Motherhood

Why Didn’t My Daughter Just Ask Me in High School?

My four year is every day more intrigued by what is going on in the world. Her questions are cute, frequent and at times – simply just stumping. Many of her questions would have been easy to answer when I was in high school but now answers to questions about Earth Science, Biology and Geography don’t always come easy to me anymore. It is almost as if my brain has been flooded by new information from my job, from my daily hussle as a Mom, and for a ton of other factoids that capture my attention every day.

Here are a few of her recent questions (wonder if you all know the answer and it is just me that was a bit stumped):

Why can you hear thunder and see lightning only sometimes when it rains?

How exactly do the wisps of “cotton” (pollen) that blow in the air create new plants?

Why do certain planets not have oxygen? And what is oxygen anyway?

Why is a computer virus called a virus anyway? Is the computer sick?

As I tried to answer the above questions, I found myself stumbling through the explanation. I tried the famous “great question I don’t really remember” a few times but my daughter would not take no for an answer. In other cases what I thought was a solid answer triggered more inquisition.

Now I know why Old Wives Tales did so well – sometimes it is just easy to fudge an answer than to admit you don’t know. But who wants to be the parent to tell your child something now only to have her find out in school the answer was complete rubbish!

I’m just grateful for mobile phones and Wikipedia and Google. With a little searching and a little spin – I can usually get to an answer good enough for “Little Miss Why, Why, Why.”

What question stumped you today?