frustrated I will be when my own little boy starts asking twenty bajillion questions a day. I like the idea of writing the questions down in a notebook to google later. :)
When I say "I don't know" to anything, my 3yo says "tell me" louder and louder until I'm able to distract him with something else.
I hate to discourage their questions but sometimes I think if I hear another one, I will stick a hot poker in my ear.
Maybe I should read this to my daughter :) Questions can be great, but when you are on your 20th question in 10 minutes it stops being as fun.
Our best Q&A moment recently came when DD and I were talking about sperm donation (she's donor conceived) and she wanted to know how the sperm gets out. I said "um" a few times and ended up saying it just kind of comes out on its own. She gave me a skeptical look and said "Maybe you should ask Mama about it when we get home" :)
I'm okay with the "why" questions that actually have answers. Even if I don't know the answer. Currently, though, my 5-year-old asks "why" just as a matter of course.
"Mummy, look at that beautiful flower!"
"Yes, that's a lily."
"Why?"
It's not a problem of her not being able to articulate a better question. She launched into a detailed thesis of the mechanics of a parasauralophus' crest (they honked through them, apparently) last week at the museum. She asks "why", I believe, simply because she can't stand NOT having a conversation going at all times...
Great conversationalists, kids, aren't they!
I so know what you mean about the difference between questions that you can't answer right then (because you *actually* don't know) and the questions that it's not appropriate to answer or speculate upon, or at least not in that context or place (like my secondborn's Very Loud "WHY DOES X HAVE TWO MUMMIES? WHERE DID THE SQUIRM COME FROM THEN?" Ahhhh...) I am always up for the "I don't know, but we can find out" response to the former kind of question, and my girls are getting much better at realising that care for others' feelings and privacy creates some natural boundaries to curiosity. It's taken a while though!
We're entering the stage of "why?" lately too. My daughter is as persistent as anything too. I do my best to answer as truthfully as possible or ask her what she thinks, but she won't take "I don't know" as an answer. Thus, I fully admit to lying in a few, sensitive circumstances!
Oh we are so right there with you. So far, my husband has the best tactic which is to give a completely nonsensical answer. We, of course, don't do it for sensible questions but we do sometimes answer nonsense with nonsense and especially after we've reached the end of the answers.
Why did you put that toy in there? Because that's where it goes to be put away. Why? Because we bought that basket to hold those toys. Why? To keep our house neat, we pick our things up. Why? Because a messy house drives Mommy bonkers. Why? Because I'm compulsive like that. Why? Because my mother was compulsive and taught me how to clean. Why? Because she liked jelly beans.
That at least forces him to breath and consider the answer.
-Abby
This post was so beautifully written and actually made me cry a little, okay a lot. My oldest daughter has autism and this is the one area that completely crushes me. She doesn't understand "whys". She doesn't ask why questions and isn't able to answer them either, she just totally doesn't get it. This hits me so hard and so often because I hear so many mothers complain about it and I wish I could experience it. Even more I wish that I didn't feel like my daughter was missing out on a big part of life because she isn't interested in the world around her, at least not in the traditional sense.
This is a beautiful post. I hope that my little boy grows up to ask lots of questions even if many of them have only the mysterious answer of "I don't know." Thanks for sharing this letter to your child. I'm loving your blog and I have a fun award for you :) Here's my post about the award, giving a shout out to your blog and a few others I've recently discovered and am truly enjoying: http://bethstedman.com/2010/07/13/versatile-blogger-award/
Oh don't you love an enquiring mind!!! What a beautiful post!!!
I'm going to read this out to my girl tonight. It won't stop the incessant "why" (which we've had for about 6 months now), but maybe she'll understand that I too, often, don't know. I often ask back: "what do you think?" and she sometimes comes up with good ideas!
We also have an obsession with names, so she'll ask me what every person she sees is called Maybe she thinks adults know everybody's names?
Ha ha! I said recently my almost 6 year old is going through the "why on steroids" stage right now. Above and beyond the "why" stage he and his brother went through at 2ish. To top it off, if I actually come up with an answer, or a theory, he'll often tell me why I'm wrong or why he doesn't agree with me! Arrgghhh! So why ask me then? LOL And the "what do YOU think?" tactic sometimes just makes him mad :P
Should have read this first. Seriously, they must meet.
I'll sometimes take them to the computer and we'll do research. The upside is I now know so much more about things like sand dollars. The downside is now that I have an iPhone my children want me to do research wherever we are.
The really tough questions are ones like "Why isn't that man wearing a helmet while riding his motorcycle?" I have had to tell my kids about people who don't follow rules and how I can't explain why, but there are consequences to everyone's decisions.
it's not so much the asking questions ..... it's the asking the same question a minute later cos he hasn't bothered listening to the answer
my husband has started firing back "and how old will you be when you're 21?" as a signal that the questions are getting a little repetitive and, dare i say it, a little dumb (and let's face it, they really can be when a 7y old asks why everyone isn't given the same name, for the umpteenth time and you've exhausted all the scenarios
there are questions and there is just making a noise to fill the space, and there is learning to foster good conversation which is respectful to all in the vicinity
Oh, Smooches. I am sorry. It takes hearing things like this to remind us to be so thankful for our children's abilities. My son is able bodied; I am not. I often look at him in wonder that his little body is so perfect and it works just like it's supposed to. Hearing your story reminds me to make an effort to do this every day, and be thankful every day, even when I'm tired from walking him around the house or chasing him as he crawls everywhere.
On the (many) days when my husband thinks that this job of mothering is a walk in the park or "all day playing" (he accused me of this the day I took the kids to the beach with another mom. True, I had someone to talk to...but I was still responsible for the health, safety, and well-being of two children alllllll day. Lucky for me the sand and seagull noise deadened their questions for once) I want to scream.
My children are 6 and 8 now and rarely satisfied with "I don't know." They understand social norms enough to ask quietly, or take a cue from me in cases where I'm concerned about rudeness, but they also just ask questions non-stop. I do turn the question back on them many times "Why do you think?" or "Look around and see if you can find any reasons why...(the man isn't wearing shoes, the woman has paint all over her backside, the dog has a muzzle on, etc.)"
But some days I do have to tell them that my ability to come up with reasonable answers to their never-ending questions has been exhausted, and that I am out of answers for the day. Luckily they seem to have good senses of humor. So far. ;)
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